SEMESTER 2
Conspiracy Theory Edit
The last assignment we were given was to create a three-minute documentary based on a conspiracy theory. It had to be opinionated and only contain existing footage from YouTube. This assignment was to see if we could create a new narrative using existing clips. The part of the assignment that took the longest time was finding a conspiracy to do; the three most famous ones couldn't be used. This was to make the assignment more challenging. Once we decided on a conspiracy, we then had to find the footage. My group decided to make a documentary based on MK Ultra. MK Ultra was a secret government-led organization dealing in mind control experiments, which ran for 30 years and wasn't discovered until the late 1970's/1980's. Because it was secret, not many people know of it so we decided this would be a good conspiracy to do.
We did the film around the victim's experiences' rather than the doctors. The reason for this was so the audience were told exactly what the experiments were and how they were treated; if we'd done the film from the other point of view, we wouldn't be given all of the information that the victim's tell us. The background music we used was taken from one of the YouTube clips we used. We decided to use this piece of music and loop it throughout the film because it sounded calming yet eerie whereas the images and dialogue are shocking, therefore making the film seem disturbing. We chose to do the editing to the beat of the music to make the film fast-paced. This meant we could include as much information as possible in the three-minute timeframe. As well as this, we had a lot of cut aways consisting of phychological imagery. This was so the audience could engage more with the film. As of writing, I am still awaiting my results for this piece of work.
MK Ultra from Megan DeLonge Williams on Vimeo.
Any news is Good News:
A look at Russell Howard's Good News
Russell Howard is a stand-up comedian, who originally appeared as a regular panel guest on Mock The Week. He was given his own show in 2009 and 'Good News first aired on BBC Three on 22nd October 2009. The show focuses on different topics in the news including headline news, weird news and a 'I didn't know that' section, as well as a 'Mystery Guest' segment, where someone is invited on the show and Russell Howard has to guess why that person was in that week's news.
This programme and 'Harry's Hill's TV Burp' are very similar because they both use existing footage from TV to get their jokes across to their audience. However, Russell Howard's humour is more mature and adult-themed than 'TV Burp. Howard also talks about specific news articles whereas Harry Hill talks about TV programmes.
The editing isn't very fast-paced; it doesn't need to be: This is because there's no action or quick gags involved. Another reason why the editing isn't quick is so the viewers can concentrate on listening to each joke. If the editing was fast, then the viewers would find it difficult to concentrate on the jokes because they're paying more attention on the different shots being displayed. Russell Howard uses existing footage taken from news report to portray his jokes. The way each joke is started is he'll introduce his joke by saying 'Have you noticed.....' or 'Is it me or.....' and he'll show a news clip to back up his joke. This means the clips have been cut at a specific point, and are taken out of context, to be displayed in a comical way. Colour grading is also used in a couple of examples throughout the programmes, to display specific members of the public in a different light.
SEMESTER 1:
Online tutorials and exercises
Conspiracy Theory Edit
The last assignment we were given was to create a three-minute documentary based on a conspiracy theory. It had to be opinionated and only contain existing footage from YouTube. This assignment was to see if we could create a new narrative using existing clips. The part of the assignment that took the longest time was finding a conspiracy to do; the three most famous ones couldn't be used. This was to make the assignment more challenging. Once we decided on a conspiracy, we then had to find the footage. My group decided to make a documentary based on MK Ultra. MK Ultra was a secret government-led organization dealing in mind control experiments, which ran for 30 years and wasn't discovered until the late 1970's/1980's. Because it was secret, not many people know of it so we decided this would be a good conspiracy to do.
We did the film around the victim's experiences' rather than the doctors. The reason for this was so the audience were told exactly what the experiments were and how they were treated; if we'd done the film from the other point of view, we wouldn't be given all of the information that the victim's tell us. The background music we used was taken from one of the YouTube clips we used. We decided to use this piece of music and loop it throughout the film because it sounded calming yet eerie whereas the images and dialogue are shocking, therefore making the film seem disturbing. We chose to do the editing to the beat of the music to make the film fast-paced. This meant we could include as much information as possible in the three-minute timeframe. As well as this, we had a lot of cut aways consisting of phychological imagery. This was so the audience could engage more with the film. As of writing, I am still awaiting my results for this piece of work.
MK Ultra from Megan DeLonge Williams on Vimeo.
