It Felt Like A Kiss & Odessa Steps scene

For our next assessment we will need to use pace to get a good mark. We are going to be making a 4-5 minute Conspiracy film that needs to demonstrate a good pace. To help with this, we were shown some videos in Post Production Lecture which show pacing.

Adam Curtis - It Felt Like A Kiss - River Deep Montage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixPGcPxqDkg

This film is similar to what we are creating for our conspiracy theory edits. It's used completely of other peoples footage, it's used with a lot of historical footage. It has a good use of pace and this film uses juxtaposition to convey messages across to the viewer. The editing here is very fast pace and each cut looks very smooth because it's cut to motion, which helps the edit to look more professional. For example at 0:29 in this video the edit gets a faster pace but each clip looks like it flows well and it doesn't jump out at the viewer, the edit looks vey natural. It is important to note that every single shot has been cut to motion, cutting to motion is for editors because it's what creates pace and it adds to continuity.

For example, these two shots juxtapose because we are first shown what appears to be an interview where a political figure could be telling lies, and this shot cuts to a gun being loaded. Cutting to the shot of a gun shows that there is danger in the world.

Another example of Juxtaposition in this film, we are shown a shadowed figure hiding behind the door of an elevator and the shot cuts to a Policeman with his hand up as if he is telling someone to leave or not take pictures. I think that these two images show how things go on in the world behind our backs and when we question it we are refused to be told anything.

In this edit Adam Curtis is showing different events all at once and he cuts to clips which show things which aren't very nice to say something about the world. In my opinion I think he is trying to say how the world is corrupt, and he is trying to express what it would be like to see everything that goes on in the world including the bad parts. Below are some images of clips that stood out to me.

We are shown a cut of a chalk outline of a body, someone placing a gun into a drawer, a hospital stretcher. Armed soldiers wearing gasmasks and a nuclear denotation, all these shots are very historical today. As we can see from these images, they are all negative. The quick cuts of this video really give the impression that there is so many bad things going on, but we just don't notice them. By only showing the viewer negative images they become convinced that there is bad things going on in the world.

Looking into films like this will be important for starting our Conspiracy Theory Edit. We have been asked to create a 4-5 minute film focusing on a conspiracy theory and we need to use editing to make the argument convincing.

Battleship Potempkin - Odessa Steps scene (Einsenstein 1925) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps-v-kZzfec

We saw this scene in Post Production lecture and it was useful to see because of it's historical importance and this scene has had a huge influence on film today. At it's time, this would have been a huge advancement in film technology.

Here is an example of two images which juxtapose in this film, first we see the baby's carriage roll down the steps and the next shot is of the solider walking down the steps in unison. The baby's carriage represents fragility and fear, but the soldiers represent the opposite and they represent fear and danger. I find that it's quite interesting what Sergei Einstein has done with this film.

By looking at this film, this has helped me to further understand Juxtaposition. I will need use Juxtaposition in our Conspiracy theory edit.

Editing Scene 37

We were given another task in Post Production tutorial, first we had to edit scene 34 and now we have been given scene 37 from the same film. This time the video was more difficult to edit because it had some more problems with the footage.

Link to my edit - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLtDxZUyGSM&feature=youtu.be

In this clips a lot of the actors lines changed during every take, from this I have learnt that something simple as a word changes in the clip it can make the scene difficult for an editor. It can become difficult to join lines together from two different clips because the actor's line was spoken differently. In this scene there was more characters and movement to scene 34, scene 34 was particularly easy to edit because the characters were sat down. In these scene the characters move around a lot more which creates more of an obstacle as an editor.

For example, one problem at 1:06 was when she turns behind her to look at the woman. This was difficult to sync up because there were other takes of an extreme close up as she turns around, I found it hard to decide what shot to use in the end.

This shot was also another problem because his face was blocked and we can only see the half of his face. Although this is a problem in the production stage, it could have been fixed by using a different take.

Another issue was audio levels. The audio levels during this hard to keep consistent, and in future I know that I will have to get the use of managing audio levels. Having someone else to listen to the audio mix is useful as I can get a second opinion on how it feels to them.

Editing this scene was good practice because of how each shot was different, it was good to try and solve the problems in the footage and follow the script. As an editor these are common problems which you would need to face so this project was good practice.

Top and tail editing

In Post Production tutorial we recently learnt a new technique for editing in Avid called Top and Tail editing, this technique can be used to cut down footage on the timeline and it is a quicker method of editing. Instead of using I and O for in and out points, you can assign Top and Tail to the buttons E and R to make the editing process more quick and efficient. This is useful for when you are working against the clock.

When you first load Avid, the keyboard will be set to have in and out points on the buttons to E,R and I and O. I and O are the most useful for in and out points. The keyboard can be mapped to any setting by using the Command Palette.

Above is an image of the Command Palette with the keyboard. As we can see in the command palette there is lots of options for different settings in Avid, and each can be dragged and dropped to a button on your keyboard.

