Editing is the process in which work is finalized and brought together into one final ending piece of work, a final project or production. An example of this would be, taking a series of clips you have filmed from your camera and putting them together on an editing software timeline to make a film, movie, or any other kind of work you would like to produce. Some methods used in editing are cutting in, cutting out, cutaways, and splicing, this is where you put together the footage and cut out the parts you don’t want to add the parts you do and put them all together. Editing is part of every media related piece of work. Even newspapers and magazines use their own form of editing to make their work professional and better to look at. When editing it helps us to achieve a certain final piece of work and make it look to a professional standard, something in which our audience can enjoy. Imagine looking at a piece of unedited work it would look unprofessional, cheap and boring, so editing helps make it look interesting for our audience and helps hold their concentration. I personally feel that editing to me means bringing together the pieces like a puzzle and putting them into place to make a unique piece of artwork. Meaning I would need to cut, splice and organize my work together. However before this can happen we have to transcode the files from the camera, meaning I would need to take the files and change them so that they are the right file format and that they then are able to fit my editing software. An editing software I like to use is final cut, however upon purchasing my own editing software it has become easier to understand and transcode these file video formats to a suitable format as I have a better understanding and practise. Another thing we have to do is file management, final management is organizing the files so that they are organized and won’t get lost, and example of this would be creating a new, or using an existing file folder on the computer and adding your video files and clips into it. In which it would then become easier to import your transcoded files onto your computer editing software. Once these files are on your editing software you can then begin renaming each individual clip which then makes it easier to edit them together and know which ones are best for the use of your edit. This task usually takes about 3 minutes depending on the quantity of footage. On approach to then beginning your edit you need to come up with a storyboard or storyline and in which order you’d like to place your clips. This can be as long or short as you require it to be. This storyline will then help you to follow a guideline and produce a much more professional edit, making your work reach a high level standard and look great. Upon each piece of work your clips will come together professionally.
Another important component of editing is syncing, syncing allows the audio and video images to be put together in a way to match them both together. When syncing it is important to remember how to put the clips together and how to cut them. I am currently working on a music video edit and have realized the importance of matching imagery to the audio. I am also doing another music video edit at college, the difference being this one is matched to the person singing with the song, so it is very important that we match the track so it does not look like they are singing out of time with the music. When the syncing is done we can then begin adding any cutaway shots, for example in our college edit there are shots of various Bokeh lights that we filmed so our video was not as plain. Bokeh is when the lights are out of focus and they make a circular image which looks really effective on the cameras. We did this by getting Christmas lights and out of focusing them. This when editing it into the music video doesn’t require any syncing as we will just be adding these into the timeline as their own individual shots. Another thing after syncing is to add any extra audio/ sound bites for example in some films they have music playing softly in the background but they will also have either talking or sound effects over the top, this requires some minor syncing and also some patience. Once this is done you can then begin checking over parts of your work and making sure they are set out the way you would like them to be, it also helps to have another look at your story board and find out which parts go where and whether they are correctly positioned on your edit in comparison to your planning/story boards. Once you believe you are done you can then use this as a rough cut. Your rough cut is an edit in which you have placed the clips together and synced them so they look good, this is almost now to a professional standard. In order to get to a professional standard/ final cut you then need to begin adding any colour corrections you will need, so it helps to have another look through your work. Something important to remember when your are editing is to keep looking through your work and making sure everything is fine and that it looks good. An example of colour correction is if the video is to dark you could then possibly add a light tone to it and make it look lighter than it is so it matches colours with the other clips. Another thing you can do with colour correction is to add different effects on to your video clip, for example if you wanted it to look like an old film you could use the effect which allows you to make your video look old and worn, it also gives a moving effect on moving images and makes the video look noisy and grainy just like an old film. On my own editing software I use an effects builder called ‘The Red Giant Toolkit’ not the best to use and not the easiest but it allows me to use colour corrections through magic bullet something we also use on the macs editing software final cut pro. I have used magic bullet only a few times to correct some of my footage, and it allows you to be able to see the difference between your clips colours and improve on what you need to in order to make your work look professional.
Adding text to your work is also an option, another software compatible with editing on the macs is after effects this allows you to create a moving text image or any animation, it’s good to use when you are working on a title for your project as you can make it exactly how you want it to be. I used some after effects on my music video at college to see what it would look like with text in the corner like a professional music video. An example is when you are watching music videos on the television or YouTube there is usually a small title or heading in the far left bottom corner to introduce the music band and which song they are playing. This was what I was trying to create, I began looking at the different fonts and colours. I also looked into what animation I could use and how I could make it move, or fade in and fade out. Different techniques I used for this were key framing and effects. I then exported it and asked our director what she thought of my suggestion, she liked the idea and is thinking about using it for our final edit.
A few editing techniques you may also use to apply to your work are; Cutaways, An example of a cutaway can be when someone is sitting in an interview room and they are talking about flowers we will then use a shot of flowers to show the audience something rather than being boring for our audience. An example of when this is used is in a documentary, as I watch a lot of documentaries on war I sometimes notice how when the person is talking about a distressing subject such as the concentration camps they will usually cutaway to graphic images, this however is one approach and not all documentary makers want the audience to be distraught and sad. Another editing technique includes cutting tight, something which means the cut the video neatly together rather than having far too many cuts and making your editing work look un neat, messy and "cutty". One problem may occur within editing is the use of the same clip again this will cause your editing work to look amateur and un professional, in order to prevent this from happening you could mark each clip as you use them or as I prefer to do, put them in a separate folder so I know I have used that clip before and will not be at all tempted to use it again. This is a common mistake some people make, they may not realize it themselves at first but it can cause problems after they have exported there work and presented it to an audience who will then notice it.
One thing some editors do is use a split – screen, something I once used when I was working on a short film with a minor production company. The reason we used this technique was because we were using an open doors kind of scenario where there was a what-if situation. This however sounding like a really bad 80’s B-movie actually worked really well and looked really good.
A couple of techniques I like to use in my own editing are cutaways, I am a very big fan of using cutaways especially in documentaries as they help add a powerful effect. One documentary I worked on was based around a paranormal investigation inside a haunted farm house. I used many cutaways for our paranormal investigators tour around the house and also for parts of his interview, this gave the audience an idea of what room or situation he was talking about. I also liked the way it helped add an atmospheric feeling and this was what I wanted to go for, a desolate, atmospheric and spooky feeling. My ultimate goal for this was to make my audience feel a chill and to make them feel slightly spooked, and post – production editing was a great way to help with this feeling. We used many cold colours and dark undertones to help make it look cold as on the day we filmed it did in fact snow. One thing I also suggested was to add a quote, I knew from the beginning that I wanted to add this quote and I did this by using text on the final cut pro editing software so that it would be still and plain. I also used a repetitive video clip at the start and the beginning of the audience travelling down the lane in first person point of view, I liked this because it looked as though we were travelling into the house to find out its mysteries. Adjacent to the clip I then added the quote and used dramatic beats on time with each change of the clip. At the very end of the documentary I used the same clip from the lane but put it into reverse almost as if we had seen the houses mysteries and we were now being dragged away from the house. This is how I wanted my audience to feel whilst watching it.
In conclusion I believe that editing is a very important aspect of media and helps to put our work to a professional level and make our work look like a fantastic piece of art. Editing helps me to make my work look professional and also helps me to experiment with the way things look and how videos/ clips go together and what works best together.
