P3(b) Producing and Reviewing an Off Line Edit

Producing and Reviewing an Off Line Edit

A film editor must creatively work with the layers of images, story, dialogue, music, pacing, as well as the actors' performances to effectively "re-imagine" and even rewrite the film.

Offline editing is part of the post-production process of filmmaking and television production in which raw footage is copied and edited, without affecting the camera original film stock or video tape.  Once we had finished logging our rushes we had to produce an offline edit, this involved dragging all of our footage into the timeline in the correct order and cutting them down the correct length, this gave us more insight into how long the film was going to be and if we needed to add more footage or remove more.

This is a view of the timeline editor with the final offline edit.

Creating meaning through editing:

One of the core purposes for editing a film is to express a story and create meaning using just the raw footage that an editor is provided with. Editors can use colour, pace, different types of shots and visual tricks e.g CGI to give a film a meaning. However during the offline edit I could only choose which shots to place in the timeline and also when to cut them so to influence the pace of the film. I felt that I should refer back to my storyboard to make my editing decisions but also for a reference for when I made changes to the edit that were not originally planned for.

Example of how I created meaning in the timeline:

During the beginning of the film most shots last for longer periods of time and are shot from further away using smaller focal lengths, I felt that this would help introduce the audience to the location, allowing them to become immersed in the environment and give them a feel for the atmosphere I was attempting to create.

A close up of the timeline that shows how the beginning clips were longer, to build tension.

Once the story developed I had to find a way to release all the tension that had built up in the beginning scenes, to do this I decided to make cuts become faster and increasingly dramatic so to put the audience on edge, as shown below

Later in the timeline the cuts become shorter.

Reference to Storyboard:

When editing its important to reference back to the storyboard to ensure that the shots are in the correct sequence, so that the original idea corresponds with the final outcome and matches the original meaning. It also means that you can illustrate what changes were made in the post production stage.