Unit 16 Editing Blog - Task 3

Task 3
Be able to edit moving image material

Editing Technology

          By using various pieces of editing technology whilst you’re editing, you can create a very professional and clear piece of media to a high standard. Even simple things such as the resolution of the footage you’re shooting can make a huge difference. See below:

          This takes it from looking like an average piece of film to looking like a professional piece of media. This is key as a lot of people nowadays can tell a huge difference between Standard Definition and High Definition. SD is classed as anything up to 720p and HD is classed as 1080p. You ca film in Ultra High Definition but the cameras used are highly expensive and aren’t freely available to small time productions. However, sticking to HD 1080p will greatly improve the quality of your footage.

          Linear and non-linear editing is about how you place the clips in the edit to tell a linear story or a non-linear story. Linear means the finished product will have a distinct beginning, middle and end with no jumping backwards in time e.g. flashbacks. Non-linear, however, is much different. It means the film can have a beginning, middle and end but doesn’t necessarily have to be in that order. An example of Linear editing would be in Saving Private Ryan. We see a distinct beginning, middle and end. This film perfectly executes the Linear editing technique. An example of non-linear editing would be Reservoir Dogs which does have a beginning, middle and end but they are switched between one another. The audience doesn’t know what the beginning of the film is until the end, which is a perfect example of Non-Linear editing.

          DTR, also known as Data Transfer Rate, is the speed in which data s transferred from one digital location to another digital location. DTR is measure in bits per unit of time. If a file is 100mb (megabytes) and it will transfer from a hard drive to a computer in 100 seconds, the DTR would be 1mb/s (1 megabyte per second). Computers nowadays almost always measure per second as it gives an easy estimation of how long it will take and how much data is being transferred per second.

          In terms of file types, there are many you can save your work as. On Avid Media Composer, the default file type it saves as is ‘.MOV’ which works on all major video playing programmes and is in fact YouTube’s preferred file type as it’s easily compressed and exports the fastest. However, there are many other fie types available although some won’t work on certain programmes and may cause visual tearing of your footage. Such examples are ‘.AVI’ and ‘.FLV’, although there are thousands available.

Editing Process

          The editing process in its simplest terms is the process of editing. It’s as simple as that. However, there is a lot more involved than just that. It is pretty much what you do when you’re editing your chosen piece of media, such as importing, exporting, adding effects (visual/audio) etc. Evidence of this is in my advert for VitaHeat which will be linked at the bottom. In which it shows continuity, seamlessness, jump cutting, parallel editing and appropriate transitions such as cutting, dissolving, fading, and wiping. But most notably is the ‘cutting on action’ within my advert. 

          For my advert I created my own music for it, to avoid copyright issues, and I made the tempo of the music 120bpm (Beats Per Minute) in order to cut on the action of the scene. Each clip was 1 second long for 8 seconds, then 0.5 seconds for 8 seconds and the 0.25 seconds long for 4 seconds. In order to get this to work effectively I had to synchronise the sound and action and overlap some sounds to match footsteps, breathing etc.

Post-Production Tools

          In post-production, you can use many tools in order to craft an excellent piece of media. Such tools are on screen text, image editing and audio editing.

          Below shows an example of on screen text (idents). This is from my advert for the Hot Chocolate Energy Drink called VitaHeat. I added this in order to quickly portray the information I needed to portray and as a contrast to the voice over/narration that had been present for the majority of the clip.

          Image editing is what is says on the tin, it’s editing the image. It could be anything from contrast to saturation levels. This is called colour grading, which used to change the colour levels in your footage. This is remarkably helpful when filming on a rainy day as increasing the brightness and saturation and then tweaking the contrast can make it seem like a perfect summer’s day. An example of this ca be seen below in my VitaHeat advert.

          Audio editing is as straight forward as its name. It basically means anything to do with the audio being changed or edited, whether you change the volume, pitch or even speed. An example of this can be seen below, taken from my Foley task from Unit 38, ‘Lifted’. In this part of the sequence, I had edited a lot of the audio in terms of sound and pitch as there were some sounds that weren’t right and needed changing. That’s were audio editing come in handy.