Research into Editing

http://www.chrisjonesblog.com/2012/02/how-to-edit-a-trailer-for-your-movie%E2%80%A6-but-the-guy-who-cuts-trailers-for-movies.html

From this blog post from editor, Chris Jones, I learned that when I edit the trailer for our film I need to make sure that the story I want to tell is clear and that the trailer follows the journey of one character, if there are any well known actors then I should put some screen time on them in order to attract an audience more. I need to make sure I know how I would want an audience to feel when watching so that I can stick to that when I am editing the trailer, I also need to make sure that text graphics help with the theme or story of the trailer and they are not just there unneccesarily. Be very concise with clips and I need to make it so clips don't 'out stay their welcome', clips that I use in the trailer shouldn't be as long as they would be in the film; this aplies to dialogue as well, only have essential lines if any is used. Voice overs are also optional. A good length for our trailer would be between 90 seconds and 2 minutes, hollywood trailers are usually around 2 minutes 30 seconds, but many consider these too long and they contain too much information, so keep is short and concise. The music is one of the most important parts of the trailer and the wrong music can ruin the trailer, one of the pieces of advise that applies to our film most is that if we have a low budget and little to no money, use music libraries and find musicians that would want to build their portfolio and would want to write us a unique piece of music for our film. If I am unsure about the music then don't hesitate to change it and find one that I am sure about.

The article gave me lots of important points that will really help me to edit the trailer specifically and a lot of the points can be applied to low budget productions such as ours, this means I will have some good pointers to remember in order to make our trailer look professional and achieve the same feel and look of a professional product that would be seen alongside main stream trailers.

From this video I learned that the trailer can be broken up into three sections in order to make the trailer easier to work through and easier to understand for people to watch. The first section will contain dialogue and set up the story and everything that will happen next in the trailer, there usually isn't any action as the scenes that are used show us the characters equilibrium. The second section is where all the action happens and its filled with interesting clips in order to interest a viewer and to show the main character's journey towards his goal, the pace in the middle will be very quick and there will be lots of cuts and sound effects, this layout is similar to how the film will actually play out. The last section is a clip that is slightly longer that will lead into you main title instead of just having it come in randomly, this can be a clip of high intensity or mystery and it has to be edited in such a way that fits the genre of the film before showing the titles and any other information that needs to be shown.Having one last clip of action at the end can be a good way to finish the trailer but is not something that was in the Taken 2 trailer but is something I see in lots of other trailers in all kinds of genres.

Music is also something that is very important and can be used in order to spark the viewer's interest. I learned that I shouldn't just use music that is constantly loud or built up, or use music that just keeps building constantly. I need to use music that spikes in places and then builds up and has lots of ups and downs as this will keep the viewer "on their toes" and this of course will make the trailer a lot more interesting to watch. I also need to edit the music to fit what I want from the trailer and not edit to the music.

Another video that I found on YouTube gave me a few key points to remember while editing which will make me take more time while editing and make sure that what I am doing looks good and fits what I am trying to create. The first point that was brought up was the pace and the tempo of what I am editing, I need to make sure that the trailer is the correct pace at the correct time, if it is too slow people will lose interest but if it is too fast people won't know what is going on and will become confused. The next point is to use the right take, make sure I use the take that gets the emotion and acting the trailer needs. This is much easier in a trailer as I can combine cuts from multiple takes in order to create the effect and the scene that I want as only small parts of a scene will be used at any one time. The third point doesn't really apply to me directly but I can take the point that I will need a large quantity of clips in order to be able to construct my trailer the way that our group envisions it, rather than having not enough footage and having the pace be way too slow for our genre. Again, the fourth point of multiple audio sources isn't really applicable to me but I will need to make sure that I have the right audio for my trailer as it is very important in creating mood and emotion for the viewer and it really helps to create an interest in the film being presented. The last point is the most important point, I am the last person that will control how the film looks, anyone else's mistakes i can fix and point out in the edit, but any of my errors will show up in the final product and can spoil the look of the trailer and there is no one to check my work after I'm done. This means I need to check my work multiple times before I render out the trailer and before I submit it to get feedback from the class.

This video from 4:30 has lots of good points about editing that I can use in my work in order to make the shots that have been given to me to use look more professional, all the editing tips are given for the software Adobe After Effects, which is the software I use. The first point is using an effect called Warp Stabilizer in order to smooth out the footage and remove any shakiness that is caused because a lack of equipment. It can give the look of a steady cam and and can the footage look a lot more professional, it can also completely immobilize footage so that it looks like it was shot on a tripod rather than handheld, just in case there was an error while filming and a tripod should have been used. The next point that was brought up was using a colour grade in order to bring out the emotion and mood that I want from a scene and this can be applied to my trailer. Two ways are mentioned in the video, RGB Curves and three-way colour grade, this both allow ways in order to colour grade the footage in order to show the mood visually, these plug ins are ones I can consider but I have a much more advanced plug in called Magic Bullet Looks, which gives me a much wider range of adjustments that I can make to the footage. Finally, I need to change the aspect ratio of the video that is produced, DSLRs shoot in a 16:9 ratio, but Hollywood productions usually use a 2.35:1 ratio. This can't be done using the camera settings so in post-production I can add black bars to the top and bottom of the footage (also know as letter boxing) in order to make the footage look more professional and just like the video you see in big budget films. All of these things can combine to make our footage look much more professional and this video gave me all the effects and tips that I need in order to achieve the look that is talked about in this video.