Final evaluation of editing skills throughout the year.

Final evaluation of editing skills throughout the year. 

Throughout the year I feel that my editing skills have developed and improved by becoming more high quality and by being more appealing to the target audience. When looking at some of my very first productions to the last a clear improvement can be shown as I have started to experiment more with how I edit, and the techniques have become more noticeable and advanced. 

When looking at my very first production of ‘City Waves’ a new wave film inspired by Wong Kar Wai some of the techniques were lacking as I hadn’t had chance to develop my skills and was still learning how to use different techniques. One of the techniques I hadn’t full developed while editing was being able to blend different audio channels and at parts the production had a clear cut in the audio when it changed from music to the voice over as it didn’t seamlessly blend together. However, one part of the editing I feel worked successfully was how I used a mixture of clips in colour and clips in black and white as having a strong contrast in colours to convey different emotions if extremely conventional of Hong Kong new wave films. This can be shown when there is a clip looking towards a shop front and the clip blends from colour to black and white as the audio says ‘And the sky is grey’ as it helps to connote feelings of sadness into the clip. . I was also able to develop this experimentation with colour through some other productions by adding a colour overlay in my music video in order to connote feelings vs happiness and sadness. 

Another part of editing that I was able to improve from this first production to the last is being able to add a warp stabiliser to hand held clips to make them look more professional. In some clips such as where they are walking through the city / town are very shaky where as when making my music video with some walking clips I was able to add a warp stabiliser in order to look more professional and less confusing / difficult to watch for the audience. 

As well as this another part of the editing for ‘City Waves’ that worked well was using the ability to edit on the beat of the audio of which I was able to continue for all of my productions such as my music video and promotional video. This worked well as it made the production seem more professional and made it much easier for the audience to follow as they knew that something would happen on the beat. 

One of the editing techniques that I was better able to develop throughout the course was being able to experiment with colour for different productions following on from using black and white in ‘City Waves’ to using colour gels in the four hour film challenge and finally to using a colour overlay in my music video of the colours yellow and blue to connote either happiness or sadness. When using the coloured gels of purple and blue in the four-hour film challenge for ‘Possession’ the experimentation with this colour improved when it came to editing as the brightness was turned down it gave the clip a more effective look and allowed the colour to show through more. Although the colour turned out more purple it was able to better connote to the audience that this girl has an ambition of being liked by her peers. 

Then when it came to using colour to experiment in my music video, I decided to just use a colour overlay and add in the colour during the editing process. I decided to do this as I felt that it gave the two scenes e.g. the past and the present and huge contrast in the emptions that was being portrayed. In one scene (the past) I wanted to connote happiness and did this by adding a yellow colour overlay as this colour has strong connotations of this emotion and allowed the audience to understand that the clips with a yellow overlay were positive and happy memoires for the protagonist. When it came to the second scene (the present) I decided to use a blue colour overlay as blue has strong connotations if sadness and isolation of which the protagonist is feeling in the present. These two colours worked well in being added in the editing process as it allowed me to show a strong contrast in the emotions of the scenes. 

However, I skill I still needed to better develop when it came to my music video is the ability to blend clips together, for example in my music video when there was the mid shot of the protagonist walking up and the other protagonists hand reaching out to him even though she isn’t actually there. Although the scene was effective in showing to the audience that the girl is no longer there for whatever reason and may be perceived as a ‘ghost’ I feel that the editing could have worked a lot smoother. This is because when the colour overlay first changes from blue to yellow when the hand reaches in it blends so far then suddenly jumps to the yellow overlay. Although there is still a fade when this first starts, I feel that it could have been edited more smoothly like when the colour overlay fades back to blue. 

* Sudden change from this to this.

A skill that I was able to use in editing throughout the year was the ability to edit on the beat of the soundtrack as I was able to do this from my first production to my last for my promotional video. Being able to edit on the beat meant that when the audience was watching the promotional video they were able to pay better attention to the video as it wasn’t confusing and meant that they were able to get the preferred meaning of the promotion video of ‘Puppy School Atherstone’ being a happy and friendly place to train and socialise as puppy. 

