Seminar 3

In this seminar we started off by watching about 10 minutes of the Ramones documentary, End of the Century (2003) by Jim fields and Michael Gramaglia.We watched it because of the editing styles and techniques used within it can help us when editing our own documentaries for the first brief.

The way in which the narrative was structured and flowed was also exceptional at keeping the audience informed and entertained. The editing for the interviews was very quick cut between a number of contributors all giving their own opinion on the same or similar subject matter which meant that the audience never gets bored with just hearing the one person speak over and over again and allows them to engage and get the bigger picture of what is being discussed. Also, whenever a contributor talks about a specific thing, archive footage or stills are used as cut aways to give evidence and assert what they have just said which also helps audience engagement and understanding.

After we watched the documentary, we started to go through the montages that we created last seminar and throughout the week. An issue that was brought up was how to export films properly using Media Composer and how, if at all, is it similar to Final Cut. We were effectively told it was the same with a few more complicated options to go through to make sure the export is exactly how you want it. In options we were told to go onto Quicktime movie and select use marks and use extended tracks. Format options then settings and check the export is in HDV 1080p 25, select keyframes to all and the size to 1920x1080 16:9. These are the basic settings needed to export most of the projects we will be working on as well as matching the project and timeline settings. To export for Vimeo upload we were told to export to Mpeg-4 and use the compression H.264, size to 1280x720 and then use limit data rate to select a value that keeps the file size under 500mb. The compressor is key as it makes the pixel information shorter and smaller so the overall file size is manageable for a free Vimeo account.

Final we went through the Rough Cuts of The Movement documentary we were editing over the past few weeks. Mine and Jay's was shown first and we had only really got up to about 4 minutes worth of what we thought was a rough-rough cut where we basically had a general structure we wanted to do with a few cut aways and other shots mixed in with the interviews with camera sound still in.

Rough, rough cut/ advanced assembly

The first feedback we were given was that what we showed wasn't a rough cut but still an advanced assembly as we still had the camera sound and didn't have a clear narrative structure put down. Those were the main problems we had, but there were also a few smaller things such as choices of shot in certain parts as well as selection of shots (we had used a shot which is obviously set up and ruins immersion in the film). Apart from these small issues which we corrected immediately after the session, all we have left to do is decide and construct a clear and interesting narrative and sync the sound with the footage we will use, as well as showing creative use of sound design.