Professional Practice: Edit Process Part 2

Professional Practice: Edit Process Part 2

After receiving the action points and feedback from the guildhall about my Rough Cut, I was eager to see how I could act upon the changes.

As I mentioned in an earlier post I was concerned about not being able to show of my edit skills which led to the creation of a simple split screen to keep things interesting. However, despite positive feedback from peers, the Guildhall didn't think it was effective. 

As such my first priority was to find a work around for this. After some consideration, i decided to mostly reduce or remove the constant effect of the split screen, and instead opted for a partial brief split screen as the shot transitions. Burrows writes that “Jump cuts, wipes and special effects (…)can be used to create interest and action”.(Thomas D Burrows, 2001, p. 201) So using motion and crop controls I had the next shot in the sequence slide on to the screen and linger for a few seconds before taking over the screen completely. This still allowed for an audience to be intrigued by seeing multiple perspectives at a time but didn't remove concentration. 

In their initial feedback the guildhall expressed a minor concern about the quantity of information delivered. And although I had cut back on this slightly in my re-recorded voiceover, and although this was only a minor point. I still wanted to demonstrate that I had taken on board their feedback. 

Bernard states that Animations and Lower Thirds “help to add information that is not otherwise evident” (Bernard, 2010, p. 207). Taking that on board in this case the best method I found when researching other similar commissions was to have text appear on screen. In order to make sure it wasn't a distraction, I kept the text in the corner to serve as a lower third. 

The next step was to find a place for my pick up shots that were recorded on the second shoot day. I found that the time lapse Alex recorded made a nice cut away at the beginning (something that was lacking before), I added a black and white filter to it as although I had decided against using stock footage, I wanted to give a minor effect of age or recreation to the cut away. 

I was able to blend my now shortened PTC's with the new more effective establishing shots. This gave better pacing to the project and fulfilled the guildhalls request. 

My new voice over fitted quite well. I had to make one or two cuts to give the audience time to process the information I had just given them but over all it flowed well and kept a nice pace. 

Following on from this after discussing with the guildhall abut the best way to help re-enfource the information, they really liked the concept of the animation I had been working on. However, one or two changes had to be made in scale before I could place it in the project. When looking to re-enforce information Thorpe writes that “a diagram aimed specifically for use within projects, could be the right tool for the job” (Thorpe, 2000).

So I began by recreating a diagram of the pump in adobe illustrator and then transferring the shape layers in to After Effects. This proved to be a minor difficulty. Since some of the layers had minor formatting issues and bugged out when transferred to after effects. However I overcame this by re creating the missing shape layers in after effects. Since each layer was its own source I was able to manipulate anchor points, positioning and scale tools to animate each part of the pump individually. 

Then using oval layers and layer masks then copy/pasting animation keyframes, I was able to generate the effect that the pump was blasting water. After working on a a fire animation in a separate document i then transferred it into the same project and exported the entire thing into premier. 

Once in premier I applied a few titles to the animation to further reenforce the point it was making. Although difficult I am very pleased with the outcome of this as it developed skills that i can take forward and the guildhall were very impressed by it, saying it targeted the audience brilliantly. 

Editing for a young target audience was a challenge at first but with the new angles and pans I had obtained from my second shoot day I was able to keep movement in the project to help keep their attention.

Film graduate Christopher Kneller states that “emotional connection with a film can be engrossed with the use of P.O.V” (Kneller, 2013) and the POV shots I incorporated seemed to go down well when I showed them to my peers. aditionally by manipulating the scale of some footage I could create artificial zooms even when my zoom lens wasn't equipped. The shots I used matched the voice over talking points well and maintained a steady pace. 

My final editing steps upon liaising with the guildhall were to add in credits (which included my production logo and the Medway council logo). 

And Although they were happy with the fine cut as it was I took it one step further. Since I had a multi camera set up, I decided to do some colour correcting to make sure there was clear continuity in the project. As well as adding some quiet music towards the end with a few fades before the credits, helping bring the project to a more natural close.

As I mentioned before although the edit has not proved particularly challenging, it has been a great experience working with a specific company's aims and audience in mind. And obtaining/acting upon feedback from a business point of view not a film making one.

Bibliography


Thomas D Burrows, L. S. G. J. C. F. D. N. W., (2001). Video Production Disiplins And Techniques. 8th ed. s.l.:s.n.

Bernard, S. C., (2010). Documentary Story Telling. 3rd ed. s.l.:s.n.

Thorpe, L., (2000). Diagrams and Charts. [Online]
Available at: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/~cll/lskills/WN/NumeracyDiagrms.html
[Accessed 16 November 2017].

Kneller, C., (2013). Viewer engagement and the advantages/disadvantages of P.O.V shots. [Online]
Available at: https://chrisknellertvblog.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/viewer-engagement-and-the-advantagesdisadvantages-of-p-o-v-shots/
[Accessed 15 November 1017].