Editing

Back in 2000 I arrived in the South West of England as an 18 year old who was used to watching 24 minute documentaries on a range of subjects and I wanted to do the same thing. For the course I was doing when I was told that I had to do one minute pieces I was dissapointed because I thought I would never get through what I wanted to say in that amount of time. It took a lot of effort and thought during those two years on that course but eventually I understood the importance of briefness. I understood that you can get the same idea in twenty words as you can in 2000. As a result of this when I arrived in London to study for the BA in media and television studies I had the one sentence one point mentality and when i was told to make a ten minute documentary I saw this as more of a challenge than when I was told to make short documentaries. The reason for this, precision. There are a number of bloggers, used to the written word, who are moving over to video to deliver their message and as they do so their inefficiency with getting the point across gets in the way of the quality content they have to offer. On a number of occasions people tend to record ten to twenty minute interviews without cutting anything out. As a result the signal to noise ratio goes down. As a video producer one of your most important tasks is to find the key points that someone makes in their argument and get them across to your viewer within the shortest amount of time possible. If you think that a news item is between one minute 30 to 2 minutes these are the timings you should work for. There is far too much content on the world wide web for me to waste a quarter of an hour listening to someone who cannot be conscice in the way he expresses himself. It’s a shame because what is said may be of interest but I’m not ready to spend 15 minutes on one video clip unless it is a highly and well produced piece of documentary making with a range of interviews and analysis.

Too many video podcasts are badly produced and that is why David Pogue’s most recent episode was enjoyable to watch. He has a distinctive style. Whilst most video podcasters are content simply using a fixed camera at a desk he takes the time to create entertaining demonstrations of how the tech he is discussing is interesting.

In one episode he talked about how phones for children were great for some things but let down by others. He demonstrated his frustration at having an iPhone yet not being able to talk about it because he was under embargo. In one episode he was testing noise-canceling headphones and wore all of them at once as he left through the front door of his house. Each of these little acts helped to make his podcast both entertaining and different from others.

The problem with living in two countries is that the climate between the two homes may be very different. Whilst the weather in Switzerland is warm and sunny in England it’s cold and dreary. It’s gray. I was hoping that the weather in Switzerland would break the day I flew back to London so that the transition would not feel as bad but it backfired. What I had wanted is a cooler rainy day that would be enough to make me indifferent to the trip. This backfired as severe storms delayed quite a few of the flights. As a result of these two or three flights were delayed and waiting in the terminal and everyone was sitting where they could. I found a comfortable place against a wall. At first, I saw that 6 out of 12 flights were delayed due to météo/weather and then 5 of 12. Finally, my flight was delayed by 40 minutes which is not that bad when you’re as used to travel as I am. It’s amusing to watch people as they wait to travel. Young children are tired, falling asleep whilst others are complaining about the delay. Yet more got up and stood for over fourty minutes queuing for a plane that had not even arrived in the gate yet. I was living in luxury though. Two mobile phones, a charged iPhone, and my MacBook pro with over 4hrs of battery life. I twittered jokingly that it’s a 40-minute delay with four hours of entertainment. It was an opportunity to work on the showreel. One of the beauties of the machine I use is the battery life. I’ve been doing some testing whilst at home and I’m quite happy with the results. I’ll go into more detail in another section of the website. Having the level of familiarity I have with Geneva airport I’m more observant, knowing the procedures from months spent there. As I felt that people could start boarding I got up and was by the second cashier. Whilst everyone queued at one deck I saw the second one so of course, I took advantage of this, being the first one to go through although I had been one of the people who had not been standing anxiously. That’s an advantage of frequent flying. Aboard the plane, I started to wonder something. Is it worse to be stuck with children who can talk or babies that cry? I think that talking children are worse. Some of them are not very articulate and others play with words and songs. It wasn’t that bad luckily. Stewardesses are amusing because sometimes you see them get anxious. One of them saw some gormless passengers blocking the aisle and sounded stressed as she asked them to move in so that others could board the plane due to the short flight slot the aircraft had been allocated. In the end, we took off without much delay and the rest of the flight went well. Had to take the Stansted express to seven sisters and from there caught a bus to get home due to the tube lines closing, no problem though. Now it’s back to London life and getting on with my career.

As I went through my video archive I’ve found a lot of good videos. As a result of this, I’ve been reminded of many moments and memories. There are a few people I’ve seen frequently since the shooting of the footage whilst others have not been present for months or years in some cases. I love watching this footage and I can’t help but want to upload the videos to Facebook. It’s not that I particularly like the video interface on Facebook but rather it’s easy to do with the people bothering to look at them. The first video I uploaded to the web was of the Crete graduation back in 2000 but at the time no one would watch them. Finally, technology has come to a point where sharing is easier. I’ve uploaded three clips and am in the process of uploading the fourth clip now. One or two are of a fashion show, another one is of a snowball fight and the last is of some friends dancing. These videos are tame compared to others I have. It’s part of contemporary life, that it is recorded. How many times are you photographed by tourists as you walk through London? How many times have you been filmed during parties that you may have forgotten.  What about those conversations? I don’t live in the past. I live in the present and I love to film. I love to watch a scene and film it from many angles. I love to capture conversations without the people noticing so that a few years later we may laugh as we view them. Friends acting in plays or performing in various ceremonies are probably the best but parties are good too. Especially when the video is of the cameraman (in other words me) as he is distracted by something.  It’s amusing footage. Some of it my friends will see, some of it will be archived and preserved for later.

