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

Research: No Country for Old Men editing

One of the scenes we were showed in a seminar was the petrol scene in No Country for Old Men. This scene features a customer wanting to pay for petrol, Anton, and a petrol store clerk, Gene having a conversation but in a more tense and intimidating manner. It begins with them conversing as normal but when Anton questions why Gene wants to know where he is from, he calls him 'Friendo' in a very intense manner and we see shots cut to Gene to show his concerned and nervous expression. The audio in this scene is a low, quiet sound of the wind outside and therefore provides a more tense atmosphere as they have silences in parts of the conversations.

Anton's voice is also very deep and intimidating as he stares unnaturally at the store clerk, questioning his conversation topics such as 'Is there anything wrong?'. When the clerk wants to close up, Anton asks when they close so he replies 'Now' but then Anton sternly says, 'Now is not a time, what time does the store close'. This tension is also emphasised by the nooses featured hanging up behind the clerk; connotations of nooses that are used to put people to their death and therefore this symbolises death within the character's history. We then see the camera turning into mid-shots of Anton as he asks when Gene goes to bed and this emphasises the uncomfortable and tense atmosphere. Gene always says, 'Sir?' when he doesn't understand why he is being asked all of the invading questions but Anton's replies get shorter and firmer,

When Anton finishes eating his sweets, from the store, he puts it onto the counter where the camera films it slowly opening up and this shot lasts a little longer than expected, creating more tension as the audience await for the outcome between the sore clerk and Anton. The clerk is then subjected to partake in a coin toss and although he is unclear on the reason for this, he luckily guesses the outcome correctly. As we wait to see if he was correct, Anton slowly unveils his hand from the coin but then quickly says 'Well done' as if there was nothing to be worried about.

This scene features a variety of midshots and close up shots as the tension between the pair becomes emphasised through the close ups of the wrapper and shots where we see Anton's face closer to the camera. Also with the midshots of the nooses in the background, symbolising a sense of fear and death for the audience as though something is going to happen to the clerk. When Anton finally leaves the store, the scene ends on a long shot of Gene stood behind the counter confused and shocked.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4Wek1VIfjA

Task 2: Drama Editing

For our second brief we had to edit another 5 minute film called 'Flatline' and I felt I wanted to do a much better job with the edit for this brief than the last one. There were some times when I felt I couldn't edit with Alex as much as I would've liked due to work on evenings so I looked through the Flatline footage early, chose suitable ones to import and renamed them all. For this brief, Oscar asked to join us and at first we were relieved that we could have an extra fresh pair of eyes for our editing styles as well as splitting the workload between three of us. However, Alex and I found ourselves editing the project between us despite asking when Oscar would be coming in to join us. He took the film when we were almost finishing it so that he could finish the last few seconds, colour correct and final cut the audio.

Despite this, I feel satisfied with the edit Alex and I created in the end and I found this brief easier to work with than the documentary due to it's storyline chronology. A struggle I found with some of the shots though was the cinematographer of the crew filming would shoot a good scene but then the other shots of the same scene would show him trying to film it starting above and quickly moving to the object. Despite this, I chose shots that we could work with and Alex and I worked together to create the edit. Overall I edited roughly 1:3-2:00 minutes and Alex finished the last 3:00 minutes and I felt he was grasping the program quicker than I was. Despite still having shifts at work on some evenings, we edited at times where we were both available and I felt we were a good team for the editing.

 During this brief I was becoming more comfortable getting used to the aspects of Avid such as setting up to timecode and finding what I need in the settings box. It took a while to understand the storyline at first, as I was a little confused where the man who suffered a heart attack would fit in with the other patients but I figured out the plot and carried on with the edit. I was also becoming more familiarised with the 'mark in' and 'mark out' buttons whereas I am usually used to the 'split' tool in Premier Pro. Another struggle with the shots we found was the scene where the man had a heart attack, the lighting was lit well and then all of a sudden the other shots were a very dark, blue-y lighting; as if they were filming at night time. This was a huge struggle to edit as it was almost impossible to fit it in with the rest of our edit but we worked to get it to fit as much as possible.

We took many screenshots throughout this edit to record our edit and progress and overall I found this brief easier and more interesting to edit than the last one. However, I underestimated how long it was going to take us and despite struggling slightly to edit certain scenes into the film, I am quite satisfied with the edit Alex and I created. After this brief, I felt I was still attempting to get used to the features on Avid but knew in the next brief I would have more opportunities to expand on my knowledge of Avid.

Second Brief: Drama

Task 1: Documentary Editing

For this task we began looking through the different clips for the film and chose the ones that we wished to import onto Avid. This is our first project working on Avid so we were a little confused how to do certain tasks such as splitting up a clip without a 'split' tool but we got used to the 'mark in' and 'mark out' buttons. It took us a while to become familiar with the correct settings when creating our new project, such as changing the timecode from 01:00:00:00 to 10:00:00:00 and creating bins.

