Production & Editing Skill Review of All Units

Throughout the year, my production years have definitely improved. At the start of the year, I definitely put off choosing the production options for the final pieces of my units. This was because production hadn’t been my strong point throughout A-levels, and I was quite reluctant to even try to improve. But, when it got to the end of the year and I was left without an option of writing an essay, I had to produce 2 short films.

My level of production skill prior to starting this course was incredibly dire. I was comfortable with the use of Adobe Photoshop, but that was it. I knew the very minimal basics of how to use Premiere Pro, but almost always found myself having to google what to do whenever I used it. I was familiar to using the studio, but I didn’t know so much about how to use the studio lighting. I was also unaware of the health and safety implications. The highest level of production I was able to produce was my photography and Photoshop editing skills, of which can be seen below:

At the time, 2 years ago, I felt my skills for a first year A level Media student was quite good. But as time went on and I didn’t progress, it made production this year quite tough. This was due to the fact that, despite being also an A level Film student, I moved away from the production options of the course and decided to write essays or scripts. I didn’t allow myself to develop my skills within filming and production. And, unfortunately, this course was far more film-production-heavy than photography.

The first short film I made this year was my music video for I Want You (She’s So Heavy) by The Beatles. I was quite lucky that the first film I had to make was a music video, as I am incredibly passionate about music and the visual aesthetics you can create with music. Given the creative freedom, I created a video that I thought that The Beatles would have actually had if they had a music video for this song. I chose a slow-paced, repetitive song because I didn’t want to force a narrative onto my audience as I wanted them to be able to create a meaning of the song for their own experiences.

My visual inspiration for the music video came from the pictures of Yoko Ono taken from around the time that Abbey Road came out. They were all black and white, with her long dark hair being the main focus of the images. I chose her to be my inspiration because the song, written by her husband John Lennon, is about her. I definitely think I achieved the visual aesthetic that Yoko Ono had at the time. I am confident that I achieved this visual aesthetic I was aiming for.

Evidence of my labelling clips

The actual filming and editing for this video was incredibly simple and basic, but that’s what I wanted. I wanted a simple, minimalistic music video to follow the minimalistic trends that John and Yoko used to follow. The physical production aspect of it involved simply setting up a camera directly positioned in front of my face which also would not disturb the lighting setup. The editing I did was cutting the footage and editing to the beat, so it was very simple and easy to complete. This music video allowed me to improve my skills because it allowed me to learn how to edit to the beat of a song and I learned out to use audio transitions. The music video module also allowed me to express myself as an artist, and I think that’s why my work for this module in particular was quite good in comparison to some of the other ones. I chose to make this music video in black and white also because it is genre-specific. Classic rock comes from a time when high-quality cameras weren’t readily available, so I felt that having it in black and white was very appropriate for the song.

Another skill that is displayed in this music video is my use of lighting. I used the correct setup for butterfly lighting, as that was a common choice of lighting use for close-up photography in the 60s. I also did this so that the focus could be on my face, and butterfly lighting was the most flattering way to present it.

With the music video module, I also made a test/back-up music video, prior to filming the Beatles one, just in case something went wrong. This was a music video I filmed with my iPhone in my kitchen at home. Sounds lazy – but I justify it as experimental. Music videos are often over-produced and I wanted to try something that looked like a childhood home video. Personal and homely was the aesthetic I was going for with my backup music video. This music video was recorded in one shot, which was quite difficult to finally get right, but I got it in the end. The video consisted of me singing to Bjork’s 1993 house hit Big Time Sensuality. I chose a song that was so incredibly 90s because it suited to the editing style I wanted to do. With this particular video, the editing that I decided to use was completely aesthetic effects. I had to edit it to look like a VHS home video, which I feel I definitely was able to achieve. I was able to do this by applying lots of noise, a bit of blur and sharpened the image. I also increased and decreased the saturation of certain colours, thus further enhancing the VHS effect.
Outside of Premiere Pro, creating the 90s aesthetic was quite easy. I did this through the mise-en-scene use of my clothing. I specifically chose to wear a Garfield sweater because Garfield items of clothing were so very popular in the 90s in America. Also, my use of an iPhone camera as opposed to a professional DSLR was better I think because the quality of the footage would be too clear.

The editing style I chose to use during this test music video was actually quite reminiscent of the first piece of work I produced for A-level media, which was shown in my introduction.

