Lynda.com Tutorial on Video Editing
(1) Activity Log
Exploring Story
- Story Telling
- Oral
- Visual
- Written
- Performance
- Film story telling is modern and unique
- Hear Oral
- See Visuals
- Watch Performances
- Good Writing
- Editting
- Non-linearly
- Tools
- Grammar
- Timing and pacing
- Rules
- The Story
- You write
- You shoot
- You edit
- Structure and Freedom
- Writer’s vision
- Director’s vision
- Editor’s vision
- Film
- Writer
- Producer
- Director
- Cinematographer
- Editor
- Editors job
- Assemble raw footage together to tell the entire story
- Choose camera angle and shot
- Must know when to use long shot—relationship and content
- Or use short shot—emotion and detail
- Know when to tighten up edits or loosen edits to let a scene breathe
- Must know when to follow rules and when and why to break them
- Constructing or reconstructing a reality to tell a story
- Scripted programs
- Make good decisions
- Not many major issues with changing things
- Embellish Story
- Clarify scenes
- Realize vision
- Unscripted material
- Representing real people
- Visuals and music can add another dimension of watching edits
- Editors have the power to change reality so you must remain true the story and truth
The Grammar of Editing
- Coverage
- Covering a scene multiple times from multiple angles
- Same action, different compositions
- Scripted projects— cover the same lines in different angles
- Unscripted projects— people and the world have natural patterns so there is still a chance to shoot different shots of the same content
- Silence of the Lambs example
- Shot compositions and meaning
- Long shot (LS) —show subject in its environment (physical or emotional to scene)
- Medium shot (MS)—detail but still content of scene
- Medium over the shoulder— power relationship between characters
- Close up (CU)—draw attention to subject, details, or heighten emotion
- Low angle and high angle—power relationship
- Two shot—relationship between two subjects
- Camera Movement
- Tilt— up and down camera move from a fixed point
- Dolly—forward or back through space
- Trucking—side to side through space
- Pedestal—up and down through space
- Crane— mounted on a crane that can move from low to high (reveal more and more of environment as you go)
- Camera movement should advance the story p
- Lens Movement
- Zoom— increasing or decreasing focal length of lens
- Rack focus—changes focus from one plain to another
- Basic Editing Rules
- Continuity editing
- Reconstruct reality from all the various shots covered
- Mise en Sense—means put on stage
- Make sure the content within the frame matches appropriately from one shot to another
- Costume, action, lighting, background must match
- Continuity of performance—pacing, emotion, voice
- Spatial orientation (180 degree rule—Axis of action)
- 20 mm/30 degree rule
- Cut between shots that are different enough in size and angle
- Cutting on action
- When a subject begins an action in one shot, he or she finishes action in another shot
- Understanding complexity editing
- Passage of time
- Montage— change over time; spectrum of ideas or emotions; create a new whole from the sum of parts
- Methods of montage:
- Metric: each shot is the same length
- Rhythmic: length of clip determines emotional energy
- Tonal: image composition and emotional of shot determines emotional energy
- Overtonal: combination of metric, rhythmic, and tonal stateless to achieve emotional energy
- Intellectual: shot collision
- Jump cutting
- Break continuity rules
- Shots not different enough
- Action not continuous
- Draws attention to edits not hide them
- Combination of ideas
- Intensifying action
- Exploring timing and pacing
- Genre
- Subject matter
- Emotional output
- overall energy of the scene
- Watch a lot of films and watch your own edits over and over again
- Step away and then come back to it
- Structure and Transitions
- Basic: Beginning, exposition, climax, end
- Control time and space (can begin with the end or middle—so many possibilities)
- Understanding, meaning, connection
- Parallel editing—combining scenes to get fully understanding
- Matching on action—example: editor cuts back and forth between the song scene and the fight scene
- Shifting from one idea, location, or point in time to another
- Swish pan—panning away from one scene and swishing to another (classic technique)
- Match cut
- More creative ways than fading to black between scenes
Exploring Nonlinear Editing Applications
- Editting Software
- Abode Premiere Pro
- Mac and PC
- More widely used
- Raw media kept in Project Pane
- Review footage in Source monitor
- Track based
- Apple Final Cut X
- Raw media kept in Libraries and the Browser
- Review footage in Viewer
- Storyline based
- Avid Media Composer
- Raw media kept in Project Window
- Review footage in Source monitor
- Track based
Editing Short Narrative Scene
- Previsualization Materials
- Film treatment
- Short story
- Present tense
- Directorial style
- (1) Film synopsis
- (2) Film outline
- Storyboard
- Shot content
- Shot composition
- Camera and lens movement
- Notes
- Shot list
- Scheduled shots
