Editing Visuals
Edit List
After my Principal Photography 2 days I made an Edit List of all my video and audio clips. I included if it was Day 1 or Day 2 of the shoot, the name of the file, the size and length. I also kept separate lists for Day 1 and Day 2 because some of the original file names were duplicated. I checked that I had the key shots that I needed.
As I also discuss in the Editing Audio Section, I then went through and renamed all my clips to more informative names. At the start of each name, I also put the number order they had been filmed in, since I find that is useful for finding certain clips. This took a long time to do but saved loads of time trying to locate particular shots when I was editing.
Proxy Files
I made Proxy Files to speed up editing. I had not done this before, but my research had shown me that it would be particularly helpful this time because I am editing 4K footage and so the files are large. It took me a few goes to get the process right, but I was able to then talk the others in my group through how to do it, so I am happy that I now understand how to do it. One of the videos I watched to learn how to make Proxy files said that if you are only going to need one day editing then it is not worth the time that it takes to set up proxy files. They were right about the time, it took ages. But I do have a lot of footage.
Editing
I then started putting my edit together. I started as usual with the visuals, and as I chose each clip, I found the matching audio (easily because I had matched their names) and synced them up. Having a “clap” sound at the start really helps with this and is a time-saving process that I have learnt from this course. Going forward, I would like to get my own clapper board so that I can write down the all the details of the shot as well, but a “Clap” worked well this time.
Some Key Visual Edits
Horizontally flipping Opening shot of Sam P and Sam F1’s feet walking past with opening titles
I horizontally flipped the initial shots of Sam P and Sam F1’s feet walking past. The original slider shots were right to left, and in horizontally flipping them they walked left to right. I horizontally flipped them because of the 180-degree rule, where if you cross the line of where a person is, the audience will get confused and, in the case of walking, they will think that your character has changed direction. I knew that the next shot needed to be Sam taking his phone out to receive the text from Alex, and if I had horizontally flipped that shot then Sam would have been holding his phone in the wrong hand, and his hair would have been on the wrong side. I had a non-slider version of the feet going from left to right, but I prefer the slider version, I feel it is a stronger opening. Because you only see feet, it is not obvious that the shot is horizontally flipped.
Horizontally flipping and cropping Sam P’s head
However, making this decision about the direction that Sam P is walking in in the first shot meant that the shot after the texting shot also needed to be mirror-flipped because Sam P is walking in the wrong direction. The problem with that one is that it shows Sam P’s hair, and it is obvious that it has been mirror-flipped, especially because he has a rather obvious pink streak at the front of his hair. It would have been obvious anyway since you could see his head, but the pink streak clinched it. That shot had to stay the “correct” way round. I experimented, and decided that, although it was not my ideal, cropping the shot to only show Sam P’s body, from knees to neck, kept it consistent. Being able to crop like this without losing quality is an advantage of why I chose to film in 4K and export in 1080p.
Fortunately, a few of shots later, I have a shot of Sam P being followed by Sam F1, which I created by cropping and masking 2 separate shots of Jack as Sam P and as Sam F1. Since I do not want to reveal Sam F1’s face yet, I have also edited this shot to show both Sam’s from the knees to their necks, so actually, the editing choice I made to crop the Sam P walking shot after the texting shot ties in nicely.
180-degree rule
Also, although the 2 shots that I have just discussed involve Sam walking in opposite directions, this does not violate the 180-degree rule because I knew that I was putting a shot of Sam P walking towards the camera, then off to the left in between them. This means that the audience gets to see Sam P’s change in direction, and so they are not confused by the following shot of him now walking right to left.
Also, you can see from these shots that the path that Sam P walks into the shot from comes round from the left, so is consistent with the direction that Sam P was walking in in the previous shot.
Mask around Text Message Bubbles
Where the Text Message Bubbles appear, there is a slight purple tone that appears on Sam and the trees by him. I believe this is due to the export, from After Effects, of the Text Message Bubbles and their movements. To solve this problem, I made a rough mask around the Text Message Bubbles so that the only area from the exported Text Message Bubbles footage is the area immediately around the Text message Bubbles.
The exported screen behind the text bubbles is supposed to be transparent but it appears it ends up with a slight purple tinge. I chose to mask as a solution because it means that it now doesn’t matter so much what the background of the text bubbles is. It was only very slight anyway, and you can’t see it around the actual text bubbles. Maybe I didn’t need to do this, maybe it wasn’t too noticeable, but I noticed it, and being a bit of a perfectionist I didn’t want to leave it.
Cropping out Sam F1’s shoes
The shot after the “Anna played by Ellie Simpson” credit has Sam P walking past the bent tree, then Sam F1 following the other side. I have edited it, so you see both Sam’s (both played by Jack) on screen at the same time.
Originally this was a long shot. But I noticed that Sam F1 has the wrong shoes on, he has Sam P’s shoes on. In order that this is not seen, I cropped the shot so that you don’t see as much of Sam F1, particularly not his feet. Again, an advantage of filming in 4K and exporting in 1080p is that I can do this without losing resolution.
I also cut the shot just before you see Sam F1’s face at the end. You see an extremely short hint of Sam F1’s face as he enters the shot but only a glimpse, since I don’t want him to be seen properly until the “Spinning Panning round Reveal” shot where Sam F1 says “You have me mistaken my friend”. I cropped and masked it with a shot that I filmed of Sam P walking off screen.
I also matched that shot of Sam P walking off screen roughly to the previous long shot of Sam P walking off screen past the bent tree in the Anna credits shot.
