Editors journal
- 1. Editors Journal Alice Lupton 5AM Productions
- 2. Communication • Working with Minoli, the director, was very easy. As my role also included filming the shots it meant that when it came to editing we both knew what the narrative would be as we were both there to film it. This meant there wasn’t any miscommunication from shoot days to editing days. We communicated frequently and once I edited around 30 seconds I would show her to get feedback and then amend any changes she suggested.
- 3. Problems? • When I first put together the basic narrative, we realised that our initial idea of wanting to talk about the misconception of autism was not really that interesting as there was very little to say about it. This meant that when we watched back the footage we had to change the message we wanted to send to autism and the education system. In terms of editing it wasn’t that difficult as I just had to reposition certain interviews so the narrative made better sense of the new topic and told Minoli that reshoots of cutaways were needed.
- 4. Transitions • As I initially didn’t have much experience with editing, this was the first major project that I did edit on. This meant that I was unfamiliar with where a lot of the tools were but once they were pointed out to me, I used my initiative and trial and error to figure out what looked best. In terms of the transitions, a lot of jump cuts were used as this is what is audiences expect to see in documentaries, but I also used the ‘dissolve’ transitions on things like the lower thirds text boxes and titles.
- 5. Sound Levels • The initial sound levels we had were all different from each other, especially in the interviews we filmed. This was down to the areas we filmed in and the position of the tie-clip mic. However, these sound levels I found fairly easy to manipulate as all I had to do on some interviews in Final Cut Pro was double up the sound to make it louder, and when it came to the voiceover we pre-recorded, I lowered it significantly.
- 6. Need more shots? • We filmed a total of 6 interviews but decided we only needed to feature 5 different interviewees in the final production. This meant we knew we didn’t need any more interviews as we only had 5 minutes to cover and too many interviews and introducing too many different people in this short space of time would have been overwhelming. • However, when it came to cutaways, I noticed that the ones we filmed at the beginning had no relevance to our topic so these had to be re-filmed on a number of occasions, otherwise the narrative would have been totally lost.
- 7. Graphics • Minoli was in charge of the custom graphics, such as the section that talks about how 1 in 100 people have autism, as she said she had made gifs a lot in her spare time and she knew that graphics weren’t too different from these, so was confident in how to make them. The graphics she produced suited the narrative and it meant all I had to do was time it with the voiceover by speeding it up. • On the other hand, I was in charge of the graphics for the titles and lower thirds text boxes that introduce our interviewees. Once I had found suitable ones from Final Cut Pro itself, it was easy to copy them and edit them to fit each interviewee in terms of changing their name and job title.
- 8. Time management • I feel like I had good time management as Minoli and I would communicate when each of us would be on our main Mac computer where we were editing so that either I could sort out the narrative and basic graphics or so she could edit the sound and custom graphics. • We would work on editing through lessons, lunch times and even after school a couple of times a week, having a mental checklist of what had to be completed each week. For example, after the first week we wanted the basic narrative down, the next, the voiceover, then the graphics and cutaways, and then we sorted out the sound and edited the final graphics until everything ran smoothly.