editing advice

merc

merc

Well-known member
my footage just isnt flowing well from shot to shot. i was wondering if anyone just had some advice on editing. i have many scenes shot and im editing them together and cut to cut it just doesnt flow. thats the best way to put it, it doesnt flow. it like jumps from shot to shot. and its like the things happening in the scene dont add up together, even though they should.

i dont know, if anyone has any advice i would very much appreciatte it.
 
separate audio from video, that way the audio doesn't seem abrupt from scene to scene, but rather helps navigate video.
 
Try looking at the screen and see where the audiences eyes are going before the cut. If the next scene forces them to shift their gaze to another part of the screen, then they have to make a physical adjustment. That will interrupt the flow. That was my biggest problem at one time.
 
metro2307 said:
Try looking at the screen and see where the audiences eyes are going before the cut. If the next scene forces them to shift their gaze to another part of the screen, then they have to make a physical adjustment. That will interrupt the flow. That was my biggest problem at one time.
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ya i see what your saying, man theres alot more that goes into film making than i once thought. i think perhaps that we havent been "shooting for the edit" cuz i sit here and play with the clips and fine tune them all day long and it just doesnt look right. i have heard that a good editor can make any footage useable. is this true?
 
homer said:
separate audio from video, that way the audio doesn't seem abrupt from scene to scene, but rather helps navigate video.
Click to expand...

ya, muting the audio helps a bit as well, but i think my problem is greater than that.
 
Sometimes you need to take a short break from looking at the footage. Also, if you were at the shoot, then you know more about the conditions of the shoot than the audience will ever know and that can skewer your perspective. If you can, take a few days off from the edit.

Also, consider cutting some scenes, even temporarily, to see if you have too many scenes competing for interpretation. Sometimes you have to kill your darlings...

And, consider a slower transition between some cuts, maybe allowing the dialogue or music spill into the next scene's first second, and even cutting the sound on some parts.
 
merc said:
ya i see what your saying, man theres alot more that goes into film making than i once thought. i think perhaps that we havent been "shooting for the edit" cuz i sit here and play with the clips and fine tune them all day long and it just doesnt look right. i have heard that a good editor can make any footage useable. is this true?
Click to expand...

no. that would be like trying to polish a turd.
 
according to walter murch, some of the most important things to look for to make a good cut are 1) emotional continuity in the performances above and beyond everything, then 2) eye-trace - matching the area of the shot where the audience's attention is concentrated across the cut between two shots, and much further down the list is 3) physical continuity. it's important, but don't sacrifice the others to get this one.

then, the cuts themselves are like the blinks of your eye. when you are watching something and your attention goes from here to there, you usually blink. that's the "cut". so when trying to determine where you should make an edit, ask yourself as you watch the footage, "where would my attention naturally go and at what point in time would it go there?"
 
I think there's a problem with DVXuser in that there is no general editing section for questions like this. The editing boards are all very technical.

That said, I have similar problems with my short film. I don't know if it's repairable, so I'm leaning towards music and some custom animations to move things along. I'm with you, though. Some things just flow and some things just don't and as an inexperienced filmmaker, you can't necessarily tell between them. I've been editing my 30 minute short since November and as long and exasperating as that sounds, there is no way (with working full-time) I could do it any quicker. I need to put it down for weeks at a time to gain some perspective. I can't imagine having someone else edit it. Maybe for the next time I would but for your first reel shoot, you learn about all the things you did wrong by trying to cut it yourself, which has been the most part important part for me, far more important than what the final cut looks like.
 
Zak Forsman said:
according to walter murch, some of the most important things to look for to make a good cut are 1) emotional continuity in the performances above and beyond everything, then 2) eye-trace - matching the area of the shot where the audience's attention is concentrated across the cut between two shots, and much further down the list is 3) physical continuity. it's important, but don't sacrifice the others to get this one.

then, the cuts themselves are like the blinks of your eye. when you are watching something and your attention goes from here to there, you usually blink. that's the "cut". so when trying to determine where you should make an edit, ask yourself as you watch the footage, "where would my attention naturally go and at what point in time would it go there?"
Click to expand...

thanks for the advice.
 
markyf said:
I think there's a problem with DVXuser in that there is no general editing section for questions like this. The editing boards are all very technical.

That said, I have similar problems with my short film. I don't know if it's repairable, so I'm leaning towards music and some custom animations to move things along. I'm with you, though. Some things just flow and some things just don't and as an inexperienced filmmaker, you can't necessarily tell between them. I've been editing my 30 minute short since November and as long and exasperating as that sounds, there is no way (with working full-time) I could do it any quicker. I need to put it down for weeks at a time to gain some perspective. I can't imagine having someone else edit it. Maybe for the next time I would but for your first reel shoot, you learn about all the things you did wrong by trying to cut it yourself, which has been the most part important part for me, far more important than what the final cut looks like.
Click to expand...

i feel your pain man.
 
I have encountered the same problems before. I just start to edit a different scene and go back to that scene to make it fit into the film overall. It works for me so you should give it a try. Sometimes you arent going to get things to be 100 percent correct, but the audience may not know what happened.
 
markyf said:
but for your first reel shoot, you learn about all the things you did wrong by trying to cut it yourself
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Two things here...

First... I have to agree that editing your own material is the best way to improve your shooting abilities... and editing is a learned talent, that usually (not always) comes with experience...

I guess what I'm trying to say is... Knowing what and when to shoot... having enough material to edit is most important... and that is quickly learned when editing... when you find that you don't have enough material to create a simple sequence...

Good Luck...
 
To smooth the audio transition between scenes, I place an audio crossfade at every point where two scenes join. A crossfade is to audio as a dissolve is to video. It blends audio clips together to give a less noticeable scene-to-scene transition.
 
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