The first class of this week marked our first day in the edit suites and I feel that it can definitely be summed up as being pretty confronting. Despite having somewhat of a plan mapped out we had so much footage to sort through and so many elements of Premiere to get our heads around that it all was a bit of a hot mess.

As I had experienced in that past, and what my fellow group members discovered pretty quickly, five people crowded in a suite giving their opinions of what should go where whilst one person sits at the mouse is generally a pretty unproductive method when it comes to editing. After three hours of doing not a whole heap, we knew it was time to consider a different plan of attack. Having dealt with this sort of situation many times throughout the course of my degree I was more than happy to share some of the approaches that had, in my experience, operated best.

1. Edit in groups no larger than two
2. Instead of making changes to what someone else has already edited, duplicate this sequences and make your changes here
3. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different ideas, but keep track of the time you spend working on particular sections especially when there is still a lot to be done in other areas of the work
4. Always make sure that every file you import into your Premiere project is saved in a folder with Premiere file on the media server
5. Don’t rely on autosave – save your work manually, regularly

Leaving class after our first day in the suites we certainly had a lot to sort out. However, through discussing the areas where we were having issues I feel we were able to sort out a pretty solid plan. With the rough cut screening just a couple of days away we arranged a schedule for group members to come in and edit in small groups and decided upon meeting before class on the screening day to bring together what each member had been working on. I think throughout this process communication is really going to be key, but I have no doubt that we will be able to manage this effectively.