The Edit
(Week 11)
Once filming was complete, Kara took over the reigns and began editing together our show. Throughout the whole editing process, Kara regularly sent me updates of what she had put together to make sure my vision was being followed and created accurately. The edit took a week and a half in total to complete. Kara was in London for the first week and I was worried that the edit may become an after thought and that we could potentially run out of time. However, Kara allocated sufficient time for the edit to begin and was fantastic at making it a priority in her free time and actually got the bulk of the edit complete in the first week by being timely and efficient which I was thoroughly pleased with. Kara made some animations on after effects to act as transitions in between sections of the show and I felt this worked really well. The animations were of pop art lips and the faces on the posters in our show to replicate the set and tie everything together. I liked that Kara included this as it kept the theme, style and vision consistent throughout the whole programme down to the fine details. Kara began the edit by creating a basic rough cut of the footage to see if the structure of the show flowed nicely and if enough content was covered. After watching this through, the “best bits” were picked and the waffle and mistakes were cut in order for it to flow more naturally.
A New Idea
After fine tuning the edit, Kara and I both felt that due to the show being in one location with not a lot of movement, it could get quite boring to the audience watching as there wasn’t a lot of action or different visuals. To compensate for this, we decided to use the extra link footage we filmed of our host on the day and include video messages sent in by “viewers” giving their advice on the topics discussed. This I felt gave a different dynamic to the show and gave it an edge rather than watching the same people. Our lecturer Kate, then had a look over what we had accomplished so far with the edit before the deadline to gives us any feedback she may of had. After watching the edit, Kate was impressed and believed the show looked like a low budget programme that would be broadcast on “BBC Scotland”. I was thoroughly pleased with this comment as we had put a lot of work into it and considering we filmed the whole show in two hours, I felt we had really excelled. Some constructive feedback we had from Kate was to include more diversity to the panel or video messages to hear from a cultural background. Looking back, if we had more time I would have definitely considered this as an option and I feel it would have opened up a new door for discussion within the show, possibly appealing to a new demographic of people.
Evaluation
Overall, I feel this process has been tough, however very rewarding as well. I found it difficult to turn a hypothetical idea into reality but I feel with the time scale given, myself and my team mates really pulled it off and I am very proud of what we achieved. In hindsight, I feel I made it slightly more difficult to create a factual production as I had decided to film a studio show rather than a documentary although I feel this was a risk I took in order to stand out and do something different and I’m glad I did as I feel it paid off. I have learned how to work to deadlines and work under extreme pressure. I have also learned the importance of communication with my lecturer and also my team mates as working alongside other people so closely can at times be tough. For future productions, I will allocate enough time to effectively complete the work for each stage of the overall process and ensure I have acquired enough filming time in order to make it the best it can be.
Olivia Brockett 