This week I used the visual montage production plan to shoot and edit the final montage for my family farm.
Reading & Writing: Editing Video
To prepare for the post-production of my video montage I read Chapter 10 of Tom Schroeppel’s “The Bare Bones Camera Course for Film and Video”: After the Shoot – Editing. This was a good reminder of what I should keep in mind for my montage so that I could achieve the goal of the video’s project proposal.
As Schroeppel explains, all editing decisions must be made with this question in mind: “Is this the best way to make my viewers react the way I want them to? (123)”. For the most part, the best editing is that is invisible – cuts that only someone who studies or makes film should notice. After all, videos and films are meant to immerse the viewer into a certain mindset or experience for their education or entertainment. If a cut does not belong it had better serve some sort of purpose and make the viewer feel that something does not belong.
For montage editing in particular, it is important to be sure that each new shot is different and presents new information in a new (and hopefully exciting) way. When using sound, see if L or J cuts could make the transitions into different shots smoother. Background music can also do a great job at pushing viewers towards the mood you wish to convey.
Something that is important to do, and unfortunately difficult if you are both the director and the editor, is to divorce the director from the editor and simply do your best edit with the footage you are given. Otherwise scenes or shots that the director loves but just does not make any sense stay out of the way for footage that actually progresses the film or video.
Finally, you also need to divorce the editor from the viewer so that you can see the cut from the perspective of your audience. I suggest that you actually find someone who had little to no involvement in the production to take a look and give you notes so that you are sure that you are getting the right message across.
Research to Inform: Editing Styles
Before I edit my own montage, I decided to look to some notable filmmakers and their distinctive editing decisions that made scenes more effective.
My first editing highlight is form Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). This scene that introduces our main cowboy is an excellent example of pacing and cutting to action. Even without any dialogue it is clear that they are waiting for someone and that someone is trouble in their eyes. At first the pacing is slow as they survey the scene, the sound of the train like a heavy heartbeat, the suddenly as the door opens and shocks them there are three quick cuts. Again, it is slow again since it was a false alarm. As harmonica is revealed to them it remains slow, if not slower, as the tension builds. When the guns are drawn and shot, again there are three quick shots and fast camera movement, then the longest shot of the windmill. The pacing of the cuts compliment the high tension of this scene wonderfully.
The next clip I chose highlights cross-cutting – when the scene cuts between two things happening in different places at the same time. The opening scene of Star Trek (2009) is a very intense showcase of this technique as it follows the captain’s death and his son’s birth. When the diegetic sound cuts and the emotional soundtrack takes over the clip is at its peak tension as both the captain and his wife are experiencing the most difficult moments in their life together, but apart – which makes it that much more emotional.
This last scene I chose from Scott Pilgrim (2010) has several examples of “invisible cuts”. Invisible cuts are when a cut is made during a movement of either the camera of something on-screen to make it seem like it was all taken in one shot. In this clip it first happens when the Vegan dude throws Scott into the air, and again when the camera quickly tilts back down. It happens again (kind of) when the camera moves past Scott’s head and into the animation, and ends when it moves past the back of Ramona’s head. These types of edits are common in Edgar Wright’s out-there style and they work very well for the genre of films he creates.
Create: Fern’s Meadow Montage
Last week’s work in pre-production came to fruition this week with the final video montage. Check it out here:
The day was not optimal to film since it was so sunny, the Spring colors are not quite here yet, and the goats were lazier than usual, but I still think that the piece met its objective of showcasing Fern’s Meadow and the products we offer. I will likely do a re-shoot on a better day (and once the babies are born)!
Also please excuse any camera movement that is outdoors – when the goats weren’t trying to chew up the lav wire, they were using the tripod as an extra scratching post. I suppose those are just the hazards you should expect on the job!
Emma Lao 