EVALUATION

Technical:

This was the first time for me to use avid and I have heard of rumours (good and bad) about it. At start, it was slow for me because I was still figuring out where the all features were and this took some time.

One thing I liked at the start of using avid was that there was no rendering involved and I was relieved. This is because when it imports the clips, it converts them to an MXF file which is a powerful and flexible file format. It allows you to do any effects and play them in real time, which doesn't reduce your momentum when editing.

I had a hard time figuring out the shortcuts as I thought they might be similar to the ones in Adobe Premiere Pro. The is a keyboard (image below) that avid has which shows you all the shortcuts. This was very helpful to know as it made me edit the clips at a much faster pace.

Chris Hall also mentioned about an actual avid keyboard which shows all the default shortcuts on it. This keyboard is available on amazon for £59.99 which is useful to new editors who are learning to use the software but not essential. I wont buy one now but I am considering for future purpose if I continue to use avid.

The only thing I need to improve is exporting. Every time I export a clip and convert it in mpeg stream-clip, something unexpected happens. Its either the video quality goes down or it comes out as a letter box. The best way to get better at it, is to try exporting as many times until I get it right.

These are the settings I have been using to export the files but the results are sometimes different. Mostly the saturation is reduced which has made it hard to colour correct. If I had to guess, it might have to do with the data rate and I might be compressing the clip too much.

I can safely say that my skills in using this software have improved and I'm confident enough to sit in front of it in the professional world and not get lost.

Creative:

The one thing I struggled with the most on the three tasks was creating a story, establishing a character and pacing. These three elements work together because the pace influences the character and the character is what makes the story. Reading the book 'In The Blink Of an Eye' was very helpful as Walter Murch talks about the rule of six and how important these rules are.

1. Emotion                                                51%
2. Story                                                     23%
3. Rhythm                                                 10%
4. Eye-trace                                                7%
5. Two-dimensional plane of screen          5%
6. Three-dimensional space of action        4%

From reading about these rules, the one rule that had the most effect on my editing was rhythm. My rough cuts were lacking in momentum and rhythm. The question was then how do I create rhythm. Its all about the performance of the character and how they move within the frame of the film.  

The book '100 Ideas That Change Film' talks about continuity editing and how F.W. Murnau and G.W. Pabst perfected this by cutting on movement. Cutting on movement makes the cuts smooth and when done correctly, the audience will barely notice it. 

I started to apply this technique in Flatline and OOD and saw a big change. At first I was making a few mistakes where the performance wouldn't match the next shot by a few frames. This made the shots jump and made you aware that something is not right. The more scenes I edit, the more fluid the shots became. I used the same concept for my drama and was able to create something wonderful. 

I'm not 100% there yet but would like to have more time to cut more scenes because I believe the most crucial rule in any film is emotion and without it, a film is not worth watching. And Murch also emphasises on emotion being the top rule that takes 51% of the entire film.  I feel that I wasn't able to create a sense of emotion with the characters especially in the documentary edit. Documentary is all about the character and that was my weakest point. I failed to establish Addie as a character and would have liked to have more time to work more on him. For the comedy & drama its all about acting and if the performance is weak, it might be difficult to create emotion but it's still possible to create a story. 

From my point, I think if we had started to edit the drama, then comedy and finish with the documentary, that would have been better. Because I learnt a lot from editing the drama and comedy and given more time, I'm confident I would be able to produce something better for the documentary. 

Collaboration:

For this project I worked with Sebastian Wray. As a team we worked well with no conflicts or any misunderstandings. I really enjoyed bouncing ideas with him and working with someone who has a different perspective when it comes to editing was interesting. I was able to learn from him how to communicate your ideas and listen to he's ideas as well. Not all my ideas are great but two heads are better than one. I believe that as a team we were able to edit something creative within the time limit we had.

The only negative aspect I found out about working in pairs was reliability. There were times when I was free and he wasn't available to do the edit with me and sometimes the roles were reversed. To a certain point, I'm a faster editor than Sebastian but that does not mean I'm the best. He likes taking his time to get a full sense of everything where as I like trying a lot of things as fast as I can. I found this to slow me down because when I expected to receive half of the edit to combine to mine, he wouldn't be ready with his. It felt like a set back but allowed me to revisit my edit and do any additional corrections that needed to be done.

