Evaluation

When I began this module I was excited to get to grips properly with editing and improving my skills. Due to my Media course at A Levels being solely written work, I finally got the chance to get hands on practically with programs such as Premiere Pro and Final Cut in the past 2 years. However, we were introduced to Avid at the beginning of this module and although it has been a slight struggle to get used to, I am now quite comfortable to edit with the program. In the beginning lessons when we were taught the way to set up the program and the different tools used, I had to go over this a number of times on my own to remember what to do. I was keen to go to extra sessions that were put on to teach us how to use Avid but each time they were on evenings when I work so I would use my other spare time to go in and get used to the program. The 3 briefs that we had been given definitely gave me the opportunity to explore Avid and by the final one, I felt a lot more confident in my skills to edit on this program than the first brief.

Our first brief we had been given was to edit a Documentary known as ‘The Escape Movement’ and I was quite keen to get started on this project, as I find documentaries very interesting to create and in this case, edit. For this brief, I worked with Alex Kentfield and we worked very well together to get to grips with Avid and create our ideal edit for the documentary. Although this was a struggle to edit at first, due to being the first proper film edit we were doing on a new program, we were quite satisfied with the outcome. However, one of the struggles we found while looking through the footage was finding the most suitable clips as the protagonist in the film, Ady, would talk for a very very long time. This was helpful in some cases, such as allowing us to create a film with him narrating certain parts of his life with poetry in terms of family, university and inspirations. However, there were times when we struggled to find enough shots that weren’t of Ady or shots where he wasn’t talking, apart from slowly walking through trees and standing on the outskirts of the city. Overall, I am quite satisfied with the outcome of this project but felt I wanted to do a lot better in the next brief we were given.

Our second brief was to edit a drama called ‘Flatline’ and for this I worked with Alex again and Oscar Bernstein. Due to a few times that Alex wanted to edit the last project when I had to go to work and couldn’t change my shifts, I felt bad about the times that I had to miss editing parts of it with him. Therefore, I looked through all of the footage and wrote down details and descriptions of each of them before importing; so that we could get straight onto editing once I had imported the footage. We had planned to equally share out the editing process but in the end we felt that Oscar didn’t participate as much as we would have liked and felt as though we had done the edit just between the pair of us. I felt it was slightly easier to edit this brief rather than the last one because of the plot having a chronological storyline, whereas a documentary might not have as clear a structure sometimes. A struggle that we found with this footage however was the crew who filmed it would, a few times, be talking over scenes. However, we worked around it and found suitable footage to create our final edit. When we had almost finished the edit, we asked Oscar again after a few attempts to do some of the editing and he took it the finish the last scene and colour correct the film and sound edit.

For the final brief, we had to create a comedy edit between 1:30-2:00 minutes and I was a little hesitant when we were told it would have to be edited on our own. Although the past 2 briefs allowed me to get used to the program, I was used to having Alex always sat next to me for any help that I needed. However, this has allowed me to get to grips with Avid in my own time and exploring it independently. Out of all of the briefs, this has been my favourite to edit as I found the plot more enjoyable to work with. At first I accidently imported all of the footage, thinking we had to edit the whole film into 2 minutes somehow but once I realised it was only one scene in the brief, I was fully aware of the whole storyline. I was worried that it would take me too long to get used to editing with Avid but it took a lot less time than I expected and was able to take time to final cut the edit before the deadline. At first I wanted to edit the final scene but I felt it was more of a dramatic and serious scene rather than a comedy so I decided to edit the opening scene; when Alf and Tony are putting a sign up on Jane’s shop. By working independently on this brief, I felt a lot more confident exploring the program than the first couple of projects and feel satisfied with the overall outcome of my edit.

