Our First Edit

This weeks practical lesson involved the class being integrated with yet another timeless practical skill; editing. We were taken up to the schools filmmaking sweet where Matt(media teacher) gave us a short brief about what we would be doing in the lesson. He explained how all the footage from last weeks filming lesson had already been downloaded onto he schools server and was ready to be edited.

For the next 45 minutes, there was a two and fro between Matt demonstrating how to complete a certain task on the editing software and then us completing that task with each filming group sharing a computer making a communal process. The software that we used was Apples Final Cut Pro. This is a well know and respected editing software known for its speed and easy to use layout. Despite its reputation it is rarely used for things such as feature length films with Avid being the preferred software. Despite this it is used with some such as award winning film True Grit. However, this film had a relatively short space of time between filming and release so quick editing was needed which is why Final Cut was chosen.

Some of the simple things we learnt in the lesson was the essential skills needed to cut a shot scene together well. The first of these was all about the ability to organise your footage. With a lot of footage from a shoot being organised with it is essential to not getting confused and also saving time. Organisation is done using 'Bins' which are literally files that you can create which will duplicate pieces of footage and store it. The first was a 'Rush Bin'. This is where you put all the raw footage that hasn't been edited in anyway yet. It is useful as it is something you can always revert back too if you are not happy with what you've got or you have accidently lost some footage. From the 'Rush Bin' we can then sifter through our footage to find what clips we are interested in using for the film. The ones we think we will use we then transport to the 'Log Bin'. With this technique we know have a clear distinction between raw footage and footage ready to be edited.

After this came the actual editing process which I found far more simple than initially anticipated. After quite a detailed demonstration from Matt we then set about doing it ourselves. The software displays two screens, one where you can see the clip you are currently editing and one where you can see the film in its entirety. Below this was then a timeline detailing the changes between clips and sound. Simply you choose a clip from the log bin before then cutting it appropriately and then dragging it down to the time line to slot in with the rest of the film. If you later discover the cut was not accurate enough you can click on the clip in the timeline and then re-cut it on the first screen. After this you can then view it on the second screen to ensure you have changed it correctly.

The element of the editing that I actually found most challenging was just the decision element. When looking through our footage as a group we had to analyse the shots and decide what we thought the best order would be, and also at which point we should make our cuts. This raised debate when the group discussed whether we thought it would be boring to watch if we had three head and shoulder shots consecutively. To combat this we reverted back to our wide shot to apply variation.

On the hole I was very satisfied with how the lesson went. A skill that had seemed very technically overwhelming in fact wasn't so bad.



Above: The Final Cut Pro Layout
Below: Me, editing in the suite yesterday.