During my second year at university with some friends, we worked on a zombie film where my friend was a director and I was Lighting Camera Operator and editor. As a result of this, we had almost total control of the film and it was a great learning experience. Several weeks were spent preparing the script, finding actors, and testing different types of makeup. As a result of this, I was in a pub dressed as a zombie. The shooting went well and so did the editing but I committed one stupid mistake. I  didn’t leave the sound loud enough, as a result of which it’s hard to hear what’s happening. At the time of editing, I had worked in a number of stages from rough cut to cleaner cut to fine cut and sound engineering. At some points, there are eleven tracks of sound to be taken care of. It’s taken several months but I finally have the time to re-work the project. I’ve got the project file in at least one or two places on my iBook and once I get to London I’m going to transfer it over to the Macbook pro. That’s when the fun will start. I’m going to getting al the clips back online and export the video to soundtrack pro and that’s the point at which I will attempt to learn the software well enough to re-work sound once the other stages are finished. I’m looking forward to that stage because both my friend and I have been talking about re-working the sound on that short film for at least a year by now. Finally, I have the time and the resources to get on with it.

There are four reasons to be happy today. The first of these is that my MBP is finally in Geneva therefore it is a short matter of days before I get it into my hands and start playing with the computer and the new software. The laptop will be used for all video editing and multimedia work I have whilst the iBook will be used for daily tasks such as surfing the web, mobility, and more. I’m going to have two apple laptops capable of video editing at my disposal which is quite a luxury. The second reason I should be happy is that google Adsense, over the past week has doubled in income, meaning that I should get my next check twice as fast as the last one. I added a few more AdSense adverts on sections where advertising had not been and as a result, many more eyes are seeing and clicking on the advert. I’m still a long way from earning enough money to live off my website but any income is good. The third reason is that my website is being migrated to Drupal, a database-driven CMS solution for web mastering rather than the outdated HTML pages that it has been over the past decade. The advantage of the Content Management System (CMS) is that the layout is the same for every page whilst the content is held within a database. As a result, when you want to change something on multiple pages all you need to do is move blocks around. Blocks, when applied to drupal are how modules are manipulated to space them in specific areas on the website. As a result, whenever a website is re-worked it takes a matter of minutes rather than hours to change. As a side note, I’ve also updated both the PHP and MySQL database to version 5 and it’s working smoothly for the time being. The final reason to be happy is that a friend has received the edited DVD that I worked on a few weeks ago and finalised within the past few days. As a result, I’ve managed to finish what I had to do a matter of days rather than hours before it was due.

I’ve spent around twelve hours editing today and it’s finally getting to resemble something, as I’d like it to be. It’s involved two days of video capture of a variety of material from a number of events around Europe in particular. It’s starting to be a good edit. Any creative person will tell you that the hardest part of the work is not the work itself but finding the inspiration and finding how to tell the story the most efficiently. If I understood the brief correctly then the edit I’ve done should be well accepted. I should find out by tomorrow morning normally. I love the editing phase because it’s one of the more creative phases. You’ve got all the material and it’s a matter of sifting through it, finding the best and then applying it to the finished product. If I get good feedback then I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

Yesterday sound was added to the multicamera in order to add more depth and it’s almost ready. there’s a little fine-tuning left before it’s ready for release. I’m not sure about the documentary because I took a break from it last night. Two days till the deadline.

It’s Sunday morning and yesterday was another day of shooting and editing. As a result of that, the documentary has progressed a little more. One or two more segments have been added, graphics have been improved and the project as a whole looks good. There’s still a lot of work to be done and I’ve been thinking of extra graphics and shots that could help make the documentary more interesting to watch. Another 7hrs before editing is over for today

It’s the third day of editing and the pressure has been relieved. I’ve captured the footage and edited most of the multicamera show. It wasn’t as bad as I thought therefore there were only a few small things to change. As I’m under time pressure I’m glad there’s less to do although with more footage I may have tried to be more creative. With the myspace documentary, things are going well. We’re up to about ten minutes and need another 2-5 therefore that’s relaxed as well. With that edit it’s a matter of getting the framework finished, finding a few more illustrative shots before finally working on the fine-cut for projection on Thursday or Friday. For the globalisation project, I haven’t had time to speak to that many people so the progression has stalled. 45 credits vs. 15… Both are important but one requires a team to work at all times. The other, only two or three people. That’s it for today.