Camera Unit Goals

Goal 1: Begin to learn larger camera rigs - I've never used a larger camera, so I'm excited to learn more about how cameras work and how to operate them. Since I hopefully want to become a camera operator, I need to start learning and studying multiple different types of cameras in order to succeed in my dream.

Goal 2: How to Properly set up various kinds of gear - Setting up is one of the first things that you do one a set, so its important to learn how to do it fast and efficiently. Having large amounts of gear is also an important factor to take into mind when setting up for a shoot.  Putting away your gear is at the same importance as setting it up. If the gear isn't put away properly, it can be damaged in the process of transportation.

Goal 3: Learn different types of shots - The fundamentals of shooting a film is how the shots are constructed. Learning how different shots make the audience feel and how they visually see the story is one of the most important parts of making a film.

How does an editor know when to cut?

In the video essay by Tony Zhou, he explains how an editor knows when to cut to another shot of a scene. In this essay, Zhou explains how it almost feels natural to cut at certain points. When an editor is examining a scene, they feel an unexplainable rhythm to the dialogue: they just know when to cut the scene. Zhou also explains that this rhythm is similar to the rhythm that we feel in an everyday conversation. The brain knows when to start and stop talking, recognize the persons emotions, and how to react to certain words. Editors need to be able to put themselves in the character's shoes and feel that natural rhythm. The famous editor Thelma Schoonmaker, editor of the film Raging Bull, said that some scenes could be held for longer or shorter to give the viewer a sense of uneasiness. When this is done, it messes with the viewers idea of rhythm in the scene, giving that scene more of an emotional value if done right.

Montage Edit Satus

On my montage edit, I'm currently still collecting images and putting them into my project. I have my music, but I've only found around seventeen pictures to use. My topic for my montage is hope, the hope that our Earth is savable. Our planet is constantly dying, but I believe that if everyone comes together, our planet won't be dying as fast. In my montage, I'm showing pictures of the wonderful lands on Earth, but also showing how they're being destroyed, such as beautiful rainforests being destroying. I want to show people putting in effort to help our planet become beautiful again.

Walter Murch and Editing

Walter Murch is one of the greatest editors in the modern time of editing. With his vast knowledge in the field, Murch created the 6 rules for editing a film. Those rules that he created are Emotion, story, rhythm, eye-trace, two dimensional plane of screen, and three dimensional space of action. Murch says that the list of rules goes down in order of importance, emotion being the most important rule to remember when making a cut. If the emotion doesn't flow with the cut, a whole emotional scene can be ruined. The next rule is story, meaning that if the cut breaks the story, the audience will be left confused on what comes next. The last important rule is the sense of rhythm. Much like music, if the rhythmic sense us broken, its jarring to the viewers experience. The last three rules are less important, but if they are broken, it can still lead to disorientation.

Manipulating time

When editing a project, the editor has the tools in their disposal to manipulate the time of the video with different effects. Three of these effects are the ability to speed up, slow down, or reverse the video. In Premiere pro, speeding up and slowing down the video is done by using the Rate Stretch tool. This tool allows the user to drag the video clip left or right to speed it up or slow it down; however, using this tool will greatly change the audio of the clip. By right-clicking on the clip, the speed and duration can be changed in a window, along with the feature of keeping the audio's pitch the same as the original. Also by right clicking, the user is able to change the direction of the video clip, such as reversing the clip or visa versa. These tools can be used to show things such as time lapses or slo-mo shots. The reverse feature could be used to show a character retracing steps, or a video tape being wound back. By being able to manipulate time, a editor is able to make these effects happen.

Split Edits

When editing a conversation, one trick that editors use is called a J and/or L cut. The names of these cuts are derived from how they look in the timeline, J making a sort of J shape and L making an L shape. These two different cuts can give the conversation a bit more realism. A J cut is when one clips audio track comes before the clip, making it so that it sounds like the person is talking before they're shown. An L cut is the opposite of a J cut. An L cut is when the previous clips audio persists into the next clips visuals. These simple cuts can improve your edit by giving a more natural feel. J and L cuts can sell the illusion of an actual conversation better than just cutting from one clip to another.