After creating the bins for our rushes and first assembly, we imported the chosen clips for the film and renamed each one, for example 'CU INT Behind Ady's back'. We took a while to decide which shots to use for our opening scene to 'The Escape Movement' but after looking through various clips we decided that opening with a track shot behind Ady look over Sheffield would fit suitably. Most of these shots, in my opinion could have been used apart from some of them were too out of focus or too long with just Ady talking for a very long period of time.

Our edit begins with Ady talking about his poetry and influences and we decided to begin the film with this so that the audience could feel some relationship with the protagonist from the very start. Ady comes across as a chatty and sociable character and when he talks about where he performs, we decided to use shots of the location to expand on  his story.I found it interesting to hear about Ady's story but out of all of the brief we had been given, I found this was the most difficult to find a chronological order for as there was so much information he was giving us and we had to fit it all into 5 minutes.

Documentary Rough Cut Feedback

We presented the rough cut of our Documentary edit, 'The Escape Movement' to the class while being given recorded feedback from Chris. Although there were still parts of the edit we wanted to improve and alter, we felt we had a rough plot that would work well for the final edit. The comments we received were useful and helpful for us to improve our editing skills and we were told our opening scene of Ady was bold and a good shot; a track up from behind him. However, we began the rough edit with Ady talking about an idea he has but we were told that an audience won't be concentrating within the first few seconds so this would be lost.

We accidentally changed the angle of a shot while Ady was talking so we were told to only do this when he has finished a word or sentence fully. Our title was on screen too long and we were aware of this while exporting the edit, as we had been having major technical problems up until the last morning. Therefore, our title was a rushed decision so that we could present the rough edit with a visual title but need to shorten the duration that it stays on screen for.

Another error we found was Ady's voice talking about his poetry while the scene is showing him reading out another poem, yet he was silent while reading it out loud so that we  could hear his monologue to the interviewer. However, Chris told us this is known as 'fishing' and we were made aware of the way it doesn't look right for the film.

In terms of the approach we struggled to find alternative ways for one as most of the footage we could find focussed mainly on Ady. Although in the feedback session when we were told it's our jobs to find an approach that works best, we struggled a lot to find enough footage to back up an approach that focussed mainly on the poetry club rather than Ady. There would have been enough footage to do this if it was a shorter duration but our task was to create an edit that lasted 5 minutes and we felt that the storyline would be more interesting and engaging to the audience if it focussed on a protagonist.

Our recorded feedback:
https://shuspace.shu.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/pid-5513201-dt-content-rid-9937033_2/courses/55-5431-00S-A-20145/LAEX%20%26%20HEATHER%20MOVEMENT%20FEEDBACK.m4a

Audio/Music from a scene: Watchmen

For this task, Alex and I were told to present a scene from a TV show/Film that uses music in a particular way (good or bad). One particular scene that stood out to me was the opening fight scene in Watchmen. Since the first time I saw this film, this scene has always stood out to me as the editor has shown the footage alongside a juxtaposed style of music; a relaxing song 'Unforgettable' by Nat King Cole.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXLfTv42T8A


The opening of the scene begins with diegetic music from the television as The Comedian is switching through different programmes and eventually turns not a channel where the song 'Unforgettable' begins. As the audience watches him relax in his home to this programme, we see a mysterious character appear in the story by kicking down his door. As The Comedian stares at this character, the song quietens and we hear certain sounds emphasised and animated; such as the gloves tightening and The Comedian looking over at the gun. When he throws his glass at the character, the sound of it flying through the air is animated and references back to the original animated/comic book  version of this film. The emphasis also increases the impact of each action, with each punch and violent action made to appear a lot more powerful. The movements are also slowed down at certain points, for example when The Comedian throws his glass, it is slowed down a lot so that we fully notice it breaking against the wall with the emphasised sound. The scene is also sped up at certain points, such as the moment when The Comedian is holding his gun up looking for the character around the room quickly.


As the fight gets more violent, we hear the song that featured on the television become louder and turns from diegetic sound into non-diegetic sound. This song juxtaposes the situation as the violent fight occurring would suitably be edited with a fast paced soundtrack. However, the decision to place a softer, more relaxed song over the scenes is a clever and popular decision as it causes the audience to focus on the fighting, as they would not be used to seeing this behaviour normally in a film with that style of music. Also, it desensitises the violence in a way for the audience so that it feels easier for them to watch.

In the final part of the scene, The Comedian is thrown out of the window and when he smashes through the glass the audio at this point makes the glass pieces sound delicate and in a way 'crystal-like'. This also gives a lighthearted feel to the fight scene rather than any violence emphasised since we are already subjected watching the brutal fight scene. As he is falling out of the building, the song reaches the finale and ends perfectly in time as the camera slowly zooms in on the dead body and bright yellow smiley face badge.

First Brief: Poetry/Documentary

First Session: Getting to know the Basics

In our first Editing Session Chris introduced us to the basics of using Media Composer 8 and how to set up the program in preparation for our first editing task.