Fixing the leaves moving due to wipe
In the shot below, just after the “Jack (Quest) Harper As Sam” swinging title shot, I noticed that as Sam P walks past, before Sam F1 walks past, you can see some leaves moving with the wipe, whereas I obviously don’t want this transition to be obvious since it is suppose do look like it is all one shot.
To solve this problem, I changed the wipe to a fade, and this fixed it.
Masking Sam P behind the thin tree in the “Scooby Doo” shots
I call the 4 shots where Sam P hides behind 4 different trees and peers out to see who might be following him the “Scooby Doo” shots, since it’s the kind of thing that happens in the Scooby Doo cartoons, where the characters run behind one tree and then appear behind another when they are in a comedic chase.
For the “Scooby Doo” thin tree, I used a mask to hide the part of Sam P that was sticking out on the right-hand side since the joke is that he is hiding behind that tree despite it actually being too thin to actually hide him, but it does hide him.
This edit creates a comedic effect due to Benign violation – not in the sense of someone getting hurt, but in violation of the Physics of a person not being able to hide behind a tree that is thinner than they are.
When Sam was behind the Scooby tree on left, his elbow was originally sticking out to the left. I again used masking and cropping. I also was concerned because there were some issues with shadows and leaves moving around this part. I considered using a quick slight fade (with the elbow in) to hide the difference in the shadows and the fact that the thin branch with a leaf on is moving, vs starting the clip after the elbow is hidden (for the 2nd time) but that gives shadows and branch moving issues.
I then realised that I had a later version of the shot with the camera in the same place, that didn’t have the same shadows and moving issues, and I was able to use that for a mask. I was also able to use fades in certain places to hide the fact that the sun came in and out throughout the long shot that I filmed as Jack walked between each tree, Cutting the walking out highlighted the sun and shadows changes, so I am pleased with how I managed to hide that. When I showed that part to my Mum, she said “you were lucky the sun didn’t change during those shots”, so I showed her the original footage and she was amazed that I’d managed to hide it. Result!
Stabilising the “Spinning Panning round reveal ” shot of Sam F1.
This has been a challenging shot to edit. It is one of the main shots that I had hoped I could use the Laing P-4s Stabilizer for, and I did some Practical Research into this piece of equipment by borrowing it from College over Easter (see Research Section for details). Unfortunately, my conclusion from that research was that it wouldn’t work. I shot ii the best way I could. I had practised a lot beforehand, and I did as many shots as I had time for. But it was still jolty. I used warp stabilisation, as I have done in many shots, and this helped immensely. However, I still didn’t like it. Having got this far with it, I asked Nick (tutor) for some advice. He quite liked the way it was fast for a bit, then there was a slow bit, then fast again, slow again. He showed me the following clip from Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) where there is fast footage as they run, then every so often there is a slow-motion bit like at 0:18, 0:23 and 0:27. Nick (tutor) likes this effect, and I did too. Also, I have filmed at 50fps because I had anticipated some possible slow motion, so I was able to slow the slower bits down a touch more, to give it more of the effect that Nick (tutor) had shown me. I think this now works well.
“Twin” shots
I have a number of shots with Jack in twice. I have mentioned one already above, which happens just after the Anna credits shot. I had an idea how to do these shots with 2 Sam’s in, but my research was helpful too. I filmed 2 shots, one with each Sam in. I then edited most of them in the same way, by masking and cropping then putting one on top of the other. Some of them were tricker than others because they also include movement, like when I pan up the side of Sam’s coat, and I pan when Sam F3 and Sam P are talking to each other on screen. I took lots of shots to be able to have options when syncing them up.
Sam/Anna Leaving
These shots were quite simple to edit, I just had to make sure to film enough footage after I had asked Jack /Ellie to walk off screen.
Back to the first 2 Opening Credits
As I was going back over my edit tidying it up (which I did many times), every time that I played the first shot, with the feet walking past and revealing/deleting the credits words, I kept noticing that the moving text of the words was jittery as it moved across the screen. I decided to try the 3-D Camera tracker that I had figured out (with the help of YouTube and some problem solving) how to use for the moving Text Message Bubbles, to see if I could smooth the movement of the words of the first 2 credit. I am pleased that it worked well. This is another skill that I have added to my existing abilities and I am looking forward to experimenting even more with After Effects after my FMP project too.
Pacing
After I had my first draft edit, I went back over it several time, trimming wherever I could and cutting out some shots entirely, to improve the pacing of the edit. This was a key area that I asked for, and got, feedback.
My research showed me how important pacing is in Comedy. That is as true for shots in a film, pace of delivery of dialogue in a film, for a stand-up comedian, or even just telling a friend a joke.
This feedback about the pace was helpful, and I used it to improve my pacing, and hence improve the comedic feel. I also mention pacing in my Audio Editing section, as I added some J-cuts, L-cuts and added reaction shots during longer pieces of dialogue. These all help keep the pacing tight, and thus improve the comedy.
Lingering
There are a few points where I deliberately linger, generally after a faster paced sequence, like when we see a long shot of Sam P looking down at the stick. He is contemplating everything that is happening and wondering what to do, as I think we all would be doing after this kind of interaction. So, I felt that my audience would relate to this. Also, I know from my research on using edit and shots to tell your story (not just dialogue and acting) that you need to give your audience the chance to breath every now and then, and a little bit of time to digest the implications of what they have seen happening in your narrative.
Warp Stabilisation
I used warp stabilisation a lot for editing visuals, it is a great tool. It is an element in Adobe Premier Pro that I haven’t really made use of before, but I certainly will from here on. When any one of my 90% Bloopers were asking each other for feedback and suggestion about how to fix “janky” movement, the first thing that any of us said was “Warp Stabilisation”.