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