From starting out on this module as completely unaware how to use Avid, after the 3 briefs that we had been given I now feel a lot more confident in using the program. It took me quite a few edit sessions to get to grips with certain tools and although I still wish it had a ‘split’ tool just like in Premier, I have learnt new editing options such as ‘mark in’ and ‘mark out’. Throughout the briefs I have had Alex’s help along the way and I feel we worked very well together as a team to ensure our edits were to our satisfaction and without any serious disagreements. I have also undertaken research into certain editing techniques in various films, such as ‘Watchmen’ and ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’. This research has allowed me to increase my knowledge of certain techniques that filmmakers have used to convey different emotions and actions; such as Clint Eastwood’s stance and tension during the duel scene. Overall this module has allowed me to explore and improve my editing skills, therefore allowing me to feel more comfortable in using Avid as a editing program for any future projects I work on.

Drama Final Film

Final film for Flatline:

https://vimeo.com/126515113

Comedy Final Film

When I finished editing Out O' Date, I uploaded it onto my Vimeo and the link is below:

https://vimeo.com/126374479

Documentary Final Film

Here is the final film for the Documentary piece that we edited:

https://vimeo.com/126482223 

Final Task: Comedy Editing

The Task

When we were first given this task, I was a little worried as I had been struggling slightly to edit on Avid for the past 2 films and wasn't sure how I would manage to edit this task in time for the deadline. As I wasn't in Sheffield over the Easter Holidays, I decided to start editing 'Out O' Date' as soon as I got back in the new term so that I gave myself enough time to get used to Avid's editing features. I am more confident editing on Premiere Pro but throughout this task I built up my confidence with the program and feel more comfortable than the beginning of the module.

Setting Up

I began with looking through all of the footage on the shared network so that I could choose which specific shots to import. I was aware that this would take a lot of time, due to the importing duration in the last 2 projects, but I found myself searching through folders of very similar footage with the slightest changes; either ruining the shots or making them the most suitable. As I was looking for footage to import, I accidentally got the brief wrong; thinking we had to edit 1.30-2 minutes of all of the footage. Although this mistake hadn't sank in when importing most of the footage from the whole film, I actually ended up familiarising myself with the whole story, which in the end helped with editing the chosen scene. I also took the time to rename all of the footage I had imported and when I was eventually ready to start editing, it began to sink in the confusion of my error.

                              

Before this realisation, I began by creating my bins for the rushes and first assembly, and changed the timecode from 01:00:00:00 to 10:00:00:00 in the general settings. The first shots that I began to edit were the opening scenes, as this seemed to me like the most suitable opening of the film. However, as I reached just over 1 minute of editing, I began to worry how I was expected to create a story with all of the footage under 2 minutes. I realised I had become confused with the brief and was back on track with the brief of editing one scene in the whole film. Luckily, by this point I had already edited most of the beginning scene and decided it would make sense to use this as my chosen edited scene. I also found the plot in this scene one of the more entertaining moments in the film. I enjoyed the end scene of the film but due to this being a comedy film, I felt it would seem more like a drama/romance if I focussed on that part.

I enjoyed editing this more than the other projects due to the light-hearted and entertaining feel so I was more comfortable experimenting with the editing of this piece. I felt the smooth crane shot from high up made the opening of the scene appropriate the begin the story with; as they are putting the sign up on the door.

Title
I was hoping to place the title in the right hand corner of this shot, where the sky is white, and eventually disappear when the camera has moved to focus on the sign. However, the more I experimented with this, none of the texts that I tried seemed to look appropriate so I changed the title to appear on it's own at the beginning.

Audio
When I watched the opening shots, I noticed there was no audio with it so found some atmospheric sound from other scenes used in this location. I am satisfied with the quiet and calm audio, with faint bird noises, to play along these shots as it is a relaxing way to begin the film as audiences are focussing on the actions occurring. At first I was keen to use some copyright free upbeat music, truthfully a typically comedic tune that spoof-type comedies use for introductions. However, the more I thought about this, the more I realised it would cause to film to seem stereotypical and possibly not taken seriously.

