Account of editing

Account of editing

We as a group decided to edit on Imovie instead of the premier pro software, this was because firstly we all had easier access to Imovie then premier pro software and we were all more comfortable and familiar with this specific software. Editing the whole opening sequence was a long and thorough process that took us a while to fully complete and it involved a lot of restarting and cutting something you have spent a long time trying to fit in. There were many important aspects we needed to make sure were correct and suitable throughout the whole film. Firstly length of shot was a very important criteria that had to be monitored throughout, for example if one specific shot goes on for too long it will ruin the rhythm of the film and make it less exciting and dramatic. It is important to keep some shots short for effect as this builds drama and excitement, for example in my film we have a short shot of the dad hanging the gun to the son and it was important this was short as it increased the pace of the film right before the main action was about to take place instead of having a longer shot which would have the opposite effect. Another example of this is to show an importance of one character over another you can use extended camera time where one shot of a specific character is far longer then the other characters shot, highlighting his importance or power. One of the key things my group and i wanted to successfully do well was to have a visual narrative. This is where there isn't dialogue but you can see through the different types of shots and how they are edited together the mood of the film and character and who holds the power in the scene. This can be done by editing in specific shots for example we edited in a low angle shot of the son shooting the victim and this shot tells an audience without having to use any words that he has the authority in this situation. Another tough part of editing that had to be adjusted extremely carefully was the sound in relation to the scene. Firstly we used non-diegetic background music and it is important that the slower parts of the song are taking place in the duller parts of the sequence but as the scene get more editing or tense the music should pick up the pace as well to help create and build this feeling of excitement that something is about to happen. Furthermore, in the specific case of my opening sequence we have a voiceover and similarly to the music it is important that the lines correspond with the picture. For example one line in our voice over says 'my dad handed me the gun', this line has to take place at the same time as this happens in the scene. this is very tough to edit as maybe the lines before or after don't then match the picture on the scene and this involved us cutting parts of the voiceover that just didn't make sense to the footage on the screen. Having continuity of shots and a nice flow to the film is a very crucial part of editing and involves making sure dialogue doesn't overlap or the following camera shot isn't completely different to the previous one but where it flows through different shots creating a narrative along the way. Editing was the biggest struggle for me when i was doing my prelim where i made two big mistakes which ruined the flow of my prelim. So i was determined to help our group as much as possible in the task of editing our sequence together. I feel i have learnt a lot about editing and why it is so important to a film and that you can almost have average shots but if you edit it well with good length shots and in unison with the correct sound your film can look very professional and tell the narrative you want to tell. I feel the most important thing is to to a visual narrative and if you take out all the dialogue from your thriller that people will know what is happening in terms of the characters emotions, moods and importance. If an audience watching your film could do this then i believe that the editing is a success and i hope we achieved this as i think after a lot of hard work we were able to present a visual narrative through the editing of our film.