Any news is Good News:
A look at Russell Howard's Good News
Russell Howard is a stand-up comedian, who originally appeared as a regular panel guest on Mock The Week. He was given his own show in 2009 and 'Good News first aired on BBC Three on 22nd October 2009. The show focuses on different topics in the news including headline news, weird news and a 'I didn't know that' section, as well as a 'Mystery Guest' segment, where someone is invited on the show and Russell Howard has to guess why that person was in that week's news.
This programme and 'Harry's Hill's TV Burp' are very similar because they both use existing footage from TV to get their jokes across to their audience. However, Russell Howard's humour is more mature and adult-themed than 'TV Burp. Howard also talks about specific news articles whereas Harry Hill talks about TV programmes.
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| Russell Howard's Good News: promotional poster for series 7 |
The editing isn't very fast-paced; it doesn't need to be: This is because there's no action or quick gags involved. Another reason why the editing isn't quick is so the viewers can concentrate on listening to each joke. If the editing was fast, then the viewers would find it difficult to concentrate on the jokes because they're paying more attention on the different shots being displayed. Russell Howard uses existing footage taken from news report to portray his jokes. The way each joke is started is he'll introduce his joke by saying 'Have you noticed.....' or 'Is it me or.....' and he'll show a news clip to back up his joke. This means the clips have been cut at a specific point, and are taken out of context, to be displayed in a comical way. Colour grading is also used in a couple of examples throughout the programmes, to display specific members of the public in a different light.
SEMESTER 1:
Online tutorials and exercises
The editing software I have been taught to
use at Staffordshire is Final Cut X, which is the latest version. When learning
to use it during the tutorials in weeks 2-5, I haven’t found much of a
difference between this version and version 8. The only difference in Final Cut
X is it automatically saves, which I have had to adjust to because of the older
version I have used at college. The other difference is the change in location for most of the commands. Apart from this, I haven’t found the program any
different from the earlier versions. However, I have turned to Premiere Pro to
edit because Final Cut X does not take MTS files, which are the video files
that are on the Panosonic HMC 151 cameras. Premiere Pro does import these files
so I have decided to edit using this piece of software.
For the editing exercises, I had to edit
the sound in Scene 34 and Scene 38 (On Blackboard, this scene is called Scene 37 but the footage tells us that it is actually Scene 38). I didn’t find Scene 34 too difficult, mainly because the
sound quality was quite poor to begin with, so effects like hum reduction and background noise reduction were
ineffective. I wanted the scene to feel calm and relaxing because of the location and the dialogue included. Because of this, the shots have been edited into long shots, mainly focusing on the male actor. I have made most of the reaction shots from the actress short so the audience are focused on the male actor. I have also used cut aways so the scene has more variety of shots; therefore, the audience will not get bored and will continue to watch the scene.
The other problem I had with this exercise was saving it. Saving the footage was easy but, whenever I went back to it, the footage would be wiped off of Final Cut. I found out recently that this is because you can’t save work to your user space at Staffordshire. Instead you have to save it to the Macs Data drive. In the future, I will save my footage to a hard drive instead of the computer so I know that I definitely have it when continuing with work. After a third attempt of editing Scene 34, I saved it to the Data drive which seemed to open the video file when I went back to it. However, when I uploaded it to Vimeo, it said that the file was an unknown file so could not be uploaded. I then decided to export it to a mov. file and the file became too small to be uploaded. I found out that Vimeo only accepts MP4. files and, because I have never used the website before, I did not know this. Realising my mistake, I went back to the Mac to upload my footage again and Final Cut X couldn't retrieve my work because the clips were 'missing'. In the future, I will choose Premiere Pro to edit.
Scene 38 wasn't too difficult to edit because there wasn't a variety of shots to use, and it was just one conversation. Once again, I wanted this scene to have long shots. At the beginning, I wanted the two female characters to share a rivalry between each other. To show the audience this, I used the high angle and close up of the two females. The continuity of this scene was simple to keep because it was mainly one conversation between two characters and the main bit of dialogue came from the male actor. The sound quality was also of good quality so I didn't need to change a lot, apart from turning down the volume on a couple of shots. Unlike Scene 34, I didn't have any problems uploading the footage to Vimeo.
Scene 38 from Megan DeLonge Williams on Vimeo.