The final unit that I produced a short film was for the Promotional Video unit. This unit, my video fell a bit shorter in terms of quality in comparison to the previous videos. I feel that this was mainly due to my time in hospital during the unit and my sheer lack of interest in the topic. My interest in the music industry definitely carried me during the unit prior.

Due to my time in hospital, and my initial client letting me down making me waste more time, I was unable to obtain my own footage and I used the footage of my work partner. However, this footage was quite shaky and not the kind of footage I would have chosen to shoot myself. But I was strapped for time so I made do with what I had. Due to this, I had to learn how to stabilise my footage.

Had I not been in hospital I would’ve shot some better footage and I would’ve had a little bit more creative freedom which would have made my quality of work improve.

The editing aspect of this module was similar to my final music video. I edited to the beat with the royalty-free song I chose and used a lot of soft transitions. My demographic was those 35 and over, so having a really fast-paced and upbeat commercial wasn’t really my aim. My client wanted me to have something simple that showcased the club and focussed on the pool aspect of it, and I think I delivered on that. It definitely could have been better if I captured my own footage as it would have been my own work that I would have envisioned myself beforehand and planned properly. It would also have been better if I didn’t feel so strapped for time when it came to editing. I wasn't happy with my video, but my client was, and that's all that really matters in this unit.

Prior to this whole course, my editing skills went as far as applying transitions to videos and cutting clips. Now, I have learned how to add titles to my videos, how to correctly use audio transitions, aesthetic editing such as making films black and white or creating a VHS style effect without a downloaded filter and lots of other tools. I have certainly improved, become more confident and more time-efficient when it comes to media production. I no longer feel as though I should stick to writing essays and essays only as I have proven to myself that I am capable of producing films that I think are to a good standard, especially my music video.­­­­

Evidence of appropriate labelling of files

History of Editing: the Development of Editing

Editing is one of the most crucial parts of constructing a film of any kind. The way in which footage is edited can allow the creator of a film to make the audience have the perspective they want. Editing can also allow a creation of pace, introducing an element of time into films. Most films in the contemporary film industry have editing teams that are around 3-5 people strong, which would suggest that editing may not be as important as described, but that is simply not the case.

In 1895, the Lumiere Brothers invented Cinematographe. The Cinematographe was a camera, projector and printer designed and invented by Auguste and Louis Lumiere. The machine recorded, captured and projected a motion picture. It produced one single long roll of film, which was a continuous shot. Edwin S. Porter later joined the picture in 1901 and experimented with this long shot of footage. He stuck different parts of film together, creating a film that was several minutes long, consisting of multiple different shots. Edwin S. Porter managed to use footage to tell a different story which was unrelated to what the footage was initially intended to portray, and he was able to change it all through the means of editing.

Seven years later, in 1908, D. W Griffiths’ introduced his film ‘For the Love of Gold’. This film featured the first ever continuity cut when a scene was cut.

Continuity editing is a system of cutting used to maintain continuous and clear narrative action by following a set of rules. These rules are the Establishing Shot (a long or extreme long shot to establish the location or significant figure/object of a scene), Shot Reverse Shot (two shots edited together that allows the audience to take perspective of a certain character during a conversation), 180 degree rule (the angle between any 2 consecutive shots must not exceed 180 degrees in order to maintain spatial relationships between people and objects in any given sequence of shots), 30 degree rule (the angle between any 2 consecutive shots must not be any less than 30 degrees for the same reason as the 180 degree rule), Crosscutting (editing that alternates between shots occurring simultaneously in 2 or more various locations), Match on Action (a cut between two shots that places 2 different framings of some action beside each other, making it seem to continue uninterrupted), Eyeline Match (a cut between two shots that show what the subject is looking at) and Re-establishing shot (a shot that returns to the view of the setting after a series of close-up shots).

Griffiths then realised that he could also portray emotions through different camera angles and pace of editing. He realised it wasn’t all down to the actors in the films. Griffiths is credited for creating the first narrative of a film, the production of the first American feature film and discovering the close-up shot. His incredibly problematic film, The Birth of a Nation, in 1915 is the first film that used a variety of camera techniques. These include long panoramic shots, iris effect, still shots, cross cutting and planning shots. These techniques are still widely used today to create films. The use of sound in this film allowed it to be more interesting, making the audience feel more involved.

