Major Project - Editing Days At My Place (10th/17th April)
Editing As A Team
Now that shooting is coming to a close and we have nearly all of the footage necessary to compile the documentary from start to finish, we're making much more of a concerted effort to consolidate our editing time into day-long group editing sessions, with minor adjustments to specific sequences being made by myself and George during our spare time, most of which are shared over our Google Drive 'Editing' folder. As part of this initiative, both George & Alex have spent the last 2 Wednesdays at my house in Crawley, wherein which we can edit together on each of our computers, as well as record any high quality V/O (Voice-over) as needed thanks to my Rode NT1 microphone/audio DAC set-up (pictured left).
We've found our best method of work during these sessions is for us to start the day by going through our most recent feedback notes from our lecturers and alongside our own thoughts and ideas, consolidate our responsibilities into a list of tasks for each of us to focus on throughout the course of the day. This allows us to spend our time as efficiently as possible, remaining individually productive despite working on different machines/timelines. The sequences that we've been working on have been divided up into two sections, the things George is editing and the things I'm editing. The only two notable exceptions to this are the Race Day sequence and the Racing License sequence, which we're both working on collaboratively. Alex's focus these past couple of weeks has primarily been on providing on the spot feedback to creative editing decisions we make, as well as recording voice-over and overseeing the creative process.
The editing process can be incredibly time consuming, however working from a list is where I am most efficient, and having a concise group of alterations, suggestions and general ideas has been incredibly useful in ensuring we remain productive as editors. We spent the majority of our time the first week putting together specific sequences, for example George was working on the fitness montage that we shot on our pick-up day as well as the Abbi Pulling interview sequence. Each of these were approximately 2 minutes in length with the opportunity to be cut down in specific areas following additional feedback from Simon and Helen. At this point we're in the mindset that we should stop worrying so much about the time restrictions and just get everything in the timeline that we want, at which point we can then rendezvous with our course lecturers to get an understanding of what does and doesn't need to be cut for the project to be accepted at the end of the unit. George was also acting on Simon's feedback by cutting down the Bruno interview from a minute to approximately 30 seconds.
Meanwhile I was trimming down the Donington track day sequence from 4:20 to 3:00 - 3:20, this was achieved by stripping out some of Sam's dialogue regarding his own story and the car soon after him and Alex introduce themselves to each-other. It was also at this point that I began laying down the framework for the introduction that sets up the rest of the documentary, you can learn more about this process in the introduction related editing blog-post on this website. Other responsibilities for me on the 10th were to produce the VFX of Alex's channel through After Effects, having Alex beside me while I was doing this was helpful as it allowed me to get some insight into what sort of content of his that would be best to show, and whether or not he liked the look I was going for - also being on the same Wi-Fi network meant that we could easily share our work between us, which was particularly useful for me and George as editors sharing timelines, premiere pro files and full renders.
Alex's responsibilities last week consisted of producing the camera plans and shot-list for the upcoming race day that weekend, as well as searching for copyright free music that could be used during the introduction, stings, race day sequence and credits. Since we were all together it was much easier for us to share our immediate thoughts when it came to music choice, and whether or not it'd be appropriate for the aforementioned sequences. We wanted to make sure Alex wasn't sitting there watching us edit the entire day, so this was a great way to help him remain as productive as myself and George.
Today was a similar experience with us all designating each-other a list of things to have done by the end of the day, this included the race day sequence since we now had the footage from Sunday, as well as minor changes to the What I've Done montage (previously the formula ford montage) and the Donington sequence. The Donington sequence is probably the piece that has had the most alterations to it since I first edited it, however it's fascinating to watch it evolve and become much tighter over time. Alex spent today recording miscellaneous voice-over for use during the introduction to the interview with Jamie Caroline and the establishing the Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign. George spent the day making changes to the raw timeline, with a focus on the Bruno, Racing License, Diary Room & Kickstarter sequences. The Bruno sequence was cut down even further, to the point where we're now seriously considering whether or not it's worth having in the documentary in the first place. Similarly the Kickstarter scene in which Alex pitches the idea of the crowd-funding campaign to the audience has been trimmed down from 1:10 to 0:35 seconds, making it much snappier and entertaining. The racing license actually rivaled the race day sequence in terms of length so we cut it down to approximately 2:30, giving us a lot of time back for the race day sequence, and the diary room question where Alex looked at the photos from his childhood has been cut entirely based on Simon's feedback during our last session.
