Editing the Trailer

Once all of our footage had been recorded we could begin to edit together said footage so as to produce that which we had planned out back in October. This came in several stages with different things to consider along the way:

1) What to use

Once all the footage that we would need had been recorded it was time to gather it all together and decide what to use, how to use and how much of it to use. In all likelihood we would end up using easily on about 25-35% at most of what we had originally recorded because the important thing to make sure that we had done was to hint at what the film would be about and to hint at the different characters and how they fit into the plot of the film. The bank that we had (or a portion of it at least because there were a couple dozen files) looked something like this once they had been imported:

As you can see here the process of putting it all together is already underway, the green bars at the top representing those clips that have been 'favourited' as the ones that we were going to use. The orange bars show how much of that clip we ended up actually using within the trailer.

2) Adding sound effects/soundtrack

As well as moving around the moments of footage that we were going to want to use we also needed to  move around the sound effects and soundtrack to make sure that they were all placed in the places that the needed to go so that everything was in sync and felt 'right' when it would be presented to a viewer. This in particular was finicky business as some elements of sound had demands in terms of precisely where they needed to fit and how long they needed to last (whilst at the same time trying to use only what was necessary out the different pieces of footage).

As you can see here there are a variety of different tracks that need to play simultaneously fitting together whilst at the same time not overwhelming each other so that you can hear both together working in sync rather than against each other.

3) Text and Transitions

Within the trailer we needed to add elements of text for the titles, in particular playing to different conventions such as company titles, something that we could take from the AS coursework so that we could play to the idea of 'from the makers of'; textual information and plot hints that fit in with the theme of the overall tag-line for the film; actor/actress credits to sell the film using the 'big names' that would be featured therein. In doing so we needed to make sure that this clear and spaced out evenly to create the desired effect whilst also not overpowering the footage too much or dragging the trailer out.


We could also play with transitions here, which were important to show changes in the narrative, and

my favourite that we were able to use was the circle in and out at the point where Mya discovers a secret being hidden by the Trory Anwir institute for mental health, as this out represent an eye opening to a previous moment in the medical room and understanding that she had been correct all along when she thought that suspicious was going on.




4) An end to the process

Once the whole editing procedure had been completed the full length (of the first draft) was 2:59 seconds in length. The amount of footage used relative to how much had been recorded was a small ration indeed but to see all of our hard work in one place that fit together such as this does was a momentous event. We were aware, however, that it was very likely that this would not quite be the finished product and that additional chop and changes were likely to be required before the process reached its conclusion.