1920 saw the discovery of the Kuleshov Effect. Soviet director and film theorist Lev Kuleshov believed that the montage effect on a film would cause the audience to respond more. Eisenstein demonstrated the potentials of montage with his 1925 silent film Battleship Potemkin. Eisenstein said that film montages could create ideas different from the average film.

Prior to the digital editing we have today, a system called analogue editing was in place instead. This system involved cutting down the film negatives and placing them in the desired order. Then, the film would go through a machine called the Moviola or the K.E.M. Moviolas are devices that allow film editors to view the film whilst editing it. It was the first machine for motion picture editing when it was invented by Iwan Serrurier in 1924. Interestingly, the company Moviola is still in existence, located in Hollywood.

Today, digital editing has taken over. This is due to the invention of computers. Editing with a computer is much faster and simpler. It is a lot more efficient in comparison to analogue editing. The first computers and editing software were only capable of basic sound and video editing.

The computers that were first used to make film first arrived onto the scene in the sixties, when the first animated film, Hummingbird, was released. This continued on into the eighties when the first CGI heavy films were released. Examples of this are Tron (1982 - featured the first extensive use of 3D CGI, including the famous light cycle sequence and also includes very early facial animation), Money for Nothing by Dire Straits' music video (1985 - first computer generated music video) and Labyrinth (1986 - featuring the first realistic CGI animal).

Computers and software today are capable of high quality effects and tasks, like motion tracking, CGI, Chroma keying and lots of other effects. There are a variety of programs available for use, such as Adobe Premiere Pro, iMovie, Final Cut Pro and Sony Vegas to name a few. Footage is placed onto the timeline and is then cut and pasted into an order and then the effects are added.

In conclusion, editing has come a long way. It is an industry that has developed at the same pace as other conventions of film. It is a fundamental aspect of any modern film. Like stated previously, without editing, the audience would be left watching one long string of footage.

Final Promotional Video

Editing my Promotional Video

Evidence of labelling footage and work appropriately

 

I began editing my promotional video a week later than planned, as I got out of hospital on the 8th of May and I intended to start editing on the 5th of May and be finished by the 12th. I wanted to give myself a whole week before deadline to edit my footage as my editing skills aren't the greatest and I wanted to give myself the chance to enhance these editing skills at a pace in which I wouldn't feel strapped for time.

I uploaded all of the footage onto my Premiere Pro and sifted through the parts I thought would look best in my final video.

Above is a screenshot from when I was adding a title screen to the start of the video. I did this so that the audience would know the name and what the outside of the bar looked like.

This screenshot is from when I was stabilizing the footage as it was slightly shaky upon filming. Stabilising the footage could allow it to become more professional looking. Also, choosing to stabilise the footage is far more of a sustainable and easier option for me to do than to get up and re-take the shot. Due to how strapped I was for time, I improvised and chose to stabilise.

Test Music Video - explanation and process

Above is a test music video I shot at home, mainly just in case I wasn't able to produce a more professional music video. The video is heavily inspired by my own personal home video tapes of me as a child, as I often used to like to film videos of myself singing with our old video camera in the Philippines:

Above: evidence of me both being a musical genius from an early age and also being the cutest child ever born.

The music video was filmed in one shot, which is why the performance wasn't phenomenal. I thought to myself that if I was definitely unable to create anything along the lines of my initial plan, that I could go back and re-record this music video with more oomph. I was pretty dead and it is definitely clear that even just pretending to perform isn't a strong point of mine, so if I was to proceed with this music video style then I'd have to either act up a lot more or get someone else who could do a lot better than me.

My choice of music was Big Time Sensuality by Bjork. I chose this song (and my Garfield sweater) to fit in with the 90s aesthetic and playfulness/silliness of the music video's concept.

The editing process was simple. 

I applied a lot of noise, channel blur and excessively sharpened my video to add the typical old VHS style look to my video to replicate the videos I would make as a child.

A criticism of this video is about my performance. I used this video as an example of a possible music video in my focus group and the main comment I received was that my performance was very lifeless and boring to watch. If I did have to go back and use this video as a base to work with, I would improve it by providing something more performance based. But it was also said that my editing to make it look 'vintage' was believable and of a high quality, which is definitely a big plus as editing has never been my strong point.