Major Project: Double Exposure

For the rest of the academic year, I will be working on a group project that has been previously written and planned in several areas last term by the director and DOP. The project is a short psychological drama film called Double Exposure. This will be further written, planned, directed, shot, edited and produced by our group, ready for submission in May this year.

Collaboration

Screenwriter/Director: Jordan Parker
Producer: Wesley Denne
DOP: Harry Taylor
Editor: Myself

Before beginning the third year of the course, the four of us had decided to work together, due to previous successful and co-operative experiences of working in a group together, and finding that each other's skills and attitudes are very useful for working on a project as a group. Alongside this, the four of us have a keen interest in our roles and genre choice, with no one having to settle on their position within in the crew.

Holding meetings before the beginning of the academic year, we made a good start by brainstorming a number of ideas as a group, before Wez and I began our own separate projects for term one, and Jordan and Harry continued work on the project. I personally felt that I would be able to add to my portfolio of work and achieve a more detailed and higher standard of work by focusing on a different project for the first term, and then joining Double Exposure for the rest of the year to play a key role in it's filming and post-production development.

Within the first term I was kept up to date with all project developments in order to be knowledgeable of the project when joining. This included updates on a large amount of idea development (leading to the creation of Double Exposure), reading script drafts to give my insight and be up date with the story, viewing shot lists, viewing location images, and reading the package features produced by Jordan at the end of term. I feel that these consistent updates have allowed me to know exactly how the project has been developing throughout the year, without needing to learn about the project when starting work on it now. I feel very confident in working with my group for the rest of the year.

My Role

I have taken on the roles of Film Editor and Sound Editor for Double Exposure. This is because I have a very high interest in post-production - especially editing, and I am keen on becoming an editor in my career path. So undergoing these roles in the project will greatly strengthen my skills and portfolio. I've also successfully edited all of my university work to a high standard, so my group has confidence in my abilities.

While usually in the industry, there would be separate editors for editing the visuals of a project and editing the sound in a project, I will be taking on both of these roles myself. This is due to the fact that as a group, it's preferable that all editing stays within our team instead of using outside help in this specific area, and I'm very keen to undertake both of these roles in the project to have a bigger challenge and play a larger role in the film's creation.

In the past, I have always colour graded and added text, graphics or opening titles/credits to my own work. However in this project, DOP Harry will be taking on these tasks. Because of that fact that firstly, he (in conversation with the director) will have pre-existing knowledge of exactly how each shot needs to be lit and coloured, he has experience in using Adobe After Effects to create any text or graphics, this allows him to work on post-production as well as pre-production & production of the film, and lastly, this gives me much more time to focus on solely on editing the visuals and sound alone. Without my attention being focused on too many areas.

So, my tasks for the project are as follows...

• Editing Research: During both pre-production and post-production, I will be consistently researching and learning as much as possible about my roles, editing styles, techniques, examples, professionals and more, in order to highly strengthen my work.

• Journal Entries: I will evidence the above, alongside my workflow and work development throughout the entire academic year on my R&D journal.

• Pre-shoot Editing Checks: I will conduct several editing checks by reviewing the DOP's shot lists and the director's scripts before filming, in order to make sure that each shot and scene will cut together smoothly and effectively in the editing process.

• Creating Dailies/Rushes: At the end of each shoot day, I will work behind the scenes to make quick cuts of the footage - deciding on whether there needs to be re-shoots or if extra footage needs to be shot for each scene. These daily cuts of each scene that are filmed and given to me will then be shown to the producer and director on the following day for their input on the results. This job will ensure that we get a lot of coverage and that everything will cut together smoothly in post-production.

• Film & Sound Editing: In post-production I will create a number of cuts of the film, these being the rough assembly, rough cut, fine cut & final cut. Although when editing in the early stages I will work alone, I will consistently have my work reviewed by the director, producer and DOP to gain their feedback and ideas. I will also collaborate with the DOP in order to use his colour graded footage and any text or graphics that he has created later in post-production, along with giving my insight into this.

• Delivery: I will stick to the schedule that my producer has previously created, delivering each cut of the film by specific deadlines. And delivering the final, finished film in the correct format for submission.

I feel very confident in all of the above tasks, as I have a lot of experience of almost everything, but I will also learn a lot of new techniques, undertake brand new tasks and learn new skills in editing.

Research & Preparation

During the course of the project, I will conduct specific, key research that will strengthen my work and help me to learn.

Evidenced in my R&D journal I will be doing the following...

• Editing Practice: With the help of a professional along with general practice, I will aim to improve my skills, experience and knowledge of Adobe Premiere Pro, in order to make the editing process of Double Exposure run as smoothly as possible.

• Role Research: I will conduct thorough research into the roles of a film editor and a sound editor.

• Editing Techniques & Style Research: I will learn about specific styles, techniques and examples of the typical practices of editing.

• Professional Editors Research: I will research 2 professional, famous editors within the industry, learning about who they are, where they've worked, what on, how they work, their experiences and so on.

• Contacting Editors: I plan to contact professional editors with a questionnaire on their experience in the industry to gain further insight on the role.

• Genre Research: I will research psychological thrillers and short film psychological thrillers to gain insight on their overall styles and editing techniques.

• Film & TV Reviews: I will watch and analyse a number of films specific to our own genre, with focus on their editing styles.

• Dailies/Rushes Editing Research: New to these techniques, I will research these tasks as an editor and their impact on production.

• Editing Workflow Research: I will research the typical workflows and structuring that film editors use and incorporate this into my own workflows for editing Double Exposure.

All of this extensive research, practice and preparation will aid me in doing the best job that I can as an editor.

First Tutorial Feedback & Changes

Initially, my role within the film's production was planned on being a combination of continuity adviser during shoot days, promotions producer, and editor. Giving me the tasks of creating Double Exposure's promotional images and posters in pre-production, the tasks of undergoing continuity checks during filming, and then my role as editor in post-production.

However, after a group meeting and a tutorial with my tutor, I was given a much more important and localised task in place of continuity adviser - the task of quick cut editing in dailies/rushes. I'm extremely pleased with this change, as I feel that it will highly impact the outcome of our shoots, as opposed to a less impact-full task of maintaining continuity. This also gives me experience in something new, and is more specific to being an editor.

Also, I was advised through feedback that I may achieve a higher standard of work if I focus solely on editing preparations and research as opposed to creating promotional materials. While I always have confidence in my abilities to multi-task, I agree that editing focus is a far better use of my time and avoids my attention straying.

I'm very glad that all of my work for the major project will be completely focused on the editing aspects of the film, as this will be very beneficial to the project and my future work.