Conversations
This scene features various dialogue between characters and I wanted to capture the right moments between reverse shots in order to convey the comedic genre of the film. The first scene that audiences see both characters in the frame, Tony looks pleased with himself while Alf is looking disappointed and takes his 'disguise' off. The shot then changes to a close up of Tony's grin, to emphasise how proud he is; despite the obvious spelling errors. Then after another mid-shot of Alf angrily pointing out the mistake, I edited the dialogue into reverse shots with close ups of each character.

After this dialogue, I used a shot where a black car is seen driving up in the background and this shot then changes to the perspective from the car so that Alf and Tony are in the background of the frame. Unfortunately, when Jane is walking up to Alf the shot is out of focus slightly and I would have taken this out, as we were told to never use shots out of focus. However, when I tried to change the shot to the camera behind Jane, I didn't feel it looked suitable as it was a long shot that could become boring for the audience. I also saw the shot of Jane walking towards Alf as slightly out of focus in terms of her deliberately coming into focus as she makes her way closer. When Alf and Jane are talking, I used reverse shots again but I wanted to use footage where the camera was on the correct shoulder of the opposite character (diagonally placed on the other shoulder; e.g the right shoulder of each character). However the footage we were given didn't contain this so I had to use reverse shots where the camera is on the same side of both characters. Also, when Tony interrupts Jane's complaints by defending his sign I was going to have this as a close up of his face but felt it would be slightly more entertaining if it was a long shot. This is so it makes him seem like he is defending the flawed situation while holding tights in his hand and awkwardly speaking in the background.

In the final scenes when Jane rips down the sign after hurting Alf, I wanted to make the scene more interesting by having him featured bent over in pain in the foreground of the frame. As he is in pain, Jane is still seen throwing the sign at Tony in the background and this took a while for me to edit the correct timing when she throws the sign at him but eventually did it. Overall I found editing on Avid to gradually become easier as I worked with the specific tools but there are still certain ones that I struggle to figure out. I also wish the program had a 'split' tool that is in Premier Pro and I kept struggling to move/delete clips without messing up the rest of the timeline but I eventually dealt with these struggles to finish the edit.

Research: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly editing

When researching films whose editing stuck out to me, someone in class presented a scene from  'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'. I remembered the first time I watched the film I felt this scene last such a long time but through analysing the editing properly, it is a cleverly edited scene. It begins with Clint Eastwood walking over and placing a stone on the ground, when the camera quickly zooms in on the stone when some non-diegetic music begins to play; banjo/western style music. We see each character in a close up shot before a long shot of all of the characters stood within in the frame; facing each other before the duel. This scene uses a variety of close up, mid shots and long shots in order to emphasise the characters' movements and expressions. As we see them in close up frames, we see their eyes hardly blinking and no expressions as they sternly watch each other to check who makes the first move.

A lot of the shots are held for long periods of time, such as the long shot that shows each of them slowly moving around in a triangle so that they can keep their eyes on each other without making any sudden movements. At these points, the music also gets louder and this creates suspense and tension for the audience, anticipating who will begin the duel. By this point, the song features trumpets that begin to play high pitched and this emphasises the tension building up.

Halfway through the scene, the camera is behind each of the characters' shoulders so that the audience are given a slight perspective of their view of the other rivals. At this point, the music has gone quiet with only slight noises. Similarly to the music at the beginning of the scene, it repeats and gradually gets louder. By this point, they are all stood still looking over at each other and the camera films them in tight close up frames to build up suspense and make the audience feel slightly on edge. The sound of piano keys is also played in the music, getting quicker and louder alongside trumpets.

The audience then see extreme close ups of their eyes while the music is much louder and Clint Eastwood is very slowly reaching for his gun. The tension is built up very strong as the shots change from mid and long shots to very tight close ups and high pitched music. These shots are sped up so the audience anticipate that something is about to happen very soon and as the first shot gets fired, this is filmed as a long shot so we see the scene from an 'outsiders' perspective. As Lee Van Cleef tries to stand up after being shot, his face is filmed at a close up angle which causes the audience to feel a sense of empathy as we watch him attempt to stand up. However, Eastwood shoots him again in a very effortless manner.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwdypLFy8Pk

Final Brief: Comedy