CDM 325 | Mysite

CDM 325- Editing Unit

Video Essay

This video essay is a collection of footage from popular movies and my own work, which is less widely acclaimed. I used this collection of footage and a narration of a script to describe different editing techniques. I used references from films and described how each type of cut and transition can enhance how a story can be told in the film. I also talk about audio cuts, linking their similarities to graphic cuts and how they can be used together. Overall I am proud of my video essay as I enjoy the footage I shot myself. My narration and use of transitions would need improving if I were to ever make another video essay.

Visual Treatment

I created a visual treatment in the pre-production phase of creating a film. In this, I detailed what type of editing we will use for the film. This will help me practicing my editing techniques and become more comfortable with them before I talk about them in my video essay

Storyboards

I created a set of storyboards for an entire scene, this was done in pre-production and was used to help us with shot composition, setting and what the characters are doing in this shot. I am happy with my storyboards. they will also be used to help me edit the film as it shows me where shots should come in the timeline in relation to each other , it should also help with pacing and audio

Lucid Script

Example Edits

I created a set of three example edits to show how I intend my edit to look. These are a great way to quickly show you're intended aesthetic to other members of the group or your editor. With these edits, I tried to use different types of cuts and transitions in each, to show a varied use of transitions and to also keep the edit interesting. Using match cuts and cutting on action to keep a consistent level of continuity between shots. In these edits I have also shown colour grading, creating punchy shots with high contrast black and white shots juxtaposed with bright colours to unease the viewer.

Edit Breakdown

Here I breakdown my entire editing process when we were editing our horror film, I talk through stages such as logging footage, colour grading , different types of cuts and more

Lucid Edit

Unit Evaluation

Looking at the entire unit, I found this to be one of the hardest that I have worked on so far. Starting with pre-production and going into the shoot, I felt comfortable with my aesthetic vision for the editing stage of the production. However, due to multiple complications, I ended up doing a large majority of the groups' work in pre-production, which felt like being pushed in the deep end. Luckily I learnt how to swim and managed to keep up to date with all the work we needed to complete before the shoot. Due to complications on our shoot, we didn't get to shoot everything we wanted, this meant we had a small amount of footage to create a larger story. Due to this, I decided to change the intention of my edit. I aimed to turn my edit into something from the experimental psychological thriller genre. It is with my edit I have mixed emotions when looking at the completed genre, individually I believe my cuts and transitions are strong, I managed to use a wide variety of cuts and keep them exciting to the viewer. I am also proud of my colour grading, I achieved the grimy tone I wanted with bursts of psychedelic colour to keep the viewer on edge. Already starting with audio full of background distortion I think my sound mixing is rather strong, and my use of sound effects is kept minimalistic but effective, However looking at the edit, on the whole, I think there is little to no story to follow. Although this is what I intended for my edit, to keep it random and experimental, I think it also makes it less accessible for the general viewer. I think my video essay is one of my weakest pieces of work. I originally intended to use all of my own footage for the example of each cut, but after getting caught up on an edit I quickly fell behind. This led me to use footage from films from youtube and generally I think makes the edit less entertaining. Overall, I think this unit was a struggle for me, I managed to produce some good work but it's not my best, and I struggled with staying consistently on top of work throughout the unit.