Day: March 25, 2019

Posted in All Posts, Post Production

Editing Technology

Posted on by rebeccaawolff
me because I’m almost done!

I’m getting really close to finishing up my title sequence! All that’s left now is a few finishing touches. This whole process has been a huge learning experience and since I’m currently wrapping up the post production process, it would be nice to reflect upon what I’ve learned thus far.

Technology

from Spongebob Squarepants

Technology is a huge part of the post production process. Before this project, I had minimal experience using editing software; the most I had done was make funny videos for my friends. I also wasn’t aware of the impact the editor has on the final media product. Through this, I’ve gained a better understanding of the editor’s role in the creation of a film.

from my first day of shooting rough cut

To edit this project, I used iMovie. At first I was overwhelmed and frustrated. There are so many buttons on the screen at a time and it looks confusing to a first time user. I consulted many Youtube tutorials in order to learn more about iMovie (see in the Sources section). Over time it became easier to crop, arrange, and rearrange clips. I discovered techniques that worked for me, such as splitting a clip and deleting the portion that I didn’t like rather than manually cropping them. Looking back, I can confidently say that putting clips in order and cropping them was the least difficult part. There is so much more that goes into editing than I thought at the beginning.

One of the things I overlooked when starting post production was color correction. The only reason I knew to do it was because my teacher said that I should. Once again, I know nothing about this; I don’t even put filters on my Instagram posts. I used Youtube tutorials as a resource once again and learned how to color correct using iMovie from that. The main thing I learned is not to go overboard with the color correction. It should be subtle and enhance the image rather than distracting from it. I recognize that this isn’t true for all genres, but for an indie coming-of-age comedy like mine it is. Honestly, once I learned how to use the color correcting tools on iMovie it was pretty easy to do. Full details of how I color corrected can be found here.

adding titles

After color correcting I moved on to adding titles. This took me the longest because I had to outsmart iMovie. If you’ve ever used iMovie, you may have noticed their dreadful selection of titles and fonts. I gave them a chance when creating my bloopers, but they’re just unusable for a serious media project. In order to combat this, I used Power Point and the green screen effect on iMovie. Full details on how I did this and how I chose my font can be found here, but the short version is that I made a Power Point with my titles and title transitions on a green background and superimposed it onto my movie. I redid my titles around 4 times and it took me a really long time to get them the way I wanted. It was difficult for me to pick the correct font, font color, and text placement because it’s not something I typically think about, but all I had to do was look at other films in my genre and see what they did. I’m really proud of the way my titles turned out and I think they are visually appealing.

editing sound

Once work on the visuals was done, I began the process of editing sound. This was the part of post production I was most concerned about because I have no prior experience doing it. However, after I watched a few youtube tutorials (linked below) on how to use iMovie’s sound editing features, it was smooth sailing. A feature that I found very helpful was the fade in/fade out bar. There are two little dots at the beginning and the end of an audio track when it is placed in the iMovie timeline. These dots can be dragged to great the arc that you see in the screenshot. This effect allowed me to make my sound seem more natural; there is a scene in my title sequence where my character is waking up to her alarm and this feature helped me mimic the way our ears adjust to sound when waking up in the morning.

Creating Meaning

a still from A Lot To Learn

The whole point of continuity editing (which is the type of editing I’m using) is to create coherent meaning. On the surface this sounds easy. When I first started this project, I didn’t think it would be difficult to do this. However, when I looked at all these different shots, the effect I was trying to create became fuzzy at some points. I didn’t struggle with this nearly as much as my peers did, but there were moments in my project that I second guessed myself and what my film was conveying. It’s especially difficult to see when you are doing it by yourself; I came up with the story, so I know it inside and out, which makes it hard for me to tell whether or not something makes sense. This is why having a peer review of my title sequence was extremely helpful. My peer review revealed that I did a great job with maintaining continuity and creating meaning. They weren’t confused, which was great news!

a still from A Lot To Learn

After I finished editing my visuals, the next most important thing in regards to meaning-making was choosing my soundtrack. Music tells the audience so much about the settings and characters in such a short amount of time; it is especially important that I take advantage of this in my two minute title sequence. I chose the song “Bad Reputation” by Joan Jett. As I discussed in my earlier blog post, “Bad Reputation” conveys a fast-paced, lively tone. It hints at a future theme that my film will cover later on, which is the idea of a reputation and caring about what others think of you. I love the juxtaposition between the intense lyrics and rock and roll sound against a simple high school girl who is costumed fairly normally. It implies she is constantly facing an internal turmoil.

I love the way my film looks now that it is almost done and I can’t wait to share it!

Sources