Life as an Editor

Being a film editor consists on many different elements of work. Editors remove the unneeded footage and fits the pieces of footage that is wanted together to make a finished film. They have to work with cinematographers and sound editors to bring together, they are meant to catch the director’s vision of the film.

It requires hours of looking through footage that maybe used or may not, then assembling all the wanted footage together making sure they work quickly enough to meet the director’s/filmmakers deadlines.

Some of the most key points/elements being a film editor:

·       Reading through the script to get a thorough understanding of the film and understanding the director’s vision for the film.

·       While filming the editor should visit the site to help get a sense on the film and atmosphere.

·       Selected footage once filming has ending with dramatic and entertaining value and relates to the story. The editor looks for the ultimate best performance shots and consistency in timing.

·       Cut and edit the sections of footage and assemble them in the best way possible.

·       Work with sound effects with sound editors and musical directors. They insert music, sound effects and increase the volume of the dialogue shot on the day of shooting, this is done using editing equipment.

·       Review the edited film and make the final correction for the first cut/rough cut. The movie producers then view this rough cut. However this process can take up to three months to assemble.

·       Collected requests from the directors and producers and begin the final cut to be released to the film house for production. The final editing can take another month to finish.

Editing our thriller

After completing the filming of our thriller we moved onto the next step, which was editing it. This began with viewing all our footage we had shot, which was placed in the rushes file. This was useful as we could watch the different angles and decide what footage would be highlighted featured in our thriller.

➖This is an image of the rushes file (footage) we shot.

While editing I learnt some vital information that would help me through this stage and make editing a lot faster and a lot less hassle. For example pressing ‘a’ on the keyboard and clicking a clip on the timeline highlights everything past the clip you have clicked so you are able to move the whole section in a group.

Throughout the process of editing our thriller we came across some key decisions we had to make for example we had to look at what footage we could use and what we couldn’t, we logs the shots into certain groups onto our timeline, which divided them into start, the action scene (the middle) and the ending. We also had to look out of continuity errors. By the end of editing we are expected to finish the edited picture, then the sound and lastly the end effects. In addition to this we are hoping our thriller will create suspense and also intriguing to the audience.

➖This image shows the timeline and how we set it up, placed the clips. You can drag the blue line on the timeline to the section you want to watch again, which can help with looking continuity
errors.

We are expected to share the editing computer with other media students. So we need to share our time fairly and book time slots in advanced.

For editing our thriller we will use adobe premiere pro as it is the best way to learn and edit footage and we are all armatures and cannot use complicated programmes.

The timeline on adobe premiere pro is used to collect the shots, edit and change the format making smoother transitions. It is also very useful to group together the shots into sections. We made sure all our clips we re-names so you can easily find out what are your good shots plus the ones you are particularly looking for.

Our group thought it would be a good decision to duplicate our original rough cut of our thriller so we knew the original was always save while we could play around with the copy of the original for example trying different shots in different places ad cutting original shots. It also helps test the continuity of the shots without disturbing your original shots in the original folder.

➖The image above shows the original file of editing and also the two other duplicated versions.

We cropped almost all of our filmed shots, some we filming the entire scene and we then later chose in editing, which parts of that shot we wanted to use. To make this process easier we used a cutting tool such as a blade and a razor. Our group used the blade on a regular basis when editing and cropping clips as it cut one particular clip into two making the shot two individual shots instead of one long shot. This helped make and create smoother shot transitions, making the sequence of shots flow better.

So far we have used 8 layers because if you only use one layer, footage can get cut off to early it can also take away audio footage with this.

behind the scenes

During our thriller shooting there were some things we did well such as, I felt like we had everything prepared in plenty of time to shoot so no time was wasted on set. Our group worked well together as we rotated rolls from being the director to camera to someone on sound etc. This gave each member of the group to try different activities and get more involved with the shooting. Our idea changed on set, despite this we all agreed on the new idea with no delay. We thought about where props should be set, thinking about how realistic it should look, for example we could not decide where to place the barbed wire however we then decided as a group to place it around the chair where the character will be sitting, this made him seem untouchable and placed in a dangerous territory.

In the long run changing our idea on set was for the best however we should have made our actors try on the costumes before hand to if anything was wrong with it there was time to change anything. So we should have been more organised so if we had changed our idea before hand we could have created another shot list to help us on set. However we managed without an updated shot list but we did use our original shot list for different scene we did not change.

In the afternoon we had to buy a white shirt from the co-operative in the clothes section, as the shirt we had ordered did not arrive in time for our shoot. The morning of the shoot we arrived in the studio earlier so we could get organised. We collected the rest of our costumes our school costume department. This was well organised as we had sent emails to the department discussing what we needed for our shoot.

We also organised a student to help us with the make-up for the main character, this was organised days in advanced so I could send her photos of exactly what I wanted.

We brought all our props to the set where we were filming and trying deciding as a group where they should all good, this took quite a long time as we all had different decisions, but we soon came to an agreement. Once we were on set the lighting took the most time because it had to be adjusted so our actor was well lit and in sight, highlighting some of their features. Once all our lighting was sorted we made some small adjustments for example to barbed wire around the chair was originally in a pile next to it. We were then happy with our set, however once we began to film and look through the lens of the camera props were adjusted, as it looked slightly different.

During the shoot a lot of time taken up involved telling the actors what to do and placing then in the correct position, then changing the lighting according to their placement on set. The most difficult element of the shooting was changing one of our characters due to what he was wearing, as it did not fit the roll he was meant to be playing at all, so he changed from a hero to a villain. However are group was very happy with this change as it helped our thriller become more dramatic and exciting.

The most enjoyable part of shooting for me was filming scenes in slow motion on the camera and I loved watching back our end product and feeling the excitement and tension from a 4 second piece of footage. I loved being in control when we rotated rolls and I became the director, called people in and shouting so the actor could hear me from outside.

I think as a group we collaborated well especially the day of the shoot, we all worked well together by rotating rolls and giving each other new ideas as we went along. I am really happy with what we achieved the day of our shoot and can not wait to see the finished product.  

photo's from behind the scenes

Behind the scene footage-ending scene

This is some behind the scene footage of the ending scene of our thriller:

The mise-en-scene of our thriller video

We did this video because we wanted to talk about the mis-en-scene in our thriller. We thought it would be a fun idea to show it as a chat show instead of just talking into the camera. In our video we talk about the lighting, costumes, location, make-up, props for example the white ripped shirt that was covered in blood and the victims make-up was done to show how beaten he was.