 

With E and R set to top and tail, you can cut clips in the timeline just like when you cut the in and out points. The only difference is that your edit goes straight into the timeline so you need to be careful of what you change as it is easy to make a mistake and change clips in the timeline.

 

One problem I found with Avid was that it's not so simple to move footage in the timeline, in Adobe Premier you can easily move footage with no trouble but in Avid it's not so easy. I can understand why Avid has done this, this makes it harder to make any mistakes. Top and tail editing makes it easier to change the timeline instead of going back and changing the in and out points on a clip.

Conspiracy Theory Edit

For our Post Production assessment we had to make a 4-5 minute film about a conspiracy theory just by using other people's clips.. The video needs to demonstrate pace, a convincing argument, and good audio mix. We had the option to work with another student on this project, so I had worked with Jordan Griffin. The conspiracy theory we chose create our video about was Water Fluoridation.

Link to finished edit - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4D98NBr2wHY

Research: 

To begin this project, we had to do some research into Water Fluoridation. We have looked at many different sources such as articles and news reports to help us gain a better understand of what Water Fluoridation is.  From what I learnt Fluoride is a chemical which is put into water supplies across the world because it has benefits for dental hygiene. People believe that Fluoride is a deadly chemical which has serious affects on people, like Dental Fluorosis, bone damage, cancer, and damage to many tissues in your body and brain such as the Pineal Gland and the Thyroid Gland.

To get a convincing argument across, we need to show more than just the negative health affects of Fluoride. We need to show how it can benefit people as well because it is well known for helping people's dental hygiene. We need to tell the audience that Fluoride has a benefit but that benefit comes with a price. If we did not show the negative side of Water Fluoridation the audience would not be convinced that it is bad.

Something we need to consider on this assessment is how music and footage can affect the viewer. Juxtaposition will also needed to be used in this edit, it is important because of how that can affect the viewer. I will be showing some examples of juxtaposition in this blog further down.

Editing:

Above is a screen shot of the project selection in Avid, to show how we have been managing our data on this assignment. I have our footage saved to an external hard drive and I will be saving the project file onto a hard drive so we are able to transport footage.

One problem we had encountered was that since we started this project on a Windows PC, it would not open on a Mac. We could only continue our edit on Windows PC.

Above is a screen shot of our progress on our first edit of the film. In this edit, we had many clips which had relevant audio but the audio to these clips wasn't very good for our film. For example, we had one clip which focused on the importance of water and the subject of it was good, but the audio had birds chirping in the background which was very distracting for our the viewer. We have decided not to use this clip in our final edit.

For our final video we are going to use a clip from the film Dr Strangelove (1964) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr2bSL5VQgM

We think this clip will be more effective at introducing water fluoride because it begins to explain how it can be toxic for humans.  After this clip we can cut to the news reports and begin to bring the argument across.

As we can see on the sequence, a lot of the audio volumes had to be lowered so we could hear both the video audio and the music in the background. We will be doing this again with the second edit.

Above again is a screen shot showing our progress so far on the second edit. In the first minute of the video, we want to tell the audience about the importance of water. We want to tell the audience this so they are reminded about how vital water is, then when we come to show the clips about water fluoridation the audience will know that according to this conspiracy water isn't safe anymore.

To create Juxtaposition in our edit, we are going to show both human uses for water and natural uses of water.

Above is an example of two shots from the edit. One shot shows machinery from a water treatment plant, and the next shot is of a natural waterfall. I thought that these two shots juxtapose together because they are opposite yet similar images.

Above is another example from the edit, the first shot of the video shows someone writing down about the importance of water. The text describes how water is essential for all life on earth, and the next shot that it cuts to is of an Elephant drinking water. I felt that these two images juxtapose together will because it shows how it's needed for life to continue. Since the Elephant is known to be a hunted species it represents how life is fragile and water is needed for everything.

Creating a good audio mix is something I have found quite difficult, as I have been adding key frames to audio to help dialogue be heard over the music it's hard to keep the music at a consistent level.

Above is our finished timeline, our finished edit was 4:45 (Not including title & bibliography) and the limit for the assignment was 5:00 edit.

There a lot of new things I have done in Avid on this assignment, one example of this is creating titles. Before this, I hadn't used the title tool in Avid so I was not sure of how to use it. We needed to create titles so that we could show all the sources we used to create the video. Overall I found that it was quite simple to use but it was quite difficult to figure out how it fit in the timeline.


Feedback:

For this assignment we asked some of our classmates for their opinion on the final cut of the video.

"I think it's really good and it does get the argument across. I would fix the audio so it isn't so loud because at parts it really jumped at me." - Michael Connell

Reflection:

Since starting this project I think I have gotten to know the basics of Avid a lot more, because in the first few weeks of University I haven't been getting into Avid and I have found it difficult. Doing my rough cut of the film really helped me out with getting to know Avid.

