Final Day of Editing

Today is the last day of editing.  This promo has to be edited for tomorrow, which I was worrying about because our editing session was cut short yesterday because another year had to use the computers and it was there day so they got priority. As the day before Sammie and Lewis were the editors and I just had an input into it. Halfway through the day we stopped editing to capture the remaining footage that we needed, this was college footage. I sat with Becki to edit the confessions from Dolphinholme whilst Sammie filmed it. We then needed a shot of me and my friends. I gathered some of them and we were going to film in the cafe but it was very busy so we decided to film on the bench outside. It was freezing. Lewis wanted to get another shot, he wanted to get a shot of me on the camera in TV studio. I was against this because I generally don't go on the camera in the TV studio because I prefer vision mixing and prefer to be on camera when it isn't live. But Lewis persuaded me. 

Today I learnt how to change the colouring on the footage without using after effects. Once I was shown how to do this I realised that it is really easy to alter the colouring. You go onto video effects, then either colour correction RGB curves or Three way colour correction. The first circle is shadow, the second mid tone and the last highlights.

When Jamie looked at the footage he said that we needed to change the music bed because we needed one that was copy write free. Brian helped us with this by choosing the track. I didn't like it in the beginning but it went really well with the documentary. Jamie also told us that towards the end of the promo we were becoming indulgent and that we should butcher it and try to edit it down to a minute. The first attempt at this didn't go very well. The audio was no longer in sync with the video. I kept saying this but the other two group members said it was fine. When they realised that it wasn't I pointed out what was wrong with it and told them that it was impossible to get the video down to a minute without cutting some of the audio which they didn't want to do. I pointed out which bits were best to cut and that a couple of words in the audio could also be cut because they weren't essential. By the end of the editing process me and my group were both tired of my voice. 
We did really well in making the promo for Child Action Northwest in four days. Most of that time we spent editing the promo and trying to perfect it. 

Child Action North West Promo from Emily McGregor on Vimeo.


Self Evaluation 

What did I do?
For this project I was the producer, director and the Camera operator.

How well did I do it?
I though that I would struggle more with the Pre-Production and the production of this documentary because I am so close to it, however I surprised myself with how well I coped during these two stages. I took control the the project and managed to get it completed within the time limit. I had three roles to do as well as be in the documentary as it is about my story. It was challenging to be in it as well as direct it. We manged to get the footage that we needed and I had to change the filming schedule round a bit because of the weather. This was my first time at directing, which on reflection I should have done earlier as it is what most interests me. I did a good job of directing this production, especially because I was so close to the project. I think that the shots that I managed to get were good and reflected professional standards. I am able to be objective when I am planning the production and when I am filming, this is a good quality to have when film making because you have to do what is best for the production. I know when to take a step back because I can't do something, but the things I can't do I need to improve it.

How can I improve it?
I could have improved with the post production of things. I need to learn to distance myself in post-production and be able to view the footage objectively. However I knew that I couldn't edit the footage whilst being objective so I took a step back.