On the 28th of February, Matthew and I attended the dialogue sequence editing workshop in order to learn how to edit the segment that we had filmed a while ago of Ollie and I to ensure that we are aware of how to edit speech in our opening sequence.
The first thing we did was watch Matt demonstrate how to go about editing dialogue on a basic level. He showed us that we should cut from person to person based upon who is speaking, providing a skeleton to our edit. This involved using the skills learned from our previous editing workshop; we accessed our footage from the rushes folder, and watched through it in the monitor, checking for continuity and in general, watching it as a refresher for us as it had been a while since we had filmed the sequence. Then, in chronological order, we selected the clips that we wanted to use (as some were interrupted takes and others from bad angles), cutting them where the dialogue started and stopped with the shortcuts 'i' for in and 'o' for out, then dragged them into the timeline. At the end, we had created a 'ping pong' effect where the viewer sees one person then the next in order of dialogue. We ensured to save continuously throughout using the shortcut command 's'.
When watching through all the footage, we realised that we had chosen the wrong white balance as our clips had a more orange hue to them; I unfortunately cannot recall which setting we used as I was not camera operator and was acting. Because of this, I will ensure to double check our white balance on our actual shoot day. Additionally, there were a few continuity issues with the broom stick sweeping (something that I felt was far too complicated to film on the day but went with anyways), and the positioning of Ollie as I have acknowledged before, as he walks in different directions when I point and tell him to 'get out'. However, I was quite pleased in general with our shots as we ensured to do the proper protocols so there was no lost/spoiled footage, followed the 180 degree rule and Ollie and I's acting was continuous as we kept our facial expressions/vocal tone rigid and minimal with editing in mind (even if it meant the acting looked bad!) In order to deal with the issues mentioned, next time, I will ensure to keep the positioning of our actors simple and clear and again, double check the white balance of the camera on our shoot day.
We then learned about audio transitions in order to smooth out the link between audios. To do this, we initially had to separate main audios from background noise by right clicking on the file in the timeline and selecting 'unlink' and deleting the unwanted file. We then had to access the 'audio transitions' folder in the in the 'effects' section of the project panel and select the 'constant power' option within 'crossfade' and drag it in between our audio files within the timeline. This was particularly useful to us as we had the sound of the broom sweeping, and it was coming in at different pitches and volume with every take.
Lastly, though not a technical tip and more of a filmmaking one, we learned about showing character's reactions to dialogue. This meant rather than editing in just dialogue, we also should edit in the other character's facial expressions as by nature, humans are social creatures and instinctively look at others to see their reaction to something unusual that they are met with. This was more difficult to do with our sequence as we hadn't filmed many close ups of Ollie and had only done them of me, but we instead made the edit about my reactions to his words in order to adapt to our issue.
This was the final result (the second segment at the end was the reaction edit):
After seeing our final edit, though this workshop wasn't as applicable to our opening sequence as we are predominantly revolving it around one character and there is no dialogue at all, the experience has placed emphasis on the importance of character positioning and capturing reactions for me personally. Because of this, on the shoot day, I will ensure that we film as much as we can of the woman's expressions, and that the camera is following a clear 180 degree line where Ezra and Susannah are clearly placed.
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