Film and Television Editor

Dans
My feedback

First person too much waffle no relevance in my opinion
Chunky needs syncing 
Straps instead of them introducing themselves verbally 
Guy after chuck ?
Harbour master Mousehole cat myth needs to b clearer
Mining - not clear storywise at the beginning
Then he goes into the knockers 
Anthony power - tommy knockers poem, he waffles too much not clear about wat myth he’s speaking bout. Go to the loss land of lionesses 
Then goes to fisherman talking bout the lost land of lionesses then goes to mention king Arthur 

Others feedback

Get vos done 
Subtitles 
Sort sound 
Set it up first
Get a map of Cornwall signed off , film a journey. 

Jon’s
My feedback

Glitch in mikes sequence
Cutaways needed in mikes
Sort out captains accounts sequence
Sort out Geoff speaking to grandchildren - cutaways is a must images etc….
Cover light change in it too. Geoff goes on for too long!!!!
Meeting with frank. Sort out glitch- volume is a must- cut out stuff that repeats 
Sort out ending
Vo needs doing
Last frank cut mumble

Others feedback

Possibly get rid of Geoff and the granddaughters not nessarily needed 
A lot of programme elements
Vo in now 
Reconstructions needs to be distinctive 
Strongest scenes interviews of frank and Geoff
Thinking everyone is dead needs to be earlier, bombing more towards the end 
Zooms on pics again needed 

The next stage of the two editing processes is to take the advice from this feedback and to put it into place.

This week we have arranged to sort out what exact promotion strategies and ideas crew members had. The crew of Capture Cornwall consists of Daniel Whitehouse, Henry Austwick, Catherine Vondrak and Myself (Melissa Curnow). 
We sorted out the crew members responsibility and this is what we came up with: 
Director - Daniel Whitehouse (this documentary is his idea)
Producer - Catherine Vondrak
Co producer - Henry Austwick
Editor - Myself (Melissa Curnow)
Sound Editor - Daniel Whitehouse
Technical Advisor - Melissa Curnow
Promo Editor - Daniel Whitehouse

The promotion ideas varied from t-shirts to websites, Facebook, YouTube, the Cornish radio stations, the newspapers etc…

This week was chaotic, I had a project that wasn’t even started in terms of editing and another that needed restructuring. I had to priories my time with the project that needed most of my attention. That was Capture Cornwall 2 which is called Kernow Tir Tarosvan. Jon the director for Nazis for Tea too told me to prioritise my skills on Dans project. This week I managed to make a film that was understanding to the viewers in terms of its story for Dan’s project. In order to do this though I had to result in taking images off the Internet as the producer wrote the VoiceOver for the project after it was filmed and the filmed footage didn’t support most of the VO but it made the story clear to the audience. I emailed the course leader and she said to use them but it can’t be published anywhere at all. This wasnt ideal at all.

On the other hand the director for Nazis for Tea restructured the documentary and I made a couple of 2d images 3d as well as doing the credits, title and the trailer for him. I also got the DVD prepared for burning and started creating the DVD project. I was then given the final cut that had been export from Avid after being put through pro Tools. We left this going over night.

Hand In tomorrow!

Today we have had meetings with Mike Bow an expert editor. He said that the cut of The Nazis For Tea was good but still needed cutting. He suggested in getting the music in the timeline and the VO. This is what I have been saying to the director but he strongly agrees that the image should be strong enough to speak for itself. Here I totally agree with him but without a complete or even an up to date script it is pretty impossible to do.

Capture Cornwall two on the other hand was in a diabolical state as I didn’t have a script to work with. I have hardly any cutaways and some of the footage was shot in widescreen instead of 16/9. It is a nightmare. Mike and Jane advised me to drop Capture Cornwall 2 and to continue editing Nazis for Tea until the director had got it into an adequate State ready for me to edit straight away.

The Crit screen is scheduled for 13th July 2012. So far I haven’t got any of the projects edited as I have had no luck so fa persuading the director of Capture Cornwall that the footage he has capture wont work by itself. I think we need to visit our tutors together Nd see what they say. he hasn’t had much support from the projects producer due to her constant absence from meetings. There has been a lot of lack of communication between the producer and director. At he moment I feel I am the producer of this project and if we do not come up with a plan B and fast then there will not be a project.

Nazis for Tea on the other hand was imported into Avid but corrupted when I imported the archive images. I found out it wa because the files themselves were too large for Avid to physical copy with. What I done was that I resized the images in photoshop and then imported them back into Avid after I have started a brand new project. instead of importing all the footage again
I linked to AMA File and then consolidated it once it was in Avid.

The following two weeks consisted of me as the editor importing the footage into Avid as well as shot logging it alls. I started to also sync the sound as none of it was synced. The only main issue I had was he fact that the director/cameraman did not use a clapper board therefore making it a lot hard for me to do so. Being me I didn’t really find it over complicating to sync but not every editor finds this relatively easy without the aid of the clapperboard.

I have only two main issues with the footage and that is the fact that the camera operator used a cannon D5 and kept rotating the camera whilst filming; I personally think he generally forgot that he was filming a clip but thought he was taking a still image. The other issue was the fact that it kept going in and out of focus therefore I could not use those parts.

I will work my magic!

Unfortunately I was unable to take part in the shoot of this project as I was unable to get time off work. I have every faith in my crew providing me with plenty of useable footage that I will intertwine with the publics footage. I know that there is a variety of talent in terms of a bagpiper, fire breather etc… Who will be staring in the documentary. I want to create emotion like Britain in A Day did.

