Reading and Writing
Okay! Congratulations you’ve finished recording the art and world around you, you have footage that you’re proud of, and you’re ready to show the world.
Now it’s time for (to me) the most important of filmmaking: editing!
Editing is the process of controlling the reality and the narrative for the viewers. The combination of your vocals, music, and images determines the mood and message you are trying to convey, and this can make or break a project. Editing is one of those peculiar forms of art that is meant to go unnoticed.
Editors control what we see, hear, feel, and experience. They control the pace of the story and the speed of its progression. A secret to good pacing is rhythm; in many ways the editor is another writer involved with the script. They have the final say in what the viewer focuses on, at what specific time, and how they should feel about what they’re seeing. Always try and make your cuts deliberate; every change of angle should mean something even in the most minor way. Each shot chosen should be informative to, and further, the plot.
If you’re going to take anything away from this blog, I will encourage you to log and label your footage as you import it. Have similar tags to group clips into categories like Wide Shots (WS) or Close Ups (CU) but also make sure to provide a level of detail that allows you to have a vague idea of what each clip contains. It may not seem that way at first, but you are going to have more clips than you can keep track of. This is the best way to stay organized. Don’t be afraid to review your footage, either! The better acquainted you are with your footage, the better your project will be.
Some different types of cuts include the standard, jump cut, L cut, J cut, cutting on action, cutaways, crosscut, montages, and match cuts. Each of these types of cuts, when used strategically, can elevate the story you are trying to tell. Keep in mind the goal is to deliver the message of the story in the most direct way possible.
Research and Inform
My first example of good editing extends to all of Netflix’s documentary editing. I know there has been a lot of controversy around the notion that they push the truth and leave out vital parts of stories, which ethically is not great. But if we are just going off technical editing and how it affects the audience, I think they are one of the best examples of leaders in the industry. A specific example I’d like to use is the documentary Wormwood. Headed by legendary documentary director Errol Morris, this mini docu-series really delivers intrigue and emotions in spades.
This scene from Mad Men is a good example of playing with perspective. Confined to a tiny elevator, this scene takes advantage of isolated shots to drive home the point of a disagreement. Any time these men agree on something, there is a wide shot. But when they butt heads, the shots become focused on who is speaking. At the conclusion of the scene Don Draper, who has the last (devastating) words, physically leaves the scene and leaves Michael Ginsburg to stew in what an absolute bastard Draper is. If this scene was just one continuous scene, it wouldn’t have the same impact.
As someone who has gotten into F1 racing through the Netflix series, I took everything I was shown with a grain of salt. After all, no matter how exciting a sport, there will be spaces that will need to be filled with heightened excitement. Even with that in mind, this scene in season 03, ep 09 of Drive to Survive – when driver Romain Grosjean collides with the barrier in a race in Bahrain – left me asking out loud, “They’re not going to show me a man die on TV….right?!?” The buildup of suspense mirrors Grosjean’s own recounting of how he felt in the burning car and really drives home the danger that these people engage with every race. For all the petty drama throughout the series, this was a poignant moment that really stuck out to me and I think a lot of it is owed to the editing.
Create
This week, I created a montage of Philadelphia’s 9th Street Italian Market. The challenge was to keep the camera still and focus on the composition of the shots. This is what I managed to put together in a week:
Photo by Axel Vazquez on Unsplash
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