EDITOR’S NOTE

Complacent was produced in The Sidney Poitier New American Film School as a senior capstone project. I was the sole editor for the film, and upon its screening at the school’s senior showcase I was awarded a Certificate for Outstanding Achievement in Editing by the school for my work on the film. Additionally, I did all post-production sound work on the film (including dialogue editing, SFX, music editing and mixing) as well as a large portion of the VFX work.

The film takes place entirely in one room, with only two actors shown at most on screen. This meant that when editing, shot selection to keep continuity and maintain visual interest was crucial. We wanted it to feel like time was passing her by, which I achieved via thoughtful cuts with different lighting conditions.

Additionally, after we put together our first rough cut we realized that our intended start to the film simply wan’t working. It felt disconnected and dull compared to the rest of the film, which is where the idea of utilizing the laptop screen to visually show the passage of time through her watching countless videos came into play. The laptop screen originally had a Photoshop project she was working on, in which the subject was wearing the same ring she had given her former girlfriend. After completing many screen comps, we were able to swap those out for the video montage and social media images you see in the final film. After making this change, our story felt like it made more sense, the pacing matched what we were looking for, and the emotions we wanted to convey were being communicated to our audience.