- Shot composition
- Camera and lens movement
- Notes
- Camera report and shoot notes
- Results
- Camera and lens info
- Takes
- Detailed comments
- Starting the edit: Continuity editing
- You don't have to start in the beginning
- Put media in right general order
- Mark the section you think you will include
- Drag it down to the timeline
- You can use the timeline as a sandbox to move and cut things around
- You can dim by grabbing the edge on the timeline and moving it
- Press B on the keyboard and gab and drag to close gap (ripple trim)
- Press C for cursor to become a razor
- Press V to switch back to selection tool
- Press Command and Option key and drag to swap shot positions (dragging over will just override the clips)
- Building the scene: Complexity editing
- Pan away from shot A and pan into shot B
- Go into Assets and Broll to gain access to footage
- Press O key to mark out
- Use Razor tool to chop up or slice a video into separate ones
- Shift click and delete what you don't want
- You can also Right click and press ripple delete
- Press B key for ripple trim tool
- Press I key to mark in
- Worry about making the scenes and process make sense don't worry about it being perfect yet
- Refining the scene: Trimming and matching to music
- Select the music to establish the mood and pacing
- Speed up the shots to match the music
- Each shot must flow nicely into the other
- Go through shot for shot and make sure your continuity is correct
- Zoom in with +
- Press M to make a marker on the music
- Drag the video to snap to the marker to match the cues of the music with the video
- Rate Stretch tool (R on the keyboard) to manipulate speed
- Reviewing the cut
- Export as a file
- Right click on sequence and choose export media
- Click Match sequence settings
- Or choose format or preset
- Choose export
Editing a Short Documentary
- Planning the edit
- Go through footage and interviews and sub click everything out
- Watching and listening (to form a plan of attack)
- Adding interview segments
- Removing unnecessary pieces
- Rearranging and patience
- Laying the foundation
- Include the appropriate sound bites
- Remove the sections you don't want in the piece
- Make sure the order makes sense and the process works
- Don’t stress about it being perfect
- Adding music and B-roll
- Drag the audio to the timeline
- You can make the music longer by selecting a piece and looping it
- Press R for Rate Stretch tool
- Refining audio
- “Trim Block on Audio”
- Rolling Edit tool
- Zoom out with -
- Match on action
- Press F to match frame
- Right Arrow to go to one frame
- Press Y for Slip Edit
- Press Z for Undo
- Watch, listen, tweak
- Mute the music track to only hear dialogue track
- Press [ to Decrease clip volume
- Press ] to Increase clip volume
- Right click and choose Audio Gain to get it a little bit louder
- Adding basic effects and titles
- “cmd d” is keyboard short to dissolve
- Spacebar to stop and play
- Effects and Video Transitions tab
- Effect Controls panels then Motion then Scale
- Type tool selection to add a title
- Edit font and style with tool bar of “Title Properties”
- Reviewing the cut
- Watch, step away, and watch again to make sure you don't miss anything
Understanding Additional Post Product Processes
- Sound design
- Human speech
- Ambient Sound
- Sound effects
- Music
- Recorded on location
- Dialogue
- Ambience
- Sync sound effects
- Recorded off location
- Unusable dialogue, re-recorded later
- Automatic dialogue replacement (ADR)
- Never recorded on location
- Some sound effects
- Some ambient sound
- Music
- Voiceover or narration
- Tone or mood
- Legitimacy of location
- Dramatic emphasis of characters
- Effect design
- Color design
- Correct individual shots
- Set blacks and whites
- Remove color cast
- Adjust hue and saturation
- Shot-to-shot correction
- Stylize
- Look at footage with your eyes
- Series of video scopes
(2) The Learning Experience
I really enjoyed this tutorial on lynda.com. Their learning experience is very easy to follow and entertaining to watch. The tutorial showed many real examples from movies that I have seen before so it really helped me understand the material because I was able to apply the content to something that I can better relate to and visualize. The tutorial consists of chapters with chapter section videos, each around 6 minutes long, with a main idea that they go further into in order for viewers to understand the overall material. I watched the tutorial on Video Editing because I see myself using and making videos in the future to teach a subject in a way that is entertaining and educational for my students. This tutorial introduced me to three different video editing programs that I can use in order to make this happen. I also learned about storytelling in general and how to use film conventions in order to stay true to the story being told. I think lynda.com did a great job in providing me with an introduction to video editing and I can’t wait to start playing around with some of these editing programs.
(3) Evidence
(The eyes next to the chapter sections shows that I viewed each of them)
