Editing Extravaganza - The Trilogy Of A Novice Cinematographer
If you recall, the last time I touched on editing it was simply confining and refining some of the interview and miscellaneous B-roll segments. To initiate editing this time around I did the same thing. The only difference was the cumulative time for the opening sequence was 14:13 which was far too much. To cut down the clips I started with cutting down any segments where the audio was complexly unsalvageable or was off-script. In addition to that I mentioned how I took many takes of the same scene, therefore it was necessary to go through and hand-pick the best overall clips. During the process, I also took the initiative to roughly sort the videos in chronological order according to the original storyboard.
To my surprise, this got the time down to the 5-minute mark. Granted the interview segment was still cohesive and had not yet been split into a voiceover and there was still some “filler” or B-roll shots I could remove. I was at ease. From here I was a little stumped. I planned to build a backbone with the audio and adjust the visuals accordingly since there was plenty of content to be manipulated. Quickly into this plan, I realized it was just not going to work. See the audio was manipulated around the titles which was manipulated around the visuals. It is all intertwined. At this point, I was really frustrated and quite honestly confused.
I have edited two pieces of film yet this was by far the hardest to edit. The clear increase in time and heightened sense of awareness of the elements of genre were present. But, I never expected it to hinder my ability to fully go through with editing itself. At this point, I felt it was best to recollect and come back with a fresh mind. This technique of taking periodic breaks saved me in the music video creation so it was only appropriate to implement it here.
On my break, I took a stroll outside. And of course, I found myself finding food as I always do on these breaks. So, I bought a pizza from a local business and took it back up to be my editing snack. As I had hoped the fresh air cleansed my thoughts and allowed me another perspective to approach the opening sequence. At this point, I decided that the titles were going to have to be the last thing I added since it was extremely tedious work that had to be synchronized to the final product only. This left me with visuals and audio. I decided that I was going to segment the sequences into workable chunks. This meant carving out the audio for 20-30 seconds and then editing the corresponding visuals and repeating this process till the opening sequence was complete. During this process, I wanted to adhere to the storyboard but also allow myself the creativity to deviate from it slightly to better fit the adapted narrative. 
My editing location feat. The pizza I devoured
So, to start the audio I knew I wanted to have sirens of some sort blasting in the background. Originally I had planned on recording the sirens within the city since they often pass by busy streets. Thus I could whip out my phone in the moment and get the audio I needed. Well, I ended up never getting the opportunity (which should’ve been expected but I was being naive). This left me with my trusty friend, royalty-free sound effects. Truthfully, I have never heard of royalty-free sound effects or what sites had reputable characteristics so I just did a simple Google search. After sifting through a couple of websites I found artlist.io which was a website made just for noncopyrighted sound effects. I searched for “Sirens” and there were what felt like thousands of options. I went through a couple but the most realistic sound effects were “Police Radio - Two-way Voices, Car Siren, Drive, Interior Sound” by Apple Hill Studios. This sound ended up being perfect for me because it included police chatter, ambient sound from passing cars, and of course the sirens.
Next, I shifted my focus to the visuals. It all started with the establishing shots I had. I followed my storyboard completely for the succession of these clips. First, the establishing shot of the cars passing by was shown, followed by the low angle of the street sign, and then the low wide shot and tilt of the courthouse. Since I wasn’t sure if I would have over or under the time constraints of 1:57-2:00 I decided to not trim any of these shots even though they were significantly longer than they should’ve been.
Importantly, the opening was going to have a black screen which fades out the establishing shot. I made sure to add this edit to the video at this stage. I did a similar thing in the music video and I recall having to do the process somewhat in reverse to get the desired effect. Using CapCut, I selected the establishing shot, pressed “Animations” and then searched and picked “Fade In”. See, the first clip is a stagnant black screen (picture) from online so if I picked “Fade Out” the black screen would fade to a black screen that is just not visible and therefore still has the choppy, undesired look to it. So, I instead did a “Fade In” so it looks like it is fading out.
From this point, I was feeling quite good. I rewatched the segment a couple of times and just felt like something was missing. I went back to the extensive research I had performed to seek a better understanding of what was needed from my opening sequence. Then it hit me. There was often a faint soundtrack throughout the whole opening that would get louder at some parts which is when it was noticeable. But it was also faint at others, which the subconscious blurred, but the music still had the sickening, mood-setting effect. That’s when I knew I had to do the same thing.
In a previous blog, I went over my attempt to contact artists and providers for the rights to use their work in my project. Sadly, I didn't get any responses. I have been reading up on copyright rules and such for the past couple of days while the dilemma with the songs set in. As far as I know, it will be okay to use the song since it is not for any profitable use, it will be properly credited, and I have done everything on my part to inform the party. I am hoping my research was correct. As for any of my other fellow newcomers to the world of cinematography, I would not suggest following my path since I am taking a gander into unknown territory right now. Nonetheless, I am reminding myself that I am just a novice in this field and that it should be okay.
So from there, I added “River Waltz” into the film. I did this by extracting the audio and then adding it to the film. As I said the volume of the audio varies which means I am going to have to adjust it according to the visuals and audio so I added it to my To Do list for the end of the editing.
Now this whole process seems concise and simple but my narration is only the conclusions I reached after a lot of hardcore trial-and-error. This whole process of going back and forth between cutting down clips, adding in fade in/out, and the chronicle of music took me over 4 hours! It doesn’t look like that much on paper (or I should say on the computer) but it was a mentally-taxing process. Compared to the previous media-related projects I have done, this was the most diverse in each element making for an interesting project but also a very time-consuming one.
Hopefully, my next bit of editing will take less time. Bye, y’all!
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