Film and Television Editor

This week I met up again with dan and we discussed the marketing strategies for Capture Cornwall. We spoke about the following:

1) Crew roles

2) The shooting date

3) Promotions

4) The final product

5) Crew Availibility

This is what we came up with:

1) Crew Roles 

 Production Producer – Henry Austwick

Director – Dan Whitehouse

Creative Producer – Catherine Vondrak

Technician/Editor – Melissa Curnow

2) The shooting day will be June 2nd 2012 and the footage will need to be uploaded by the 9th of June 2012. 

3) Promotions:

A Flag

Selling to the public, twitter, Facebook, blog/website, Vimeo channel, Capture Cornwall logo

Shaytards style video blogs

Count down clock needed on video blog

Radio stations – BBC Radio Cornwall, Heart FM, pirate FM, St Austell etc…

Newspapers

Road show

T-shirts and other souvenirs 

4) The Final Product

Technical brief – five top tips on how is shoot and upload their footage

Introduction guide for the public so that they know what we want from them

Equipment Lists

Channel 4 first cut documentary

A community project

University College Falmouth Logo is needed as well as any other sponsors of the project

5) My availability:

I am free Monday to Wednesday, Thursday and friday I am free until 1600, Saturday I am free until 1200 and sundays I am free after 1730

This week I also met up with Henry Austwick as he was interested in me editing his BBC3 drama called ‘The Highway woman’. He gave me two drafts of his script this week and mentioned that it was going to change again this week. 

For my dissertation I was told to think of my dissertation title which was:

How can Editors Make or Break Dramas and Documentaries?

This week I sat down with our tutor in our development session and discussed how I could pitch my skills as an editor. We spoke about pitching for Dan’s Documentary as its unique on its own. It will be very challenging as I will be relying on the public and not by the crew itself at  university. I was told to talk about the difficulties of editing such a project, what the challenges are, what techniques I will be using, what style I will be using, what formatting/quality issues could I be faced with and how I will edit it as an individual to make it my own. 

Dan and I also were told to go over the editing roles for the project and allocate them between us because dan is too an editor but wanting to direct instead.

Dan will edit the promotional footage, the recces and post-sound.

I will be editing the Trailer, The main product both online and offline editing as well as the footage shot by the crew members (the three contributors just in case we have no success with the publics footage). 

For the dissertation I spoke with my tutor an developed my idea:

Title: How editors Make or Break a Programme

Content:

To which extent can an editor control the editing process of a product

What is the differences between the editing styles for dramas and documentaries

Comparative study 

Drama Vs Documentary

Walter Murch - Rule of Six

Challenges that occur through post-production

What programmes use a similar style to your work

What is it that allows editors to do this

Does this as an individual make me more employable/marketable

What is the role of an editor

Interview relevent editors and dirrectors

Use accademic sources for theories 

what is the importance of the editor in relation to the production process

This week we were given our introduction to this unit. We could either pitch for an idea or pitch a skill. Being an editor I thought that pitching myself as this would benefit me more than pitching an idea.
About me…
- I have been editing for nearly seven years now. It started off in my sixth form as I was the editor for them. I edited documentaries, events such as fashion shows and variety shows and some trailers.
- I have worked with a well known cornish filmmaker called Tom Harding on a music video featuring Flava and Phatts and Small.
- I will be working with Tom Again next february with a local project.

This week Daniel Whitehouse also approached me with his idea for his first cut documentary that he named Capture Cornwall. The crew so far is Dan who is directing it, Catherine who is the creative producer, Henry Austwick who is the producer and myself who is the editor. This project will be similar to ‘Britain in a Day’ and ‘Life In a Day’. This means that the public will be filming the footage and not the crew ourselves. This will be a challenge on its own as I the editor wont have any idea of the quality of the footage I will receive.

This week we also were given an insight of what is different between an MA degree dissertation and a BA degree dissertation. the key difference is that in a BA you do not have to keep relating it back to your own work.

Dan, Henry and myself met up to talk about what content should be included in the 30 second promo video. We need it to be exciting and engaging for its audience.

Without this I feel there will not be much success on the project so we need tout as much time and commitment into the project to make it work.

Jon and myself decided we would meet up so that he could fill me in with the planned shooting dates. He wanted to know how I worked as an editor as we have never worked together before. We decided that for the benefit of the project he would give me the footage as he shot it. He was also going to give me the relevant paperwork to make the editing process as fluent as possible. This in theory will speed up the whole process altogether. When he gives me the footage I will automatically import it into the editing software (in this case Avid) so that it is ready for when we hit the editing suite itself in a couple of weeks time. This will also give me the opportunity to get to know the footage and to organise the project bins and folders so that they are in a coherent order.

The footage for this promo was well shot. This time the second producer shot the footage and the director was with him. The director clearly explained to the public what type of footage we were after and the importance of getting involved I such a community project. This promo included everyday activities and the public’s general day to day routine. The crew will be filming as well and we want the publics footage to structure the documentary. Without this the project will not work hence the importance of getting simple but effective aids like this to work.

