Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
At the very beginning of our course, we were placed into groups and asked to create a short clip from a script from the popular television show 'Casualty'. The main purpose of this was to practise our editing skills and camera work, as most of us had never even picked up a camera before let alone had to deal with Final Cut Pro. However, by doing this task I feel like I was able to learn a lot about editing, especially in terms of continuity. By doing this task at the beginning of our course the group as a whole had much more knowledge on aspects of editing to help us with our film opening, and as can be expected, a massive improvement can be seen.
One thing I learnt from the original preliminary task was the 180 degree rule when using a shot-reverse-shot. This ensures that the characters appear to be on the right sides when the camera switches over, otherwise it appears as though the characters are facing the same way, staring blindly ahead and talking to themselves.
I feel like I've improved greatly on creating a fairly decent looking shot-reverse-shot, as in the preliminary task there is a slight delay between the two sets of characters when the camera changes, which is better in our final cut as the pace is a lot quicker to reflect the fast paced atmosphere of the argument between characters. I was able to create this using the blade tool - something I learnt to use in the preliminary task which allowed me to cut the clip down to a more precise point than I could get if I just dragged the individual clips down.
The pacing of editing has also improved in other aspects, as even though it's supposed to be a fast paced and dramatic conversation, the slow and drawn out clips in the preliminary task don't reflect this atmosphere, something which is shown in the variety of clips and shots we have in our final cut.
One thing I'm really proud of in our final cut is the continuity when our main character Amber is walking through the woods, as I contributed most to the continuity of the woods footage, as well as going over and editing sounds to finalise our opening sequence. When creating the part where Amber walks through the woods I wanted to give it variety but at the same time make it flow smoothly between shots as if it had happened all in one take. Again I used the blade tool to cut things down to a more precise level, and tried to match the points where it seemed like it would fit and flow the most (for example when Amber is stood in the middle of the empty woods in a long-shot looking around, and then it goes into a close-up of this).
In the preliminary task a more basic version of this can be shown (walking down the corridor in a long-shot, to a mid-shot, to opening the door from the other side).
When filming Vendetta we made sure that we had this variety of shots, and even that we filmed so much that a lot of shots we didn't have to use after all. This is because in the continuity task one or two of the shots aren't of the best quality, especially due to the lighting. From this the whole group learnt to film more than we needed and to check our work first, as although you can add in filters and change a lot about the shot, not much could be done if the footage was poor quality in the first place.
One large improvement that can be shown is the sound. Although the sound continuity is okay overall in my preliminary task, there is still some obvious and abrupt endings to parts of the sound (such as when the door is opened). We later learnt as a group to detach the audio from it's clip. This enabled us to be able to fade out the sound and make it seem less abrupt, a technique of which proved very helpful when trying to get the sound continuity of the guitar to match between clips. We also added both diegetic and non-diegetic sound over the top of some clips, allowing us to build up tension in the case of the music but also to add to the sound continuity by adding artificial forest sounds over the top.
We were also able to add voices into our sequence at the beginning on the beach to give the sequence more exposition and explain some of the situations, like why they were event there in the first place. When filming the footage we had a microphone attached to the camera to make sure the sound quality was a lot better. This wasn't really an issue in the preliminary task, but as we were filming of a very windy beach this gave us the ability to get the best sound from filming.
However, one of the biggest things I've gained from progression of my continuity task is confidence in my abilities as an editor. I've learnt a variety of techniques using Final Cut that have helped me to improve my skills and knowledge of creating media products such as television and film.
The pacing of editing has also improved in other aspects, as even though it's supposed to be a fast paced and dramatic conversation, the slow and drawn out clips in the preliminary task don't reflect this atmosphere, something which is shown in the variety of clips and shots we have in our final cut.
One thing I'm really proud of in our final cut is the continuity when our main character Amber is walking through the woods, as I contributed most to the continuity of the woods footage, as well as going over and editing sounds to finalise our opening sequence. When creating the part where Amber walks through the woods I wanted to give it variety but at the same time make it flow smoothly between shots as if it had happened all in one take. Again I used the blade tool to cut things down to a more precise level, and tried to match the points where it seemed like it would fit and flow the most (for example when Amber is stood in the middle of the empty woods in a long-shot looking around, and then it goes into a close-up of this).
In the preliminary task a more basic version of this can be shown (walking down the corridor in a long-shot, to a mid-shot, to opening the door from the other side).
When filming Vendetta we made sure that we had this variety of shots, and even that we filmed so much that a lot of shots we didn't have to use after all. This is because in the continuity task one or two of the shots aren't of the best quality, especially due to the lighting. From this the whole group learnt to film more than we needed and to check our work first, as although you can add in filters and change a lot about the shot, not much could be done if the footage was poor quality in the first place.
One large improvement that can be shown is the sound. Although the sound continuity is okay overall in my preliminary task, there is still some obvious and abrupt endings to parts of the sound (such as when the door is opened). We later learnt as a group to detach the audio from it's clip. This enabled us to be able to fade out the sound and make it seem less abrupt, a technique of which proved very helpful when trying to get the sound continuity of the guitar to match between clips. We also added both diegetic and non-diegetic sound over the top of some clips, allowing us to build up tension in the case of the music but also to add to the sound continuity by adding artificial forest sounds over the top.
We were also able to add voices into our sequence at the beginning on the beach to give the sequence more exposition and explain some of the situations, like why they were event there in the first place. When filming the footage we had a microphone attached to the camera to make sure the sound quality was a lot better. This wasn't really an issue in the preliminary task, but as we were filming of a very windy beach this gave us the ability to get the best sound from filming.
However, one of the biggest things I've gained from progression of my continuity task is confidence in my abilities as an editor. I've learnt a variety of techniques using Final Cut that have helped me to improve my skills and knowledge of creating media products such as television and film.
No comments:
Post a Comment