Editing as a significant part of the film-making process always been seen as the second chance to ‘shoot’ the film. This reading provides some helpful editing techniques systematically. Instead of fiction film having distinct principles of good or bad shots, the documentary is far less clear. (Fox 2017) From my perspective, a good shot of the documentary is supposed to convey the sense and the reality by the camera. Keep this goal in mind, I make some notes about the useful methods of editing base on the reading.
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Preparation
‘Developing a clear postproduction workflow before commencing editing is vital for all subsequent stages of the postproduction process to run smoothly.’ (Fox 2017, p.215)
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- Before starting to edit the documentary, a clear organization of footages is necessary. This process even should be done in the shooting period. It provides a chance for the editor to be familiar to footages and find the suitable footage quickly. ( Fox 2017) We didn’t set a log while we were filming. However, we made notes about the summary of each shot to make the editing process more convenient.
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Developing an editing style
- Even though the style of the documentary is supposed to be coherence (Fox 2017), pace, rhythm, and intensity should be diverse to keep the audience’s attention. Kim has mentioned in the class that we could have an emotional line to arrange our scenes. The advantage of this method is that we can tell the rhythm clearly. It is convenient for the editor to set some hooks to avoid presenting boring content for a long time.
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- There are two modes we are going to mainly use in our documentary. As a result, I highlight their editing techniques. Firstly, the expository mode normally is that tells the story by the voice-over or interview based soundtrack at the same time the B-roll supports the content visually. (Fox 2017) Secondly, from my perspective, the significance of observational mode is that records nature and presents it as a story. As a result, there are not as many spaces as other modes to edit, it more requires the control to the integral rhythm of the documentary.
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Tell the story
- There is logic to tell the story of the documentary. It is pretty similar to the mise en scène of fiction films, such as the 180-degree rule, rules of shot-size changing and the order of presenting frame.
- For example, it also shows the environment first by wide-shot to construct the relationship between characters spatially.
- Besides, shots of the same place have stronger relationships. Thus, presenting together is more acceptable and comfortable for the audience to watch.
- There is logic to tell the story of the documentary. It is pretty similar to the mise en scène of fiction films, such as the 180-degree rule, rules of shot-size changing and the order of presenting frame.
Reference:
Fox, B 2017, ‘Shaping Reality: the Postproduction Process‘, Documentary Media History, Theory, Practice, Routledge, Milton, ProQuest Ebook Central database.