Editing Workshops

On Fridays we have been spending the morning at Rochester UCA in the DM rooms, experimenting with Adobe Premiere and learning more about editing. Adobe Premiere is quite an advanced piece of software with lots of features and tools to make a video of good quality. It is the most commonly used  editing software by professionals so learning more about how to use it could be beneficial later on. Using a series of clips showing a short documentary about coffee bean farming, we were instructed on how to import them into the media browser so they could be easily looked at and analysed. You can then choose to have them in list form so it is easy to see which clips you are looking at. Using the hand tool, you can select them all and drag them up to the left hand corner which is called the source monitor. On here you can run the mouse over a clip and it will give you a quick run through of the clip allowing you to watch it quickly without having to open it and watch it on the program monitor. The program monitor shows the clips you have edited so far so you can watch them in a sequence as a final piece. Below this is the timeline which shows the clips individually and this is where you cut them to produce your video. By running the mouse over a clip you can drag either side in or out to reduce or increase the length of the clip, this can be very precise, allowing you to get really sharp cuts that are on time. The timeline is also used for audio which can be placed in different positions depending on how prominent the audio is and where you like it to come in. We were given the task to look at the clips and organise them into different folders to make it easier to select what you're looking for. For example shots showing the coffee beans being picked would come under the category 'Coffee bean farming'. Using this tool was very useful at keeping the media browser very organised and tidy. For this set of clips the audio was separate from the footage. This is much simpler to edit because you can cut the audio separately and insert it anywhere on the timeline. Fergus showed us how to use the timeline and insert a section of a clip. To select a section you have to select an in and out point by clicking 'I' and 'O' which will allow you to cut a clip down the section you want. We were then given some time to experiment with selecting relevant clips and making a short sequence, adding audio to add emphasis and bring the clips to life. In another editing session we were given a series of clips from a tv programme where the audio wasn't matched with the video clips. Using some of the tools, Fergus had shown us, we had to cut the clips into place so that the audio flowed correctly with the visuals. This was quite challenging and tricky to do as each clip had to cut seamlessly into another in order for it to work as a piece but this was made easier by using the Ripple edit tool. This tool enables you to cut down a clip to a fine cut so that you can make the sequence look as smooth as possible. Lastly we used the Edit controls section and learnt about colour correction. There are several different ways of editing the lighting and colour of a clip so that it looks correct and matches any other clips. In particular we looked at the Three way colour corrector which is a collection of colour wheels that you can use to pick out highlights and shadows as well as tints to edit the colour in as much detail as you want.