In order for the public of Cornwall to know about the project a Facebook account needed to be made. The director of the project done this then as an editor I put the promo video onto it. A website was also created as well as an email address and YouTube page.

The promo footage itself was not shot that brilliantly so the outcome of the promo video too was not of a high standard. This was shot by one of the producers and the director. I was given no cutaways or next to nothing of Gv shots. The other producer saw the outcome of it and agreed that it was promoting Capture Cornwall in the best way possible. We both had a chat with the other two and decided it would be best to reshoot the promotion video again so that we could clearly tell the public what we wanted them to capture on the 9th of June 2012.

The footage I was given was pretty much uneditable but I was able to capture an essence of what the audiences would need to know.

Blog for unit 160 - Week One

Green lighting the projectsB
In today’s session the pitches went ahead for the projects. The projects that I wanted to edit were Capture Cornwall directed by Daniel Whitehouse. This is a channel 4 first cut documentary inspired by Matthew Morgan’s Britain in a Day. Dan wants to capture the Essence of Cornwall on June 9th 2012. This will be a user generated input project as the general public will be filming their day of events on that date which will be the main footage in the documentary. This will be a very challenging project to edit as I will not have any control on what I am going to receive in terms of footage. However it is exciting at the same time. This project will need a lot of promoting and it needs to be done well. 
The second project I wanted to edit was The Highway-woman directed by Henry Austwick. This would be a BBC3 drama based on a female protagonist who steals from the wrong people. This to me is an ideal project to edit as it is both challenging but enticing at the same time; especially on a low student budget and limited resources in terms of crew and cast. 
Finally the third project that I’m interested in is Teatime With the Nazis which will be directed by Jonathan Warren. This will be a Channel 4 first cut documentary about a German war ship porting in the Falmouth docks in 1939, before an attack on Falmouth six weeks later. This documentary will be again challenging as there will be reconstruction of the main contributors memories of his experience as a child. E.g. Boarding the ship in 1939 etc… 

After the pitches the two that got the go ahead were Capture Cornwall and Teatime with the Nazis. The Highway woman didn’t get he go ahead as it was going to use too much of the MA’s resources in terms of its people for crew. Even though this project didn’t get the go ahead we will still be making the drama in August 2012 as everything was put in place e.g. Crew, casting, props and funding. I am still perfectly happy to edit such a project. 

I met up with the director of Nazis for Tea this week. We had a chat about the postproduction process for this channel 4 ten minute documentary. We spoke about television programmes such as Code Breaker, films such as Pearl Harbour and Apocalypse Now for editing ideas. I came up with the ideas of black and white for reconstruction so that the audience could tell the difference between reconstruction content by the crew and today’s thoughts and actuality footage. I also suggested having a film grain on the reconstruction in order to make the footage tie in with the period of the documentary content (1938/39). I too suggested vignettes and film fades. The more Jon and myself spoke about the postproduction process the more we came up with ideas such
as making 2d images move (3d).

This I have never done before so I’m looking forward to the challenge.

Thecrew for this team is:

Self-shooting Director - Jonathan Warren
Producer - Henry Austwick
Sound - Christine Piggott
Editor - Melissa Curnow ( Myself)

TV Studio:

During this week the crew roles were finalized and each crewmember received the programme proposal from the director so that they could have an input to the programme itself.

The allocated production roles were as followed:

Director – Christine Pigott

Camera 1 – Henry Austwick

Camera 2 – Tim Hunt

Camera 3 – Jonathan Warren

Vision Mixer – Melissa Curnow or Jim Insole

Turbo – Melissa Curnow or Jim Insole

Auto Cue – Catherine Vondrak

Other roles that needed filling were as followed:

Producer, Sound Operator, Lighting Operator and the Floor Manager.

Jim and Myself had a discussion on who was going to be the vision mixer or the turbo operator. Jim said that he didn’t want to do either but he did want to be the floor manager, as he wanted to experience a role outside of the realms of an editor. From this decision I had full control in what role I wanted to specialize in for this production and that was as the vision mixer.  

The roles that are not covered will be covered by the group as a whole, Jem offered to be the sound operator for us, Mike offered to be the turbo operator for us and Pete was happy to set the lighting up with the help of someone in the gallery. Christine suggested that she would take on the role of director/producer.

 From this I went away and researched into the role of the vision mixer.  

Drama and Documentary:

I received also a copy of the proposal for both “Me and My Bro” and “Young and Pissed”. This gave me the opportunity to research into the themes, ideas etc… I also researched into the channels themselves and those who edited for them.

This involved watching a lot of Channel 4 Dramas such as The Misfits and BBC3 documentaries like Coppers.

The way in which I researched into them was by using an abbreviation, which is RAILING. This standards for Representation, Audience, Ideology, Language, Institution, Narrative and Genre.

This is a very good way of making sure you analyze films the best possible way therefore retrieving the best information that is almost 100% relevant.