Post-production: Editing
When we talk editing, what do we mean? Well Editing is used in the media all the time after a certain project is finished but when it comes to TV and film it is done after you are finished filming and you want to cut together your what you’ve filmed so that you can tell a story but not just that it is also used to make your product look as good as you can and add things that you couldn’t when filming (such as CGI or green screen). In the end we hope that it looks amazing and its looks exactly how it did when we pictured it in our heads.
In the years I’ve been attending college I have done a lot of editing on a lot of different things whether they be Corrupt videos, Documentaries, Adverts, Trailers, Music videos, Boxing matches etc. and one thing that I always forget is that it is never as straight forward as a lot of people might think, it isn’t just uploading clips putting them in a certain order and going home, there is a lot more that has to be done. When you’re editing something with music over it you have to get the clips just in time with the music to avoid it looking slap dash, or if you’re editing a match of some kind (as well as certain other things) you have to cut to other angles to keep the audience’s attention.
But how does it work? Well after you film the card that you have filmed with must be transcoded from an H.264 into an AppleProcess 422 file type otherwise you will run into problems such as the computer slowing down or even crashing. When transcoding you must also have 25fp, your frame size must be 1920 x1080 and your quality must be changed to 100%. Before you do that you must create a folder for the footage in capture stretch, so that you know where your new footage is and so you don’t get confused between that and your old one.
Once you have uploaded the transcoded clips into your folder you should then go on to Final Cut Pro where you start to edit. Once you import the clips you should then re-name the clips into type of shot, INT or EXT and whether or not it’s a good shot, for example “INT Café scene, over the shoulder shot, good take” this lets me know that I want to use this clip as it’s the best clip for editing and if nothing else it makes your life easier for when you want to come back to that clip. Most times there would be two or three clips of then same scene so you would have to call it that again for example “INT Café scene, over the shoulder shot, good take, 2”.
Once you have the clips named and there in the right format you can then proceed to edit. Depending what type of footage you are editing you will approach it differently, for example if you’re editing a story that you made, you can look at the different clips see what works best and what doesn’t. Once you have looked through the clips and named to find out you can use and what you can’t, the actual edit can begin. But if you’re editing something like a boxing match you don’t have that luxury you have to work with whatever you are given. Like with the other clips you need to look through the boxing match from different angles and see what looks the best, usually if you have a camera looking down on the match you only want to use that to establish the shot and/or only if the close up cameras are out of focus or a referee or someone else is in shot of all the cameras. The reason you want to edit it that way is because you want the audience to feel like they are in the fight.
When you’re editing you always start out by doing a rough cut first because after you think you’ve finished your work you may want to go back to look over it and see that it’s not quite what you had in mind and see how it what can be done to improve. Usually a rough cut is changed because the person in charge doesn’t like the edit either that or it’s too long. To make your final cut look more professional some scenes are either changed or moved so it fits better than it did in the rough cut. With professional films the director would often sit down with the editor and go through the rough cut while changing what needs to be changed.
Once you are happy with what you have edited you might then wish to colour correct it, for that you would have to go on Three-Way Colour Correction. Colour correction is basically what it sounds like, it’s changing the colour or the contrast of your piece for example if you’ve done an urban film but everything is really bright and it wouldn’t have the feel you want it to so you can go onto colour correction and give a grey tint to give a rough and gritty feel or if you’ve done a romantic comedy you might want to make everything bright and add a red tint to give it a romantic and happy vibe to it. However Colour correction should only be done at the very end because if you go and back and change your edit in any way even so much as move one of your clips then what you have changed on that clip (colour correction wise) will be changed back to how it was before you Colour Corrected it.
Editing is most defiantly the most important thing about media especially TV and film, without editing there is no piece and once you’ve done all of everything I’ve have mentioned and your edit is completed, hopefully its turns out be what you were picturing as well as turns out to be a master piece.