andreas essay
Andreas essay To understand post-production for the documentary we are filming we must follow a process to begin to edit and create your final cut. To start of you begin by uploading your footage on to the macs, once uploaded you then begin to transcode your footage. The reason behind transcoding is that the settings are not ideal to edit on final cut pro with so you alter the settings of the footage to begin a proper edit. Once the footage has been transcoded you would put the media such as sound a video into a folder called capture scratch we put the files into capture scratch because that is where all un edited media is located. Now you would go into final cut pro which is an editing programme, the first thing you need to do is import the media. To complete this step you first must find capture scratch highlight the folder with your media in it to then import it to final cut pro. Once on final cut pro you need to change ‘sequence settings’ to begin editing. The sequence settings should be changed to the right specifications which would be frame size 1080/1920 the frames per second should be changed or left at 25fps and finally change the compressor to apple pro res 422 And also the codec to h264. Now before you can begin editing you must go through your footage and sound and rename them, the names should be relevant to what the sound or footage corresponds with if this process is not completed it will be difficult to complete an edit without knowing clearly what each clip consists of. Once you start editing figure out a basic storyline using shots and cut scenes, especially in the begin the viewer must be interested and curious to find out what the documentary is about, using a Freytag structure is the easiest way to structure a documentary since all the information you need is laid out in front of you which gives you a rough idea of what should be happening. Once you have completed your @rough cut’ you can think about synchronizing your audio captured on the zoom 4n, the reason behind this is because the camera’s microphone distorts and echoes due to either the area your in or being placed to far away, the zoom h4n is used in compatibility with a rode ng42 which is a directional based microphone so it records sound in a much better quality when used for and interview if we wanted to record multiple sound effects from a multitude of areas we would use an omnidirectional microphone which is basically the opposite of the rode ng42 the difference is it records sounds at a 360 degree range. Once you have a basic storyline and a rough cut ready you can then think about using cut scene, a cut scene is used in relevant places for example a crime drama would use cut scenes to re-enact the crime whilst someone who is being interviewed is speaking these are used to keep the documentary interesting, also they are used to hide jump cuts. A jump is when you cut from one person to the other and there is no way of keeping the flow or the natural look. When editing it always good to save multiple sequences this for if needed you can always go back to an earlier date and edit from there this is pretty much a safe guard so if your client doesn’t like a certain part you can go back and modify the part they don’t like. Once the final cut is ready show it to a few people and get a diverse range of opinions so you can then adjust it for multiple peoples viewing pleasure the reason behind this is you don’t want only a small group of people with the same interests to watch it you want to have a range of people to watch your documentary. If needed or you feel the need to add motion graphics to your video you would need to use another programme called after effects its roughly the same process to upload footage to the programme. To start using after effects you must first highlight the clip to start working on it then you need to use an option called ‘keylight 1.2’ once on this option you would click on screen matte to see what the lighting is like if it has white dots on the screen you must adjust the black balance until there is no white anywhere in the background it is the same for the white balance. After effects have many different processes it varies on what you want to put in the background or modify. Once you have completed all the steps before you must be 100% sure you are happy with your final cut if you are then you use an option on final cut pro called magic bullet this allows you to colour correct your edit to get the desired lighting and effect you want to maximise the emotionally connection your documentary has with the audience. Colour correction can be used to make a dark shot light or an overly exposed shot bearable to look at colour correction is really a back up to for bad camera work or even bad weather conditions. Once completed if you have to you then render your edit this could be a long process but it depends on complexity and duration. Once rendering has completed you then must change the compressor back to h.264 the reason behind this is apple pro res 422 is used for editing footage whereas the h.264 is better for viewing, you need to place an input and output at the start and end of your footage you then export the footage to the compressor and then it is just a waiting game. Once completed your edit is now ready to be extracted from the computer onto an external drive of disc or even uploaded to the internet.