Professional Practice: Editing Stage

After filming I gave myself a break of two days away from looking at the footage. This meant that when I went back to edit the piece together I was looking at the work with a fresh pair of eyes.

Structure

The structure of the promo was something I spent a lot of time on planning. My research before had taught me that the simple and better structured/presented promo films were the best. Ones that allow the images on screen to tell the story rather than giving a voice over or text screens. I found that they disrupted the flow of the films and chose to steer clear of this.

Instead i came up with a simple but effective structure for my film that would flow but also be informative. My structure was:

- Intro with crowd shots

- Montage of attractions such as cars, bikes, locomotives, live stage and then Steampunk.

- Lead into Steampunk enthusiast interview with narration and montage.

- Then lead into second montage of attractions, reactions and public.

- Lead into Live Music interview with Blue Brother Band, with music and montage.

- End with final shots of public, reactions, performers and then logo with website.

This structure was simple but effective in telling the story of the event, any more interviews and I felt it would have been too heavy and with none it would have felt lacking without them.

Footage

Due to the poor weather on the first day of filming some of the shots we got outside were too poor to use within the actual film. Due to issues such as water on lens, and the fact that I wanted to catch the public looking happy and enjoying themselves, not battling weather conditions.

Some of footage which had minor issues, such as slight over exposure, could be addressed within the edit and was not a problem and able to be used within the final film.

Rough Edit

As I was working in a professional environment and wanted to fulfil what was asked of me by my 'employer' (the dockyard), I felt it was very important to give them updates on how the production process was going. By doing this I was not only working in a professional environment but also including them in the process, making their views and opinions matter and allowing them to have their own input into how the film should look.

I produced a rough cut in which the bare bones of the film were on display, and sent it to the dockyard. It had the shots in place, and was essentially a guideline to show how the film was going to run allowing the dockyard to put forward any ideas they had and highlight any concerns they had with the film.

This I felt was absolutely necessary as I wanted to avoid alienating the dockyard from their own promotional film. Ultimately, the film is for them so I had to be certain what I was creating was something that they like and felt represented the festival correctly.

After this I awaited their response before I could make the necessary changes and being to refine and colourise the entire film. Also fine tune the sound and edit points and include any additional shots.