Editing -Tools/techniques

Whilst editing our main coursework project, we also were involved in editing a short montage film which allowed us to further develop our understanding of using Final Cut Pro and were able to use more complex techniques than just cutting the video clip down to make it fit to our 2-minute time frame.

In Final Cut Pro, there is a timeline where you drag your clips in to allow you to rearrange, add transitions and effects, change the timing of clips etc... this is where the editing of a clip occurs.

The first clip was a view of a light in a tunnel, the light becomes blurred towards the end of the clip but originally happened too quickly and didn't fit the tone correctly, to combat this, were slowed down the clip

Blading the clips was useful because it allowed us to keep all of a clip that we wanted but it meant that we didn't have to keep the whole clip as one extended clip, we were able to split it up and re-order the different parts of a clip to maximise its effect. This further enabled us to make quick jump cuts from one clip to another, along with the use of overlapping clips.
We also used overlapping the clips when there were an increased amount of peaks in our soundtrack, this enabled us to make a quick series of cuts between our characters, e.g.: when both characters faces are seen as a series of quick cuts, we used this as a contrast between the two characters, showing them both at a close-up.

Reversing our clips gave a creepy aura to some of them; Silvia, our actress, had done a great job of presenting our deranged protagonist/antagonist and when we reversed the clips e.g.: when she wiped her make up off her face, it became a lot more effective to have the clip in reverse, causing people to cringe and recoil away when they watched what they couldn't perceive as normal behaviour.
Alongside the reversed clip of Silvia wiping her eyes, the music speeds up at this point and we used this to repeat the clip in two quick cuts to the peaks of the music to further dramatic effect.
Viewer:
The program enables you to edit the clips that you have inserted into the timeline. There is a variety of different effects and transitions that can be applied. From this tab in the program, you can apply such things as: transitions, effects, sound effects, colour corrections, photos, text, intros and outros. The heading of the timeline allows you to change the duration/speed of the clip, either slowing down or speeding up the footage, you can get it down to a very precise measurement as there is a customisation of the speed change rate.



We were able to make the clips meet the beat of the music by slowing down and speeding up certain clips, to make the first clip be in time to the beat, we slowed it down for both the effect of sound and video within the clips was enhanced by doing this.

We reversed the clip of Silvia crying to make the tear go back up her face, we also sped the clip up, this helped us to fit all of tear's motion in the sequence without the clip going on for too long.