Now that shooting is coming to a close and we have nearly all of the footage necessary to compile the documentary from start to finish, we're making much more of a concerted effort to consolidate our editing time into day-long group editing sessions, with minor adjustments to specific sequences being made by myself and George during our spare time, most of which are shared over our Google Drive 'Editing' folder. As part of this initiative, both George & Alex have spent the last 2 Wednesdays at my house in Crawley, wherein which we can edit together on each of our computers, as well as record any high quality V/O (Voice-over) as needed thanks to my Rode NT1 microphone/audio DAC set-up (pictured left).We've found our best method of work during these sessions is for us to start the day by going through our most recent feedback notes from our lecturers and alongside our own thoughts and ideas, consolidate our responsibilities into a list of tasks for each of us to focus on throughout the course of the day. This allows us to spend our time as efficiently as possible, remaining individually productive despite working on different machines/timelines. The sequences that we've been working on have been divided up into two sections, the things George is editing and the things I'm editing. The only two notable exceptions to this are the Race Day sequence and the Racing License sequence, which we're both working on collaboratively. Alex's focus these past couple of weeks has primarily been on providing on the spot feedback to creative editing decisions we make, as well as recording voice-over and overseeing the creative process.
The editing process can be incredibly time consuming, however working from a list is where I am most efficient, and having a concise group of alterations, suggestions and general ideas has been incredibly useful in ensuring we remain productive as editors. We spent the majority of our time the first week putting together specific sequences, for example George was working on the fitness montage that we shot on our pick-up day as well as the Abbi Pulling interview sequence. Each of these were approximately 2 minutes in length with the opportunity to be cut down in specific areas following additional feedback from Simon and Helen. At this point we're in the mindset that we should stop worrying so much about the time restrictions and just get everything in the timeline that we want, at which point we can then rendezvous with our course lecturers to get an understanding of what does and doesn't need to be cut for the project to be accepted at the end of the unit. George was also acting on Simon's feedback by cutting down the Bruno interview from a minute to approximately 30 seconds.
Meanwhile I was trimming down the Donington track day sequence from 4:20 to 3:00 - 3:20, this was achieved by stripping out some of Sam's dialogue regarding his own story and the car soon after him and Alex introduce themselves to each-other. It was also at this point that I began laying down the framework for the introduction that sets up the rest of the documentary, you can learn more about this process in the introduction related editing blog-post on this website. Other responsibilities for me on the 10th were to produce the VFX of Alex's channel through After Effects, having Alex beside me while I was doing this was helpful as it allowed me to get some insight into what sort of content of his that would be best to show, and whether or not he liked the look I was going for - also being on the same Wi-Fi network meant that we could easily share our work between us, which was particularly useful for me and George as editors sharing timelines, premiere pro files and full renders.
Alex's responsibilities last week consisted of producing the camera plans and shot-list for the upcoming race day that weekend, as well as searching for copyright free music that could be used during the introduction, stings, race day sequence and credits. Since we were all together it was much easier for us to share our immediate thoughts when it came to music choice, and whether or not it'd be appropriate for the aforementioned sequences. We wanted to make sure Alex wasn't sitting there watching us edit the entire day, so this was a great way to help him remain as productive as myself and George.
Today was a similar experience with us all designating each-other a list of things to have done by the end of the day, this included the race day sequence since we now had the footage from Sunday, as well as minor changes to the What I've Done montage (previously the formula ford montage) and the Donington sequence. The Donington sequence is probably the piece that has had the most alterations to it since I first edited it, however it's fascinating to watch it evolve and become much tighter over time. Alex spent today recording miscellaneous voice-over for use during the introduction to the interview with Jamie Caroline and the establishing the Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign. George spent the day making changes to the raw timeline, with a focus on the Bruno, Racing License, Diary Room & Kickstarter sequences. The Bruno sequence was cut down even further, to the point where we're now seriously considering whether or not it's worth having in the documentary in the first place. Similarly the Kickstarter scene in which Alex pitches the idea of the crowd-funding campaign to the audience has been trimmed down from 1:10 to 0:35 seconds, making it much snappier and entertaining. The racing license actually rivaled the race day sequence in terms of length so we cut it down to approximately 2:30, giving us a lot of time back for the race day sequence, and the diary room question where Alex looked at the photos from his childhood has been cut entirely based on Simon's feedback during our last session.
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