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.