AV News 195 - February 2014
The final image was not achieved without Edgar spending considerable time
using PhotoShop to get the correct perspective and angles. Even the view
out of the window had to be changed in order to balance the exposure. We
also visited the Tin Shed Museum in Laugharne, which had a lot of war
memorabilia, including a large 1940s cine camera used in the film ‘Band of
Brothers’, which we used in our sequence to illustrate Dylan's involvement
with writing morale boosting films during World War II for the then Ministry of
Defence of Information.
It slowly emerged through reading about his life and death that money was
a big problem for Dylan. He borrowed money from his friends, lived in their
houses and was always running up bills. In the latter part of the sequence we
have used one of the last images of Dylan before he left for New York. It is a
montage of him looking out over
the estuary from the balcony of
the Boathouse. I often wonder
what he was thinking about when
this photograph was taken.
Perhaps it was the forthcoming
lecture tour in America and the
subsequent fee that might have
paid off his outstanding debts.
The image needed to be
atmospheric and was created
using the mask tool in PTE's
objects and animation. Although a number of our images in the sequence were
created using PhotoShop, I like to use PTE masks as these can be adjusted in
PTE as the sequence is being made. However, it depends on what effect is
required - a case of ‘horses for courses’ and personal preference.
Eventually, the theme we decided to weave into the sequence was about the
influence of money on Dylan's life and death. This focus was a great help in
editing the script which started off lasting 13 minutes on just reading it, without
allowing any time for musical interludes. We concentrated on the elements that
would keep to the theme and removed those that didn't add any value. The
script starts when Dylan is taken ill in New York, and then returns 39 years
earlier to the time he was born. This allowed us to tell the backstory to his life,
building to his fourth and fatal trip
to America.
For the last few images of the
sequence we chose views of
Laugharne and its estuary with
Dylan reading the first verse from
one of his poems “And Death
Shall Have No Dominion”, which
seemed a fitting end to the story
of a renowned poet, whose
centenary is being celebrated
internationally in 2014.
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