They will also be shooting a 24 hour time lapse so that I can use it at the beginning of the documentary in the pretitles.

After two and a half weeks later I have received all of The Nazis for Tea footage apart from the Poly Exhibition footage and the Football reconstruction footage. I will receive this six days before hand in which is the 19th of July. I have no concerns with this as I am sure that will be the only thing holding us back from having a final fine tuned cut.

On the other hand, Capture Cornwall hasn’t had much of an impact on the public as we have only received four lots of footage and these are from members at the university itself. I am beginning to think that this project is not going to work and the footage the crew filmed will not work on its own it needs to be supported by the general public’s footage. I have mentioned this to my tutors and have suggested that I confront the director and see how we can resolve this as professionally as possible.

This week I made alterations to my Pitch, Pitch proposal and dissertation Proposal. 

My Pitch Proposal:

Documentary One

“Capture Cornwall” directed by Daniel Whitehouse is a Channel 4 First Cut documentary that will be similarly shot and edited to “Britain In a Day” (Morgan Matthews), “Life in a Day” and “One Day on Earth”. The footage will be captured mainly by the general public; this will be a challenge on its own in post production as I will have no clue on how good a quality the footage will be. To try and help this situation I will be advising those who are going to take part in this project on how to shot using certain formats and how to upload the footage onto YouTube without losing too much of the footage quality; this will be placed on the “Capture Cornwall” website.

The ways in which I will be adding my own style to the final product is by using split screens, vignettes, juxtaposing, quick paced cuts, montages of the publics footage, some footage that will be captured by the crew will be edited so it has a resemblance of a similar quality as the footage captured by the general public. This is to avoid too much distraction from the public’s footage to the professional’s footage. 

Documentary Two

“Nazis For Tea” directed by Jonathan Warren is again a Channel 4 First Cut documentary about an individual who is the only person alive that boarded the German ship that ported in Falmouth for six weeks before the German’s attack. This documentary will capture his memories and will show audiences what it was like for him as a child experiencing this rare moment. I will be getting editing style ideas from history documentaries and will be looking into what archive footage exists from this event. 

The challenging element of this documentary is editing the modern versions of these memories. The director wants to take Jem (the Protagonist) onboard the Navy ship in Falmouth docks with school children as he explains what he remembers whilst experiencing this event. My way in making this reconstruction of his memory to work would be by making this look old as well as either having it in black and white or sepia. This would help to differentiate from his reality now and back in his past. Again I will be using vignettes and juxtaposing as well as the old film effect to make it more periodical to the eye.

Drama One

“The Highwaywoman” directed by Henry Austwick is a BBC3 drama about a highwaywoman who robs from the rich. One day she steals important papers from a carriage and then has to face the consequences through her life being cut short; does she live or does she die? This is a periodical drama so I will be studying programmes such as “The Fades”, “Pram Face” and “Lip Service” in order to come up with ideas into how I can make my editing style unique in comparison to other programmes that already exist.

The challenges of editing a drama like this would be the fact that if the casting isn’t done carefully then the characters in the drama could end up being melodramatic instead of genuine characters. Another challenge could be related to continuity errors if a member of the crew does not keep on top of it all. Therefore making the editing process a lot harder as I would have to hide the errors or lose part of the story if the error is major as there will be no time to reshoot. Also if the director was to reshoot we may have to change a scene completely as the previous location may not agree for us to shoot again on their premises as well as the fact that it will be too costly for the production budget as we are only making the drama on a low student budget. 

 In the actual presentation I sold myself as an editor more and place more influences into it such as editor Walter Murch. 

The formal pitch:

About Me: 

- Started editing when I failed one of my modules in A Level Media

- Have been editing for nearly seven years

- Have edited with software such as Avid, Final Cut, Adobe Premiere and Imovie

- Studied my A levels at camborne science and Community college

- Studied my degree at the University College Falmouth as well as my MA

- Would like to be a feature length film editor but would like to start my career in television editing

What is an Editor:

An editor is: “A film or video editor is responsible for assembling raw material into a finished product suitable for broadcasting…”

Off line editor: is an individual who edits the raw footage together into a sequences but does nothing else to it.

Online editor: Is an editor that does all the colour grading, masking etc… before it get distributed or broadcasted to viewers.

Channel 4 - First Cut Doc Idea

- I will hopefully be the editor for dan’s “Capture Cornwall” Documentary

- This is a unique project to edit as the crew will not have full control of the outcome for the final product

- Dan will be directing and editing the sound and promotion videos etc…

- Henry will be producing 

- We need a camera operator; however these will not be heavy roles. 

What is difficult or challenging about this type of documentary?

- first the majority of the footage will be capture by the public

- the shooting date will be 2nd June 2012

Techniques I am intending on using

- Vignettes

- Split Screens

- Juxtaposing

- Masking

- Push Screens

- Vox pops

- Fast Cuts

What syle am I going to use

- Cloverfield

- Blaire Witch Project

- Descent

- Britain in a day

- Life in a Day

- Man with a movie Camera

- Mail Train

Formatting/Quality

- It is going to depend on whether or not those who film their own footage are going to stick to the formatting information that will be placed on the ‘Capture Cornwall’ website

- The quality will change depending on the camera quality used by the public

- The footage that will be shot by the camera operator will be to a professional stand in order o differentiate from each other

Once my pitch was over I was advised to use an editing tool named handbrake.