Through doing professional context, In the professional world there are times when editors come together to collaborate on certain projects and having done it for the first two task was good. It has given me a heads up of what to expect and how to treat the other person I'm working with. For example:

• Not to dismiss someone else's ideas
• Listen and communicate your ideas across in a non offensive way 
• Respect each other's style of editing
• Don't try to dominate the other person as if you were better than them

I really enjoyed working with him and if we had to redo the project again, I would be happy to work with him again and in future projects. 

ALL THE FILMS WE EDITED

Documentary : https://vimeo.com/126598294

Drama : https://vimeo.com/126598293

Comedy : https://vimeo.com/126598295

OUT OF DATE

Out of date is an interesting comedy with moments that are a bit funny and the very first comedy I have edited. I have watched all the scenes and I'm editing the scene where Alf gets ready to for his date. The reason why I chose this scene is because it relates to the name of the film (Out Of Date) and also the scene I wanted to do had a missing codec. 

I believe, I was able to create a clear narrative of what's happening and establish the relationship between the characters with the footage I had. 

I wasn't able to establish the female character (left side in the image above) because all the close up shots she's in are out of focus but I used her voice over in certain moments within the scene. For example when she makes a joke of his 70's shoes and I show Alf's reaction towards it (image below). 

With Alf, I mostly used close up's to show his emotional reaction as his not keen on going to this date and the other male character is his side kick trying to cheer him and have a laugh. 

I'm not happy about the ending scene because there's only one angle and there's not much in terms of creativity you can do with one angle. 

I haven't done much in terms of sound design. This is because I'm not very skilled at choosing funny sounds for comedies. Different comedies have different sounds to suggest the genre and mood.

100 IDEAS THAT CHANGED FILM

This is a very good book and  would recommend it to everyone doing editing on my course. Its got the brief information on aspects of filming, from pre-production to post-production. 

I mostly wread the chapter on editing and how F.W. Murnau and G.W. Pabst revolutionised the editing world. They changed the way of editing by cutting on movement to create continuity and make the visualise flow. This has influenced to do the same for my drama and comedy edits.

From reading this chapter, I have learned how to cover my tracks. If the cuts are not smooth, the audience would be able to tell and won't be interesting to watch. This is how you can cover those tracks and make the edit smooth.

Reference

FLATLINE

Flatline is interesting drama but not the best. Me and Sebastian approached it with a harsh point of view which was to portray the life of the protagonist as a hard life. Sebastian edited the beginning and I'm doing from the hospital scene up to the end. From the start of the clip, his having flashbacks of an incident to happen and the reality of his job.

In this scene I'm introducing them as Alex and Mike. Mike is to support Alex in his troubles.

With the Doctor I showed how rude and harsh they are towards paramedics and from its all down hill for Alex. 

 His not sleeping well and is trouble by his everyday job. We did not include the drunk guys scene because it was unnecessary for our story.

I'm not happy in the way this scene is cut. Its mostly because of the way it was blocked and I don't have much to go around with, which is a challenge. 

Mike as the supporting character is there to help him up and keep him strong in the journey ahead. 

 In the end he realises that this is his life and job and there is no happy ending. This is the point me and Seb are trying to get across and believe we have achieved this.

AVID MEDIA COMPOSER

This is my first time using avid and I'm not liking cause everything is new to me. Change is good but it isn't fun. Before this I have been using Adobe Premiere Pro have taught myself how to use it. With avid its a bit different and I need the help to locate certain features. 

This is the rough outline of what avid looks like. You can customize it differently but this way is better. Its almost similar to Premiere Pro where you have your timeline, two windows for viewing the windows and folders (Bins) where you import files into. Importing files into avid can be time consuming but worth it because it doesn't render as it converts the files to an MXF format which is better to use. 

This is the smart tool you will be mostly using. Fromt he top you the main four tools you will use which are segment mode (lift/overwrite), segment mode (extract/splice), overwrite trim and ripple trim. I'm still playing around with them seeing what works well. 

AVID & EFFECTS

Below are some of the effects I have done in Avid.

Most of the shots we wanted to use had camera shake. This is the stabilising effect and It confused me at first but I got my head around it. It's not the best but does the job to reduce most of the camera shakes.

Fading in and out the audio was very important. It helped smoothen out the dialogue. I did a bit of key framing but mostly used this effect thought most of my clips. 

Some scenes were louder than the others and I used the DB meter to reduce the levels of the volume down or increase it. I could have used the volume but I preferre using this tool