Natural Transitions

When moving from one place to another in a film, simply jumping to the next location may seem disorienting to the viewer. This is why transitions are used, and more specifically, natural transitions. A transition is when one clip is cut to another using a certain effect. This effect could be a simple fade out and in to black, or a computer generated wipe. Natural wipes however use objects in the scene to transition to the next shot. One example could be a car passing by on the street. When the car is in full frame, its cropped out and the next clip is cut in. Another example would be using similar looking landscape, such as grass or trees. Since most plants look similar its easy to transition to a similar one in the next shot. One last example would be to use a swish pan with your camera. By moving the camera fast enough gives the clip a blur effect. If this pan is used at the beginning of the next shot, when put together the two clips look like they're one full camera motion. By using these creative transitions, it can give your video just a little bit of extra spice.

Cutting on action

The act of cutting on action is when a cut is made to the video during the movement of a character. The video then plays a clip at a different angle continuing the action that character was doing in the previous clip. By using this technique, two shots are able to be seamlessly blended together that shows the brain a full action. One thing to keep in mind when cutting on action is to not cut too early or too late. The cut needs to happen at a precise moment for the effect to work, or else the viewer will notice the jump from clip to clip. Another thing that should be noted about cutting on action is to know before hand how the character was moving. If you shoot a shot of a character running up to a door, then cut to another shot of the character opening the door, the second clip shouldn't be the character slowly opening the door. When cutting on action, the actions should flow from shot to shot seamlessly.

Mise-en-scene

Mise-en-scene was a term created by professor Brain Henderson to describe "cinema's grand undefined term." In the literal translation, Mise-en-scene means "placing on stage." Even though a movie set and a play stage have similarities, mise-en-scene takes on a different meaning when put to film. In plays, mise-en-scene can mean how the set is placed and where the actors stand. In films, the same applies but along with lighting, angle of the camera, color in the scene, and other factors along that line. One reason why mise-en-scene is important is how much emotion it can put into a scene. A simple color change can change the emotion of a scene from anger to sadness. Another reason why mise-en-scene is important is how it shows your skills as a film maker. When watching a film, mise-en-scene is instantly noticed by the audience, and if its bad, the film will most likely follow suit. Without the understanding of mise-en-scene, we would have a less amount of understanding about the medium of film.

Timecode

In an editing program, the editor is constantly playing with time. They put certain clips are specific times to flow the video in the correct way. The way an editor views the specific time in the video is a set of numbers called a time code. Normally, a time code displays around 8 different numbers, those being hours, minutes, second, frames. Hours, minutes, and seconds are used when talking about real life time, but the only difference is the frame count. Frames are still images that are played back at rapid speed to create a video. In film, a standard frame rate is 24 Frames Per Second. By using the time code built in with the editing program, editors are able to use it to travel to a specific part of the video they're editing.  Without the use of timecode, it would be a lot harder for editors to find certain parts of a video.

Resolution

When editing a video, one of the first things that you're confronted with is the resolution of the video. With displays, resolution is the dimension of pixels in the frame of the video. Currently, the standard for basic video streaming is 1280x720 or 1920x1080. These numbers stand for the amount of pixels in the width of the screen and the height of the screen. Along with resolution comes aspect ratio, the way that the screen is sized and oriented. In the past, the standard aspect ratio was 4:3, which at its highest resolution was 640x480. With the HD resolutions 1080p and 720p the aspect ratio is 16:9. These two parts of displays are integral to how videos are produced because of how much of the movie is shown. With the higher aspect ratios, a wider field of view can be achieved, showing more of the movie thats being produced.

Codecs and Containers

When editing videos of films, being able to actually edit uses programs called containers and codecs. Codecs are used when editing or playing back a video. The main use for codecs in the editing process is to layout the audio and the video in the timeline of the editing program. During playback, the codec is called back to use in order to properly playback the video. A container is what kind of file the final product is, such as .avi or .mov. The container is able to hold the audio and video in a single file, allowing for media players to play the audio and video simultaneously. The difference between codecs and containers is what they are used for. Codecs are used during the editing process , compression, decompression, and playback during the find product. On the other hand, containers store the audio and video in a format when the video is ready to be played back. Without codecs and containers, editing, rendering, and watching videos would become much harder.

