Understanding The Documentary Post Production Process
In order to create a successful documentary edit there is many steps which you must take during the post production process. In this essay I will explain the post production process.
Firstly, we have to decide how the documentary will be edited and in which style. In order to do this, research must be done into the documentaries storyline so you know how the story goes and in what order to edit the documentary, a lot of research may need to be done as you may need to incorporate archive footage (which is footage taken from another source) to make the storyline more effective. This research may involve speaking to producers, directors and other stakeholders involved in the production. It may also involve you doing research of your own and searching up on the topic so you have more knowledge of the topic. This will help you have an overall idea of how the documentary is meant to be and start planning it out carefully
Once all the footage is collected and research is done it is then time to organise the clips in order to start the edit. First the clips from the SD card need to be transferred to a file where all the clips can be stored on the PC, I normally use Capture Scratch as It is easy to remember where I put my clips and easily transcoded. Secondly the clips need to be transcoded this takes quite long and varies when there is different amounts of clips. In order to do this a software called MPEG Streamclip is needed. When transcoding open the software and go to the top and it should say 'Batch List' , when this is clicked it gives you the option to transfer many clips at one time to the transcoder which is very useful when transcoding large number of clips. When transcoding the codec of the videos needs to be changed from H.264 to Apple Pro Res 422, codec contains the information for light and colours which makes up the overall video quality. When this is done the quality needs to be changed to 100% and frame rate needs to be 25fps and then click 'deinterlace' and the clips should start transcoding. Now a new project is ready to be opened in Final Cut Pro 1920x1080 25fps.
Now when the footage has transcoded, the edit is ready to be started all that needs to be done is the organisation of the footage, When organising the footage make sure each clip is renamed intelligently so that no time has to be wasted searching for clips. This is done by intricately going through each shot and rename it based on what is going on in the shot. Once this is done group the materials into bins based on what is going on in the shot and what type of shots it is. For example I used separate bins for the cut away shots in the documentary and the Interview shots in the documentary so it was organised better and easier for me to access the shots I wanted.
It is now time to start editing the rough cut, The first thing that is needed is to sync the audio from the Boom Mic to the Interview shot. This process is quite easy and only takes around 15minutes. However the audio should be renamed aswell so it is easier to find them and link them up with the interview shot. To sync the audio you need to make sure that the voice coming straight from the camera and the voice from the advanced boom pole is synced together accurately. When this is done delete the camera audio and just leave the audio from the boom mic as it is much higher quality and will sound better in the documentary.
Once the interview shots are synced with the boom mic audio, the interview needs to be edited. This is so no parts of the interview is left in that will bore the audience or that is not revelant to the topic of the documentary. Also pauses in the speech of the interviewee should be taken out and any mistakes or speech from someone behind the camera, this will give the interview a more natural effect and make it like the interviewee is just talking and not being questioned. Once a part is needed to be taken out at the side there is a cut tool which can be used to cut out unwanted pieces of audio and video, this makes it much easier to organise your rough cut edit and make it look and sound more proffesional.
Now that the interview shots are cut and synced well, it is now time to make the storyline interesting and build it up, this may involve using tension, suspense etc. and make sure that the audience are never bored by the documentary and always change the scene once in a while so it is not on the same shot for a long period of time. There are a number of ways to present your documentary but you need to choose the one which will suite the documentary's topic the most and which will make the storyline more engaging. Also there may be jump cuts after this is done which is jumps between the interview of a person which could look highly unproffesional so cut away shots are needed to cover them and are also needed to tell the story and keep the audience interested. When this is done the next step is to add music into the project this makes the storyline have more emotion, for example if there is a suspensefull moment in the documentary a track will need to be added which can accompany that. In order to add music you have to make the music file a wav and not an MP3 file this is because final cut pro does not recognise mp3 files. To do this a program called adobe audition is needed.
When all of this is done your rough cut is finished, when finished it is good to let people see your rough cut so you can get feedback from it and perhaps make it better, It is also good to meet with the stakeholders of the documentary project and let them see the rough cut to see if they would be happy with it. If they are happy with it then the final stage is adding colour correction.
The final stage is to add colour correction to the project, this is to make each shot look similar and have a better effect to them. For example each interview shot may be lighted different or may be different to the cut away shots this can be easily changed with magic bullet looks (the software used to change the colour correction).Once you find the right filter for your project or certain clips you can copy and paste them throughout the whole project which makes it easier then opening each shot and having to colour correct them seperately.
Once this is all completed you have finished your final edit and are now ready to export the file to be shared on youtube, vimeo etc. To do this the compression needs to be changed back from Apple Pro Res 422 to H.264 and the file needs to be 1920x1080p 25fps to make it the best quality it can be.
There are many steps that are needed to create an interesting documentary. An editor needs to think about each step while creating a documentary.