I think that our final video had some issues. I don't think the sound mix was quite good, listening back to it parts sound louder than others and sometimes it feels like it's a little too loud for the audience. From this I have learnt to take more care with audio mixing in future and it has taught me to get other people to listen to my audio mix to see if it's okay for other people to hear.

I feel like our final edit did get the argument across, we used a mix of relevant dialogue from Dr Strangelove (1964) and various news reports found on YouTube. Using this clip helped make the video seem more emotive because it blended will with the background music we had used.

From this project, in future I need to know that I will have to be careful with how I manage my data. During the rough cut I had lost a minute of my edit because Avid crashed and I had forgotten to save the project. Although a minute of the edit doesn't seem like much that minute took almost an hour and a half to edit. This will teach me to keep saving projects regularly in future. Also this has made me realize the importance of creating back ups so if my computer were to crash, I would have an extra copy of my work in case I lost the original.

Colour Grading in Avid

Today in Post Production tutorial we looked at colour grading in Avid, before this tutorial colour grading was quite a new subject to me and I wasn't sure of how it can be used. I have used colour grading in previous work in college but I did not use it correctly. After this tutorial I feel I have a better understanding of how to use colour grading.

The above image shows a still from one of the clips I was colour grading, and the before and after is visible on screen. As we can see the original look of the shot was very blue and it looked flat, but colour grading makes the footage look like it has more depth and it looks like the colours are more realistic for our eyes.

Something new I have also learnt from this lecture is the legal limits for material that is going to be broadcast. This legal limit can be shown above in the Y Waveform image. For example if the Luma is adjusted incorrectly, the green wave form will be in the red boxes appearing as a white waveform. This is not correct for broadcast material.

This legal limit can be controlled in the HSL controls and it will prevent it peaking into the white waveform.

Before you can edit the colours in the footage, you will need to change the luma adjust so that shadows are black and the shot appears brighter. This will make the footage look like it has a more depth and it will prevent the image from looking flat. Gain is the highlights, Gamma is the midtones, and setup is the shadows. Each of these are essential for beginning the colour grading process.

 

To adjust the colour of shots either a colour wheel or curves can be used. The way colour works in video is by opposites, for example if a shot had a lot of blue where it was meant to be white you would need to add more yellow to the shot to remove blueness. By white balancing the camera during production, the colour grading process can often be a lot easier because the camera will pick up white better.

Personally, I found it easier to use the colour wheels than the curves. I found that colour wheels had more control over the different tones where as curves were harder to control. I think that most people would find curves to be the easiest option because they show colour opposites to make colour correction easier.

Below are some shots which I colour corrected, showing the before and after on screen.

Editing Multi-Camera Footage

In Post Production Tutorial we have been looking at editing multi-camera footage in Avid, this was my first time editing multi-camera in Avid and I found it difficult at first but eventually I managed to understand the technique. Personally I found editing this video would be easier than using a vision mixer to cut between shots because it allows you to correct any mistakes in the post production stage.

To start this process, you need to find a sync point in each of your clips. Finding a sync point allows your footage to be synced up and you can cut between shots with ease.

By enabling the quad split in Avid's command pallet, you can group up to 4 different camera feeds in the preview screen. By using the quad split you are able to group all the clips together by the chosen sync point so it will all play together correctly.

After that is done, multi-camera mode needs to be enabled so you can edit your footage in a vision mixer style. The shortcut for multi-camera mode is shift-control-m. When you play your sequence, you can chose from the 4 different camera feeds in the quad split by selecting them, selecting a camera feed will edit the clip into your sequence. By doing this you can save time instead of cutting between four camera feeds in one timeline, and it can save a lot of confusion by using just one video track instead of four.

This editing technique would be useful for editing from Gaucho our scene for Production Technology, to film the scene we used 2 cameras so it is a multi-camera shoot.
Our previous edit of this scene had audio issues which wouldn't allow us to sync the audio, also acting mistakes caused problems for the continuity. Now that I have learnt multi-camera editing, I feel more prepared for our reshoot and I feel more confident that we can edit it correctly this time.

Editing our practice Gaucho scene

For our Production Technology Module we have been put into groups and we were asked to each from a scene from a theatre script called Gaucho. In our groups, we had to film and edit a practice run of our scene. This was filmed as a multi-camera production.

Link to edit - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN4hJDnY5HA

We edited our scene in Avid because we will need to edit the scene in Avid when we edit the final cut, we didn't have any big problems with editing the scene in Avid and the edit went smoothly. One issue with our edit was clips were cut too short just by a few seconds accidently, and the edit had a unnatural fast pace because our edit was quite rushed. In future, this has taught me not to rush my edits because it will affect my finished project in some way, and it has taught me to check if I am cutting clips accurately before placing them into the timeline. It was difficult to sync the audio up because we only used one boom mic and two cameras on the production, so the audio was not consistent.

Soon we will be reshooting this practice scene and creating another edit, so with what I have learnt from this edit I will apply it to my next edit.