1. What did you do?

Today was a very important day as it was the edit day. Because my role in the group is the editor I had quite a lot to do, as we needed to complete our film within the time frame. This involved us using Sheffield Hallam’s facilities to edit the film throughout out the day using Adobe Premier Pro. We were split into our groups and the editor was given a computer to work on and then other members could use extra computers in the area to work alongside the editor such as creating credits or finding suitable background music. I think today was very successful as at the end we managed to complete our film!

2. What have you learnt?

One thing I’ve learned is the process involved in editing a short-film. This is because before the BFI Film Academy I had never previously edited anything cinematic like a short-film and therefore I really enjoyed doing something new in trying to create a story. An example of something I learnt was that it was very important to use a mix of different shots when editing a scene. For example, while there may be a master shot it is still important to edit in other footage within the scene such as close ups or information which may be important such as a character dropping a knife. By choosing to make a few cuts which showed different perspectives of the scene, I think it gave a lot more variety to the film.

Another thing I learnt in this session is how important it is to work within the time frame. This is because we only had around 7 hours to edit the film and if we didn’t get it done by then we wouldn’t have a complete film to show. Therefore, this taught me while you may want to focus on little details, such as trying to tweak the lighting a little bit, sometimes it is more important to just get the film done first and if there is remaining time then to go back to sort out these details.

3. How have you worked with others?

I never really realised how much of collaborative process editing is until I did the BFI film academy. This was especially true for today as while I was editing the film I still had to work closely with other people in my group. One person that I had to work vey closely with was the director. This was because essentially the film is the directors vision, and therefore I should be working close with him to try and convey what he wants to on screen. Therefore I frequently would ask him what he thought of the recent edits or if he liked how something sounded. I also worked close with people in my group that were doing other tasks such as, creating the end credits or finding non-copyright background music. This was very helpful as since we were working to a tight time frame, it really helped take the pressure off, so we didn’t end up panicking trying to finish everything at the end.

4. What do you need to develop?

One thing I need to develop is that next time I am working on a short-film I must try and make sure we get a shot that has no one speaking over it other than the actors. This is because, frequently I came into difficulty when editing as the sound that we recorded would sometimes have people giving the actors instructions such as their voice-overs, and while this is pretty helpful on the day, it sometimes meant that sound samples from other footage would have to be used over the speaking try and make it not look strange. However, if no one was talking this would have been a less time consuming procedure and it would stop the film possibly sounding a little strange.