Major Project - [Editing] - Donington Track Day Sequence w/ Sam
Editing The Donington Track Sequence
Putting together the Donington track sequence was the most actuality heavy piece I was required to edit for this project. The sequence begins with Alex in the car driving through the Donington Park main entrance. This is accompanied with V/O from Alex where he discusses where he's going, what he's doing and gives a bit of exposition about Sam and his story. Sam's circumstances are fairly unique as I've mentioned before, he drives his race car to every track as it used to be a standard road car, therefore remains road legal despite its modifications.
After introducing both Donington Park & Sam to the viewer, the sequence dips into a more traditional documentary style piece as the music comes to an end. Instead of simply fading out the music here with something like an 'exponential fade', I've cut the last beat and added a 'Studio Reverb' which gives the song a more distinctive finishing point that echoes as the sequence cuts to black. By nesting the last beat I want to hear before the song ends and duplicating the clip within the nest itself, I'm able to then extend the audio outwards further than I normally would be able to, therefore lengthening the echo generated by the reverb modifier. This technique can be used in order to more professionally end a musical piece without simply resorting to fading out the backing track.
Sam welcomes Alex to Donington and shows him round the car, then Alex begins suiting up ready to get out on track as Sam explains a bit about his own story and what appeals to him about his approach to Motorsport. Following this, Alex heads out on track and the audience is presented with a number of shots of Alex track-side at Donington while Sam has a PTC (Piece to Camera) in which he explains what's going on right now, how Alex has improved since the beginning of the day and what it took to give him the confidence to allow Alex to race in his car. The PTC itself was fairly easy to edit together, it simply required syncing up the clip-mic audio from my phone to the video footage of course, followed by the addition of an animated lower third to display Sam's name and role within the documentary and some minor colour correction.
After this segment, there's a 10 second period of raw track audio mixed with clips of Alex out on track, including one where he accelerates through the Donington Park straight. The audio for these clips worked really well with the sequence and helped accentuate the speed at which Alex was going through that area. We then see the car pull into the pitlane and back towards the garage before we cut to a debrief between Alex & Sam. Here they discuss how Alex's progress evolved over the course of the day and Sam expresses his interest and admiration for the way in which Alex was showing a marked difference by the end of the day, in comparison to when he started in the morning. Track days like this are often some of the most valuable times drivers get out on track as it often comprises the majority of track experience time that you get before the actual race itself.
The debriefing sequence features cutaways to track-side footage of Alex in the car whilst also including more interesting footage like Alex & Sam rigging themselves up inside the car just before they went out on-track together. The final part of this sequence is the ending PTC where Alex talks to the camera about how he personally thinks the day went. This was pieced together using the same method from the other PTC's, i.e. syncing up clip-mic audio to the video we recorded, linking the audio and video layers and them cutting them when and as needed. After feedback from Simon we trimmed down both the solo Sam PTC and the ending PTC significantly, in an effort to avoid having either of them repeat themselves or re-tread ground that had already been covered elsewhere in the documentary.
As Alex's ending PTC wraps up, we cut to the final shot of us driving away into the sunset at the end of the day, the revving of the engine slowly fades into the background as a sound effect creeps into the audio-space before the frame flickers to black, similar to the revving of the engine in the 'What I've Done' sequence.
Putting together the Donington track sequence was the most actuality heavy piece I was required to edit for this project. The sequence begins with Alex in the car driving through the Donington Park main entrance. This is accompanied with V/O from Alex where he discusses where he's going, what he's doing and gives a bit of exposition about Sam and his story. Sam's circumstances are fairly unique as I've mentioned before, he drives his race car to every track as it used to be a standard road car, therefore remains road legal despite its modifications.
After introducing both Donington Park & Sam to the viewer, the sequence dips into a more traditional documentary style piece as the music comes to an end. Instead of simply fading out the music here with something like an 'exponential fade', I've cut the last beat and added a 'Studio Reverb' which gives the song a more distinctive finishing point that echoes as the sequence cuts to black. By nesting the last beat I want to hear before the song ends and duplicating the clip within the nest itself, I'm able to then extend the audio outwards further than I normally would be able to, therefore lengthening the echo generated by the reverb modifier. This technique can be used in order to more professionally end a musical piece without simply resorting to fading out the backing track.
Sam welcomes Alex to Donington and shows him round the car, then Alex begins suiting up ready to get out on track as Sam explains a bit about his own story and what appeals to him about his approach to Motorsport. Following this, Alex heads out on track and the audience is presented with a number of shots of Alex track-side at Donington while Sam has a PTC (Piece to Camera) in which he explains what's going on right now, how Alex has improved since the beginning of the day and what it took to give him the confidence to allow Alex to race in his car. The PTC itself was fairly easy to edit together, it simply required syncing up the clip-mic audio from my phone to the video footage of course, followed by the addition of an animated lower third to display Sam's name and role within the documentary and some minor colour correction.
After this segment, there's a 10 second period of raw track audio mixed with clips of Alex out on track, including one where he accelerates through the Donington Park straight. The audio for these clips worked really well with the sequence and helped accentuate the speed at which Alex was going through that area. We then see the car pull into the pitlane and back towards the garage before we cut to a debrief between Alex & Sam. Here they discuss how Alex's progress evolved over the course of the day and Sam expresses his interest and admiration for the way in which Alex was showing a marked difference by the end of the day, in comparison to when he started in the morning. Track days like this are often some of the most valuable times drivers get out on track as it often comprises the majority of track experience time that you get before the actual race itself.
The debriefing sequence features cutaways to track-side footage of Alex in the car whilst also including more interesting footage like Alex & Sam rigging themselves up inside the car just before they went out on-track together. The final part of this sequence is the ending PTC where Alex talks to the camera about how he personally thinks the day went. This was pieced together using the same method from the other PTC's, i.e. syncing up clip-mic audio to the video we recorded, linking the audio and video layers and them cutting them when and as needed. After feedback from Simon we trimmed down both the solo Sam PTC and the ending PTC significantly, in an effort to avoid having either of them repeat themselves or re-tread ground that had already been covered elsewhere in the documentary.
As Alex's ending PTC wraps up, we cut to the final shot of us driving away into the sunset at the end of the day, the revving of the engine slowly fades into the background as a sound effect creeps into the audio-space before the frame flickers to black, similar to the revving of the engine in the 'What I've Done' sequence.
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