The editing process - As a website

I have also made the editing process into a seperate website format, due to it being a significant part of our documentary production.

The link to the website is here:

https://sites.google.com/site/editingourdocumentary/

Editing continued

We are well into our editing now and have cut through most of the documentary. I wanted to go into more depth about the technical side of our documentary and the different challenges you come up against in the editing process. I will do this by splitting the certain areas of our editing into several sections.

1. The timeline



The timeline is essential to any editor. In our case, the timeline shown in the picture above stores your movie. It is the graphical and sound representation of our content and is almost like a story, reading it from left to right as time progresses. It is in the timeline where you cut clips, add transitions and effects and introduce layers of sound and other video/pictures etc. As we insert more content the timeline increases. Due to us using a professional editing programme (Sony Vegas Pro + Final Cut Pro) we are able to move clips in much more precise measures and edit in more detail. The timeline is a key feature in the editing process.

2. Pan/Crop

In some cases, your screen may not be fully covered with your video... So by setting the aspect ratio to cover and block out black edges your whole screen will be covered. This makes it look a lot more professional and allows for better continuity. The pan crop can also be used in cases where you may want to zoom in on your footage, for example the headlines of the articles we have used.

3. Using effects



With the implantation of effects, your film can be varnished and look a lot more relevant. In our case, we have colour corrected many of our shots to make better quality in our footage. It does this by making the contrast stronger and brings our the sharpness levels. We have also used Vignette effects to darken our documentary as we are following the themes of a dark, conspiracy-like film.

4. Synchronising music with video



We have synchronised our video in the opening scene to the audio which is played. We have done this to give a much smoother run of this scene by being in time. By synchronising our footage it also creates more excitement for the viewer as it is fast paced and of course flows well with the audio.

5. Applying Text/Headlines

In this screenshot you can see how we have inserted text. Sony Vegas offers many options for creativity when using text and as you can we have created a shiny headline look by playing with the bump map effect. This makes our title stand out a lot more and is more interesting to look at than a plain one colour font. It also adds depth to the headline, ultimately making it stand out.

6. Layering/using opacity



In one area of our documentary we have collided screenshots of Google and Twitter. By doing this we have merged them together and decreases the opacity simply by playing around with the settings. Once again by doing this adds better continuity and flow to the documentary.

our timeline for the opening scene in Sony Vegas

I have also made nform of explaining our editing process in video, which goes into more detail and explains how iMovie and Sony Vegas differ. It also shows off a better visual representation of Sony Vegas. Here it is:

Starting the editing process

Now we have all of our footage, the next step was to go straight into the editing process. A very vital part of this documentary, the editing will be an important stage for our documentary and it's success. The editing will be complex but with the right programmes, we can hopefully produce the dark themed documentary we want. Within any film or programme the editing process is taking very seriously and will always most likely be a very time consuming task, so for our sake, it's better to start as early as we can.

Broadly speaking, editing consists of many steps, for example:

- Putting clips into sequence
- Tuning the relationship between clips
- Adjusting footage length
- Creating appropriate transitions and effects
- Balancing colour and the exposure of a clip
- Working with sound, adding music and voiceovers

For our groups first video editing session it was ideal to go over our story board and visualize how we wanted our documentary to look. We already know we want a dark feel for each shot, so it was clear we may need to edit the colour and exposure of some shots and even add in some effects, for example the popular 'vignette' effect.

our vignette effect in use

We discussed the possible software which will be needed to produce what we wanted. We've decided to use several programmes for our editing, iMovie, Sony Vegas Pro and Final Cut Pro. These programmes will allow us to achieve what we desire. The reason for this is that iMovie is a less technical editing programme where the more simple elements of editing can be done. However with Sony Vegas and Final Cut, we can get a lot more specific with our cutting of clips and the effects we use. Ultimately it will create a more suitable atmosphere which we are trying to get across.


First of all we have put all of our clips in sequence on iMovie, slightly cutting the footage into a more manageable manner. By doing this early on it gives us a rough idea of how the sequence flows and anything which we notice that doesn't seem to work, we can change early on.

Our clips in iMovie

As you can see from the image above, our footage is roughly in order, however we have already noticed that some shots don't work and we have taken them out/replace them. Some areas have been left blank due to the collection of archive footage we are still currently seeking. Basic editing so far, however at this point we have been able to gain an insight into the structure of our documentary.