Once you are done gathering and organizing your footage, the next step is to bring those clips together and edit them into a finished product. When it comes to editing, certain practices help an editor achieve the best possible video, whether they are filming a montage or another type of video.

READING & WRITING

The Bare Bones Camera Course for Film and Video

Ch.10

This chapter discusses the process and best practices for editing after you finish shooting your film. It talks about how the human eye automatically “edits” by focusing on what interests it. As a film or video editor, you shape your viewers’ reality; you control their perception of the world you create through imagery and sound. Your choices as an editor will determine how well your message will get across. To communicate clearly and tension-free, don’t surprise or confuse your viewers. Give them new images and sounds slowly enough for their brains to absorb and become familiar with them.

The best way to approach editing is to remove yourself from the footage, even if you personally took it and spent a lot of time getting it, and look at it objectively, and ask if it serves to tell your message and if it is the best way to make your viewers have the desired reaction.

A good general rule of editing is to stay with a shot as long as it’s effective in getting your message across or keeping your viewers interested, then cut to something new. Typically, the only reasons to change the picture or sound are to communicate the program’s message better or to keep the viewer’s interest.

The goal of any video is to make the viewer react to the message the way the director intends. Style is how the message is delivered. Editing style is determined by the pictures and sounds collected, the order in which they are presented, and how quickly visuals and sounds change (also known as pacing). The editing style should always complement the style already established by the script and director.

Best practices for sound editing are also discussed, including different methods such as L-cuts (when two subjects are talking, but only one is shown speaking, it cuts to the second subject listening before they respond). L-cuts are particularly useful for dialogue scenes.

Schroeppel, T. (2015). Chapter 10: After the Shoot-Editing. In The Bare Bones Camera Course for F0ilm and Video (3rd ed., pp. 119–139). essay, Allworth Press.

RESEARCH TO INFORM

This is an episode from a YouTube series called Beauty and the Beasts, where, in each episode, the host Megan tells a different spooky story, usually from Asia (though some come from other places), while she does her skin care routine. In this episode, Megan tells the Legend of Okiku’s Well, the real story that inspired The Ring movies. The editing of her videos is well-paced for how she tells her stories, and I like her use of illustrations to help viewers visualize her story. Each image stays on the screen as long as it is relevant within the narrative of the story. One editing choice she makes is to include moments when she pauses narration to perform specific steps of her skin-care routine. This gets mixed reactions in the comments; some people like the ASMR, while others who are just there for the spooky story don’t.

This is the trailer for season 1 of Dark Winds. a TV thriller that follows three Navajo police officers as they solve mysteries as their reservation is threatened by increasingly violent crimes in the 1970s. The editing in this trailer has paced the cuts so the viewer can understand precisely what they are looking at, while also quickly teasing different events of the show and building suspense to pique the viewer’s interest. Characters that are important to the story are shown longer, while other moments are only shown shortly to get the viewer’s attention and convince them to watch the series so that they can see what happens.

This is the entire first episode of the show Dimension 20 from College Humor, which has moved to its own streaming service, Dropout. Each season of the show follows a different Dungeons & Dragons campaign between workers at College Humor. Cuts are used not only to show the players as they speak, but also to show the board, helping the viewer follow along with the campaign. Graphics of maps and the different characters, both players and non-player characters, are shown with a glitch effect. All these elements go together to engage the viewer. Fair warning that this entire video is almost two hours long because it is the ENTIRE first session of the campaign, and D&D always takes a while. Watching the first 5 minutes at least gives you a good view of these editing techniques.

This is the trailer for the 13^th season of The Great British Bake Off. Since it is another trailer, it does try to tease the viewer with a lot. The bakers are shown for longer so the viewer can become familiar with their faces, and some of the baked goods to come are teased, both successful and unsuccessful, like the underbaked cake shown falling. Narration and music both help set the tone and remind viewers of the rules. Small bites of humorous things said by the contestants and hosts are also shown to make viewers want to see more. All shots are shown long enough for the viewer to become comfortable with them, but it is also a trailer, so they’re trying to show a lot in under 2 minutes. After 13 seasons, though, they have figured out how to do this successfully.

This is an animated short on YouTube by the user Worthikids, titled “Wall Gnomes.” It follows two electricians as they address a common but widely unknown household problem: wall gnomes. Each shot is shown on screen long enough for the viewer to take in all the details, with a slow pace that fits the animation style. The part where the electricians get shrunk down is a good use of editing, where they just cut to the next shot. From the clue of the electricians suddenly being the same size as the gnome and walking with him, you know that they got shrunk down. Also, they discuss how it happened, which helps, but it is still good editing.

CREATE

Despite the rain the week prior, I was able to find some filming days where it was dry and sunny enough to film for my montage. It was nice being out, filming different parts of the trail that I found interesting and finding good compositions within them.

To organize all the videos I collected while filming, I brought them into Premiere Pro and labeled them with keywords so that I would know what was in them. Many of the video names include key terms, so I know what’s in them. I had a list of specific shots to capture while filming and made sure to keep the principles of composition in mind throughout.

Last week, when I was taking photos for the scavenger hunt, I managed to make it out to the trail just as the birds were at the bird feeder. This week, when I went to the bird feeders, the birds were already done eating. I tried going back the next day, and yet again, they weren’t at the feeders. I could still hear them chirping at each other, and I found the bushes where the birds apparently nest. So, I was still able to film them, just not at the feeders. I still got a shot of the empty bird feeders, since they made a nice composition.

After recording my podcast last week, I found it easier to record the montage narration this week. Granted, I had a lot less to say for this montage than for the podcast, which helped, but the whole process of recording sound was a lot easier this time around.

 Editing all the footage I took together turned out to be easier than I expected. I got all my A-roll easily, footage of the statues and boats, but I had made sure to get plenty of b-roll as well, any birds that were around, and any super pretty spots on the water. Having so much b-roll made it easier to fill the gaps between the main pieces of footage that accompanied the narration.

Altogether, I am proud of how my montage turned out and feel like it does a good job of showing the Renaissance Trail.