Editing

Syncing up footage and sound

The first thing that I did with my sound in Post was add Gain. I did this because when I was recording sound to the tascam, it only recorded to the left or right channel (different ones with different interviews) and therefore the sound decibels were quite quiet, so I upped them all to around 16db, which meant they played back at around 6db.

Once I synced up the clips I would then export with these settings:

As you can see I repeated this for all of the interviews at each angle used (if more than one).

For some of the interviews, I synced them with the clap. This is what happens when you tell the actor/interviewee to clap (when everything is rolling) before you film, this makes it easier if you are using external sound recording devices because the sound collating with the image is easier to sync up and get right rather than doing it with speech because everyone moves their mouth differently so it could be hard to decipher this.

Melvyn Sync, clapped

You can see that all the setting's that I exported all the syncing footage with sound are of the same, so they will still match in my real editing sequence.

Full Edit

I set up a new project to have everything more organised and no temporary files on it when doing the full edit rather than carrying on from Syncing, you can see the settings used and the pathway here:

Once the sequence was ready, I had to import all my footage into separate 'bins'.

The next image you will see what I had for my 'bins' and how I sorted them out and made sure they were separate. The reason for doing this is the make the sequence more tidy, I would know where everything was and this meant that I could get to them easily without having to look through everything else. This would be more time efficient too.

The first thing I did in my edit was put in the soundtrack of the opening titles, so I knew what I was working with.

For the opening titles I chose a range of interview snap-shots and cutaways which would set the story up for the rest of the documentary. I also added at the start, 'A Film By Liam Herring'.

To 'end' the titles I put in the graphics what I had created. This also ended the song as it was a record finishing on a record player, I faded on the music, which matched to the needle and then added in pre-recorded sound effects of a needle stopping.

After Introduction

I made the decision of using Sharon as the first interview. This is because of the opening line, 'my earliest memories of music'. I made this decision because it would open the story. To make it less boring than just looking at an interview, I intercut it with cutaways of her record collection. I then also did the same with the other interviews throughout. I picked the best bits and put them together, changing the angles when possible.

Rob, second with cutaways

A good editing practise is to keep rendering, as I did when I finished sections off. This is because it would save time later and give me the best quality when watching back what I have already edited.

To cut into Melvyn's interview, I did it different, laying the two cameras on top of each other likes this:

Then cutting in-between them and deleting what I didn't want.

This is because there was a large section of Melvyn's interview which I wanted to include and there wasn't anything in between what he was saying that I wanted to take out. Doing it this way is better because when both clips were in sync, the ones which changed to another would just carry on from the last, making the footage flow and it wouldn't throw the audience off.

I then did this for the rest.

I added bits in between each change of interview, for a 'pause' to the audience, to let them 'rest' from an interview.

When I had finished all the sections that were within the documentary, I started the ending which would lead the audience out. I wanted to make it light-hearted and entertaining, but also give the audience a relief whilst letting them wind down and take in the information they had received.

Once I had chosen the clips for the interviews, I added in the credits and film roles over the top. You can see this process for them all here:

When I had finished crediting the roles, I had to credit things such as music for it. I went from putting them over the top of clips to regular film credits, white with a black background. I made this decision because it was formal to do so and fitted better. Also with the amount of information I was providing compared to the film credits, it needed no distractions.

Once I had finished with the edit, I needed to make sure the colour of all images used were correct. Sometimes I used a master colour correction and tweaked it on different clips to make sure it

matched up. Some were easier than others as the lighting matched up better. Also, if they were two different shots from the same interview and same time, the colour correction were the same. You can see the whole process next:

Once I had finished all the colour correction, I added in 'queue's' for the interviewees. I decided to put these in the intro, so the audience straight away knew who they were listening to and when, and this meant that it went with the theme of opening credits.

Once all this was finished and I made sure that all the clips were cutting at the right time, I did my Final Render.

I then exported my documentary with these settings here:

After showing Tom Bell my trailer / intro, he told me to change bits such as the sound and when the song comes back into it after snaps of certain interviews, so I did. I also got told to change the sound in some interviews and make them fade in rather than be too sudden because of the quailty. You can see some changes here.

It was then time to render and export the last edit of my documentary, and then it was complete.