In today’s class, we were again moved to the edit suites. There wasn’t explicit instruction to edit anything specific, so I used the two hour time slot to further familiarise myself with Premiere and experiment with editing our previous class exercises.
First, I tried out different ways of editing the “expertise” exercise. I had shot a sequence of Serena walking into the kitchen area, washing her hands and exiting the frame. I had three different shots to work with, and I messed around with cutting different versions of the same sequence. In the end, I found that the combination of wide establishing shot of Serena walking into kitchen -> mid shot of her opening the tap -> close up of washing hands -> back back to wide shot of her walking out of the kitchen worked the best for me. In addition, having the different versions was a chance for me to start getting into Paul’s suggested habit of organising multiple Premiere sequences for a particular scene.
With the abstract shots exercise, I played around with shot length, order and colour grading. I made use of the video effects tools, including adjusting the brightness and contrast, and colour balance options. I also experimented with some different transitions. I’m still not quite skilled at these additional aspects of editing other than simple cutting and placing of clip on Premiere yet, but hopefully as the semester progresses I’ll gradually become more confident.