Ghostbusters
The other problem I had with this exercise was saving it. Saving the footage was easy but, whenever I went back to it, the footage would be wiped off of Final Cut. I found out recently that this is because you can’t save work to your user space at Staffordshire. Instead you have to save it to the Macs Data drive. In the future, I will save my footage to a hard drive instead of the computer so I know that I definitely have it when continuing with work. After a third attempt of editing Scene 34, I saved it to the Data drive which seemed to open the video file when I went back to it. However, when I uploaded it to Vimeo, it said that the file was an unknown file so could not be uploaded. I then decided to export it to a mov. file and the file became too small to be uploaded. I found out that Vimeo only accepts MP4. files and, because I have never used the website before, I did not know this. Realising my mistake, I went back to the Mac to upload my footage again and Final Cut X couldn't retrieve my work because the clips were 'missing'. In the future, I will choose Premiere Pro to edit.
Scene 38 wasn't too difficult to edit because there wasn't a variety of shots to use, and it was just one conversation. Once again, I wanted this scene to have long shots. At the beginning, I wanted the two female characters to share a rivalry between each other. To show the audience this, I used the high angle and close up of the two females. The continuity of this scene was simple to keep because it was mainly one conversation between two characters and the main bit of dialogue came from the male actor. The sound quality was also of good quality so I didn't need to change a lot, apart from turning down the volume on a couple of shots. Unlike Scene 34, I didn't have any problems uploading the footage to Vimeo.
Scene 38 from Megan DeLonge Williams on Vimeo.
Ghostbusters
Another exercise I had to do was to recreate
a scene from Ghostbusters, which was a group exercise. We mostly filmed this
scene in order to make editing easier. However, we did have to re-shoot this
scene because our work got wiped off the camera and SD card. We were not able
to figure out why this had happened. The second time we filmed, we filmed in
the same process to make the editing easier. We were also editing the film for
See Green at the same time, so this form of filming made the Post Production
stage easier. When we went to edit, we realized that we had missed out two
shots, so we had to re-use some existing footage for it to make sense. However,
there are a couple of jump cuts in the scene, so more filming needs to be done
next time. We also need to film longer shots because the pacing of the scene
was disorganized.
Ghostbusters from Megan DeLonge Williams on Vimeo.
Analysis: Music Video for ‘Always’ by Blink-182
This video was
released in 2004 and was the last single to be released from their self-titled
album. The song is about a relationship falling apart and the singer is trying
to make it work. The video reflects the lyrics in the song. For the video, the
screen is split into three sections, with the three band members being
portrayed as one person; the girl is only displayed as herself. This is telling
the audience two things. The split screen is telling us that the relationship
is breaking apart. The use of the band members portraying one person is saying
that he has different personalities and is unpredictable, possibly leading to
the downfall of the relationship. The girl is involved with the type of video
display but no other girl is portraying her at the same time. Therefore, she is
displayed as the victim and is damaged because of the broken relationship.
Apart from the way the video is displayed, it looks as if it was filmed in one
take. I personally think seamless editing was involved in the making of this
video. The editing is done to the beat of the song with the pacing being quick, so the actions/ shots are short. During the bridge near the end, the pace slows down because the bridge is quiet and slow. The characters actions are also in time with the music. For example, from 2:11-2:29, the camera turns to each band member by the drumbeat that's being played.
I would assume this was edited using either Adobe Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro HD (v. 4.5); a few TV companies were using Final Cut yet Avid and Premiere Pro were still the preferred choice around this time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Cut_Pro). Each shot would be filmed three times (one shot for each band member), then each shot would be cropped down and placed on top of each other, therefore creating the effect featured in the video.
I would assume this was edited using either Adobe Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro HD (v. 4.5); a few TV companies were using Final Cut yet Avid and Premiere Pro were still the preferred choice around this time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Cut_Pro). Each shot would be filmed three times (one shot for each band member), then each shot would be cropped down and placed on top of each other, therefore creating the effect featured in the video.
Literature Read:
-H.R.Giger and Mia Bonzanigo-Giger's Alien. Titan Books ISBN-9781852862190
- Murch Walter-In the Blink of an Eye: A
Perspective on Film Editing. Silman-James Press ISBN-13: 978-1879505629
-Lori Jane Coleman and Diana Friedberg-Make the Cut: a guide to becoming a successful assistant editor in Film & TV. Focal Press ISBN-978-0-240-81398-1
-Lori Jane Coleman and Diana Friedberg-Make the Cut: a guide to becoming a successful assistant editor in Film & TV. Focal Press ISBN-978-0-240-81398-1
-David Sonnenschein-Sound Design. Michael Wiese Productions ISBN-0-941188-26-4
-Danny Draven-The Filmmaker's Book of the Dead. Focal Press ISBN-978-0240812069
-Danny Draven-The Filmmaker's Book of the Dead. Focal Press ISBN-978-0240812069
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