During the editing process, I used Pinnacle Studio HD 15 editing software. I had to follow a shot list and piece together our edited footage from the shoot into the order on the shot list, meaning I had to drag the footage onto the timeline in the correct order. I also had to trim the footage to make cuts look smoother and make dialogue fit together into an actual conversation, removing any pauses between characters saying their lines. To do this I used Pinnacle’s Cut tool which enabled me to trim footage to each individual frame, which felt very precise due to their being 24 frames per second. In addition to this, I learnt how to add in transitions to make certain cuts more interesting and clearly differentiate between scenes, as well as how to take still images from our footage by using the Freeze Frame tool in Pinnacle to pick out a frame from the footage and put that into the film for as long as desired. This was useful, as for our final shot we had stopped recording straight after one of our characters had finished speaking, meaning that as the film ended by fading to black, we had to add in a freeze frame for the fade to occur over, otherwise the fade would have cut off the characters dialogue.
On the whole, the filming went very well as we included everything the preliminary production task specifies, for example two match on actions, one of a character opening and walking through a door, the other of a character walking towards the other character they were having a conversation with; in the time we were given without the need to go and re-film anything afterwards. However some of our takes were a little short which made editing the shots together harder as it was difficult to make some cuts look natural with such a short pause between them and the ending of dialogue. We forgot to use the wind noise reduction function on the camera when we were filming outside or equalize the audio and remove background noise when editing. I think that these issues with audio were what went worst during this preliminary task, as, if we had remembered to carry out these processes, our film would have seemed much more professional
Working in a group allowed us to share workload and therefore save time, and we filmed everything quickly within the given time. We worked productively together when filming and when editing, and I would say the group work went very well.
In this preliminary task I have learnt the basics of filming and editing, providing me with a good foundation to build on when doing my coursework production. If I learn from what did not go well, for example audio quality, I can use solutions, such as equalizing audio and making use of camera noise reduction functions, to those problems in making my coursework production, allowing me to produce a final piece as free from mistakes as possible.
I enjoyed filming and editing the production as I got to make decisions upon shots and cuts and have creative control in the production. Upon viewing the final production I think what pleases me the most are the editing decisions as the cuts looked smooth and flowed well into each other, especially the two match on actions we included.