From Linear to Non-Linear

    When editing first started to rise up in films, the main way to cut was through a style of editing called Linear editing. With linear editing, clips couldn't be moved back or forward in the editing process. If a mistake was made previously, then all the edits done after it would have to be deleted. After this editing style was used for years, editors began to hate the format and wanted a new way to edit their films. In order to change the process, computers needed to become more advanced, how film was stored, and editing needed to be non-destructive.
    The first technology that needed to be advanced was computers. Since their inception, computers were advancing on a yearly or even monthly basis. Having these new pieces of technology allowed film editors to create the first non-linear editing programs. By creating these non-linear editing programs, they became non-destructive. Clips could be moved around at any point, and deleting prior mistakes didn't delete progress. The last thing that needed was how film was stored. As the size of film increased, newer ways to store the footage needed to be invented. All of these things put together lead to the creation of the standard form of editing found today.

Pudovkin

When Russian film maker Vsevolod Pudovkin began making and studying film, he created and described 5 different editing techniques that are still being used in films today. Those techniques would be contrast, parallelism, symbolism, simultaneity, and leit motif. The most interesting technique that Pudovkin pioneered in my eyes is Parallelism. Parallelism is when one shot shows things, then fades into a different shot, with the same angle but at a different location. Using this technique, the viewer knows that the location had changed, but the two shots have a sort or relevance to one another. I find this technique interesting because it allows for many artistic transitions into other scenes or shots. All of Pudovkin's styles and techniques of editing are able to bring thoughts into the viewers mind, that allows them to connect the story more.

Continuity Editing

When D.W. Griffith came into the scene of filmmaking, he was able to bring many new ideas to the table. While working on films for the company Biograph, he was able to get his hands on the tools of film making, such as the editing process. When editing his films, Griffith would cut between different shots in order to show different parts of the story. He was able to create rules such as the 180 Degree rule, that is still followed in film making today. With these editing styles, Griffith created continuity, a way of editing so the viewer isn't caught off by something. An example of continuity would be if a character is having a conversation with a soda in his hand, when it cuts back to them, the soda will still be in their hand. Editing in a film is important because with it, the film can be more expansive and engaging.

Early History Of Editing

In early films, editing was almost no where to be seen. Most films at the time were one static shot with almost no pans or cuts, which gave the films a very stagnant feeling. When the beginning of editing, only simple changes were made to films, such as the added benefit of cuts and pans. With this ability, filmmakers at the time were able to make the world of their films feel more alive. Early films can be compared to our skits by the way there were shot and edited. Films at the beginning of editing had very few cuts, just like the skits we made for the various class rules. Most of the skits created in class where one continues clip that slightly panned. With these limited abilities however, some film makers were able to make revolutionary films at the time, such as The Great Train Robbery.

Beginning Editing Reflection

In this beginning stage of editing, I've found it somewhat easy. I've been editing videos for a while, but those edits have been simple cuts and adding music. Even though I've been editing for sometime, I'm still learning new things about how editing works. One thing thats surprised me is the layout of Premiere Pro. It feels a lot different than editing programs that I've used in the past, but that makes me excited! Another thing that's surprised me is the vast history of editing. Being able to look back and see things that I think are simple, but astounding to people of the past is cool. One last thing that I'm surprised about is how advanced editing can be. Now that I have the professionals tools in front of me, I'm stoked to see how people put things together like full motion pictures. The one thing that I'm finding difficult however is learning the layout of Premiere Pro. With its differences, its going to take me some time to learn how to use it.

Organizing Your Footage

When editing large amounts of video clips, the first step should always be to mark the various clips. When the clips are marked before the editing begins, the whole process is sped up. Marking clips is important because your clips could be easily lost if not marked properly. In the video shown, he describes using different color labels if show what a clip contains. By using different colored icons, you're able to easily distinguish between different clips meanings. He also showed how to use bins to organize different kinds of clips. By using bins, audio and video are able to separated into different chunks to be used later while editing. These different skills are vital when editing various video projects.

Raiders of The Lost Ark Editing

The boulder scene from Raiders of The Lost Ark has become famous for multiple reasons, but one big reason for its popularity was how the scene was edited together. Throughout the scene, multiple traps are triggered while Indiana Jones makes his way through the tomb. During the beginnings of the scene, the editing was slow paced and subtle. When a trap was activated, the scene jumped and cut between different shots of the trap activating. This quick jump to fast paced editing makes the viewer jump along with it because of its unexpectedness. With this combination of editing, it makes the scene have a bigger sense of urgency when unexpected and dangerous things happen. I believe this style of editing played a key role in order to keep in the viewer interested in whats to come next.