Editing Techniques Evaluation
Throughout this course, I was tasked with editing together different pieces of practical work that I created, the software I used throughout this course was Adobe Premiere Pro. To start this unit off I researched the history of editing software while slowly moving onwards looking at the software I would be using and how to use it. Once I had familiarised myself with this software I started editing together different short films that I had shot prior until eventually editing together pieces of work for my different units.
Firstly I looked into the history of editing software looking first at the early forms of editing where people had to manually cut the film and stick it back together, researching into this I discovered about the importance of women in early editing as they would have these editing roles due to the similarities between sewing and editing. Technologies advanced and the Moviola was introduced letting editors view their work giving them more of an idea of where they are cutting. At this time all editing was done linearly meaning they had to cut the film in order not letting them go back and make changes, unlike non-linear editing software that came around much later like Premiere Pro.
Once all the research into the history of editing was complete I started using my editing software Premiere Pro practically, editing together short films that I was tasked with making under a strict time limit, this helped improve my editing skills with my chosen editing software. The first short film I had to edit was based around using different camera angles. When editing this piece of work I had to look at how to cut these different camera angles together effectively, this improved my skills with contingency editing through having to organize these different shots in a way that looks right for the viewer. The next film challenge I had to do was more editing based where I had to edit to the beat of the Wii music, this drastically improved my skills when editing making sure I had the cuts match up with the beat of the music, this improved my understanding of editing precisely. The final challenge I edited together was finding footage online and editing to a chosen song, the skills this helped me improve where choosing the correct tone of the clips I was using giving me an understanding of how to match the tonne of visuals with audio. Overall these short film challenges set to me by the teacher helped introduce me to the software I would be using more later in the year.
One of my first pieces of editing I had to do within this course was my New Wave film that I had previously shot, I had gathered my footage (Although I had some trouble doing so) and started editing it together, I threw all my footage into Premiere Pro and organized them into different Bins, which I just learned how to do during this time. Once I organized all my footage I began editing soon realizing that I needed more footage and some reshoots. Once I had gathered the extra footage needed I ran into a problem with editing, the problem was that the footage from the different shoots was visually different in style, creating a little continuity error. Continuing on from this I edited this piece to a soundtrack and showed contrasting visuals between cuts showing the differences and similarities between nature and humans I was shooting. To make this project New Wave I had to edit this production in a new way that goes against most conventions I was learning, to make it new wave I used different techniques popularised during the time of American and French new wave cinema, following this I incorporated techniques such as prolonged cuts and a jungled non-linear order of shots to help give my production that new wave feel. During this task, I believe that my cuts were placed effectively to help me show off my points that I was trying to make showing the similar nature between my two shots, however, going back I would provide myself with more time for shooting allowing me to edit without feeling like there a change in visual style as I would have been able to shoot until I was happy with the footage I gained. Throughout this task I improved my editing skills overall, however specifically, I learned how to use Bins to organize my footage making it easier for me to find the clips needed, organizing them into folders while labeling them specific names as to find them within this folder.
Later in the year, I moved on to the music video unit in which I had to produce a music video to be marked and graded (Along with other theory work). Having done my first shoot for this music video I threw all my footage into Premiere Pro and organized it into bins and labeled the clips much like what I learned to do during the New wave task. Once I had done this I proceeded to edit the clips I had gotten matching them up to my chosen song (Summer by Imagine Dragons). From this, I could see what footage I was missing at the time, and by learning from my previous mistakes a began planning using a sort of shot list with the title features on Premiere Pro, matching them up on the timeline to the times I want that shot playing (Visual examples of this in my work). Having a greater understanding of what shots I wanted and how long they needed to be due to this shot list I created I went on to shoot 2, although I had more time due to my extra planning, a problem similar to my New Wave work crept up, this was the two different visual styles between my different shoots, the reason this was a problem this time rather than time management was the fact I couldn't gather the lighting equipment I used in the first half, giving the second shoot a colder feel to the first shoot, with this being said I believe this to be my biggest weakness during this task as the different styles take away from my finished product making it look less professional. However, what I think I did right during this task was the editing to the beat, when first picking the song I decided immediately I wanted certain shots edited to the beat of the song such as a shot of clapping to the claps heard in the song, I believe I did this effectively during this edit as I effectively cut between two different hands clapping, matching it up to the hands clapping in the song. What I would change during this task would be making sure I had the equipment on hand for any reshoots and extra shooting days to create the same visual feel within my video.
In conclusion, I believe my editing skills have grown and improved massively throughout the year going from never using the software or anything like it before, to editing towards a beat effectively matching audio with visuals. Although I believe my editing has improved a few issues have still crept up throughout the year, mainly being that my different shoots tend to have different visual styles making it hard to edit them together effectively. The different ways I have run into this problem are through not having enough time/poor time management, to not having the same equipment in different shoots. I wish I had the opportunity to show my improvements within this area however with my promotional video brief having to be changed last minute due to unforeseen circumstances I never had the chance to show I could improve this however the blame still falls on me for making the mistake multiple times. Another thing I would change throughout this unit would be choosing to produce and edit a short film for my film studies unit to help show off my skills, however at the time I did not know I wouldn't be producing a video for my promotional video unit so instead, I prompted to write an essay instead. Overall I believe that my editing has improved over the course however I can still see areas to improve on in the future.
