Editing is the art, technique, and practise of assembling shots into a coherent sequence. As a process, I personally found it somewhat tedious, due to its relentless and repetitive nature. Every time I thought my group and I were progressing towards our final product, we’d find another job to do or another way to improve the sequence. Despite this, it was to some extent an enriching and interesting experience and hopefully in the end, it will be a worthwhile one too.
Expectations established before editing our sequence, regarding on what we wanted to achieve by half-term, was that my group and I wished to have a rough picture-cut which we could then clean up and perfect following the break. At the end of the process, our intended outcome was quite simply to have an effective two-minute thriller opening sequence, containing an engaging narrative jam-packed with both suspense and tension.
Originally when commencing the editing process, my group and I went through all of our footage, reviewing the shots and deciding to select any which either looked good cinematically or showed useful narrative detail. We kept track of what shots we wanted to use and include within our sequence, by dragging our chosen shots onto the timeline where we then grouped and ordered them according to what narrative detail they showed (for example, we made a cluster of shots upon the timeline focused around our female character investigating the gasoline canisters). The framing of shots influenced whether they were used, dependent on whether or not they contained interesting angles or perspectives and how striking the mise-en-scene was within them. Unfortunately, however, because of reasons regarding continuity (or occasionally lighting or focus) a lot of our desired footage had to be cropped.
The editing software used within our sequence was Adobe Premiere Pro. In particular, the tool of razor was especially useful due to it allowing us to make quick cuts that had clean transitions.
Once we had tidied the shots and trimmed them down, we arranged their order based on how they would create and affect the pace and tension of the sequence, and when positioning them upon the timeline, we used multiple layers, venturing between V1, V2 and V3, in order to keep our timeline neat and easy to read, placing effective and coherent shots one after the other.
Throughout the sequence, we tried to match shots on action or graphic (such as when our characters all reach over for something). On one occasion, we used an eye-line match (when they look towards the source of the startling noise) in order to build tension.
When editing, I took charge of the process although by no means did it by myself. The group worked well together - often editing in twos for sake of ease and practically (i.e: fitting about the computer). And in total, the process took us about two weeks although we didn’t visit the suite every day.
When adding titles to our opening sequence, we followed the traditional order: the distribution company, the production company and the director. We decided not to include cast titles as we thought they might distract from the scene. Finally, following the sequence, we finished with our film’s title.
The distribution company, Temple Hill Pictures, was named due to the fact that originally Temple Hill, Dartford, was to be the location of our thriller and consequently the name of it - thus following the likes of ‘Jurassic Park’, etc. The production company was decided due to referencing each member of our group. ‘MAHT’ in the House of MAHT referring to Millie, Alejandro, Harvey and Theresa. Our director was a made up person in order to keep all members of our group happy.
In terms of sound editing, we went through all of our audio and removed the white noise, thus sharpening the other sounds within the scene. In shots where one of us could be heard directing or giving suggestions whilst the acting was ongoing, we had to remove the audio. In its place, we used more fitting sound from other shots.
These sounds, distinguished and labelled as ‘diegetic sounds’, we edited first, just using Adobe Premiere Pro. We placed them all into the A1 timeline to keep track of them, and then applied a ‘Constant Gain’ edit to each audio transition in order to make sure they were all at the same volume and didn’t sound unnatural when next to one another.
After that, we were able to play around with the more exciting audio features - such as the monster’s roar and the sound of the container being hit. In order to create the monster’s cry, we found a royalty-free sound of a very strident echo which could easily be misidentified as an alien-like creature’s roar and from there layered a lion’s growl upon it. Wanting to make it sound distanced from the container and also as if it were echoing against the container’s metal walls, we added a reverb to the sound upon the audio editing software of Adobe Audition CC.
The container being hit, similarly, was entirely made up of layers. We used another strident echo (albeit a quieter, more shrill one - from the same royalty-free audio track, in fact) and from there placing upon it the sound of a car crashing into a house, another growling noise (this time from a bear), and the sound of a bird’s rather sinister squarks. We wanted this sound to be shocking and intrusive, and upon playing it to an unsuspecting viewer of our opening sequence, their jump signified that the amalgamation of sounds had been a success.
Tension was as such created in the time between the two somewhat unnatural sounds due to the stillness of the contrast - the juxtaposition becoming incredibly unnerving.
We also added a suspenseful drone to the title cards within our sequence, although we unfortunately had to remove the initial three due to an odd matter regarding the file’s compressing. All the same, the ultimate one which appeared alongside our film’s title remained.
Finally, regarding the rest of the scene, we decided collectively as a group that some sound was needed, either as a tool for building tension or in order to build the world of the film. Trying out an assortment of dramatic beats and drums, we decided that the former idea for tension just wouldn’t work without the right soundtrack - something hard to find considering the need for it to be royalty free. Consequently, we went with the latter idea and picked an audio track that would help build the world of the film.
We settled on rain due to its connotations of grim situations and miserable circumstances, editing the track only minutely, in order to make it sound like the rain was coming from outside the container rather than from inside as it initially did.
Finally, we added a few fades upon the initial shot and title cards in order to commence our opening sequence in a stylish and professional way.
All in all, I am very pleased with how the editing process went. It taught me a great deal about the skill that goes into making movies and thus gave me a better appreciation for such an art, as well as teaching me how to better navigate myself around a couple of highly useful editing programmes. Equally, I learnt a lot about the value of patience and organisation, as when we were better prepared we performed better as a group. I cannot wait to see the final product and for the next opportunity I get to edit something like this again, now knowing what I know.
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