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.