Finally a big editing skill that I was able to develop throughout the year was being able to add writing onto the videos that were produced in order to allow the audience to understand what exactly the video is about and for the promotional video to allow the audience to know exactly what the puppy is doing and what things they are learning in puppy training. When adding writing to the text I was able to get them to fade onto and off the screen is a seamless way that the audience can easily follow and blended effectively. 

Overall, I feel that throughout the year my editing skills have shown a great improvement allowing me to create more professional and effective productions that better appeal to an audience as they are more actively watching the production and are better engaged. All though some skills could still be better developed such as being able to blend clips together some skills are very effective and well developed such as adding a colour overlay in order to encode specific feeling into the production for the audience to decode.

Clips, Footage and Bins.

Clips, Footage and Bins. 

Evaluation of production skills across all units.

Evaluation of production skills across all units. 

When looking at my production skills throughout all units I feel that my strongest skill for production was the amount of planning I used in order to create an effective product at the end. The most effective time that planning helped my production was when it came to the production of my music video as if it wasn’t for effective planning, I wouldn’t have created the final product that I did as the first plan didn’t work out. During the planning process for the music video I came up with a contingency plan that meant that if the first plan didn’t work out, which it didn’t, I still had another plan to fall back on, another narrative that could work just as well as the first. Planning also ended up being an effective production skill when it came to creating my promotion video as early planning meant that in the first meeting with my client I was able to show some ideas to them rather than going to the meeting being unsure of what I wanted to achieve, early planning was also effective here as it meant that I could focus on filming in more detail as I was aware of exactly what I wanted to achieve. 

However, one production skill that could have been improved was the filming process or more specifically the equipment that I decided to use. During most productions I decided to use a DSLR camera and a tripod and usually only stuck to these two pieces of equipment. If I had decided to use more pieces of equipment for all productions, they could have been more effective and high quality if I had used more lighting equipment or particularly things like gels for my music video instead of adding a colour overlay in the editing process it could have looked more effective. I know that gels are effective as they had previously been used in a four-hour film challenge applying Lacan’s mirror stage theory where a purple / blue gels was used, if I had done this for my music video it could have looked more effective as I would have been able to connote the feelings of the scenes in a more effective way.

Another production skill that got better developed across all units was the ability to research beforehand in order to find out what had previously worked in similar productions vs what didn’t. By doing better research I was able to make better decisions when it came to my own production as it meant that I could create a final product that worked well for audiences and was effective overall. A particular unit where research helped improve my production was in music videos as I used both primary and secondary to influence my production e.g. using a colour overlay similar to a music video from the 1975 or by choosing the song Laughter Lines by Bastille as it was the most popular choice in my questionnaire. 

Time management also proved to be a very useful skill when it came to making any productions as it was developed very early on when completing the four hour film challenges as learning how to stick to the time frame given meant that when I produced more productions I was better able to keep to the time restrictions and understand what needed to be done by when. Time management I believe became one of the most useful skills when it came to production as I knew when I would have things done by and was able to have spare time to add anything extra to the production if needed. This skill also proved to be very effective when it came to making my promotion video as I was able to show the client when I expect to have certain things done by e.g. drafts and was able to help them to feel more confident in what was being done as they knew they also had time to have their own improvements added in. This was also very effective for the client as it meant that production could be carried out more effectively without them worrying. Within developing my time management skill, I also created multiple gant charts as it allowed for me to know when I needed to compete certain things by and keep track of what was happening and when. 

Overall I feel that my productions skills from the first unit to the last have had a great improvement as I have managed to create productions that were increasing in quality and was able to take constructive criticism on board to create productions that would better appeal to the target audience’s. Although some skills could still use some developing such as experimenting more with the filming equipment used I feel that the skills I have developed defiantly helped in allowing me to create effective productions that appeal to target audiences, the client and to encode the right messages into my productions for the audiences to decode. If I was to complete some productions again, I would try to make sure that I used some of the same productions skills such as planning and time management to my advantage while experimenting more with how certain things are filmed in order to create more interesting and appealing productions.