Howard Phillips is out for the next couple weeks, down in Washington, directing the fall program at the new CDIA campus. Good luck everyone. Filling in for Howard is Chris Bowan.
Chris is an Avid editor and has a lot of tips for accelerating the editing workflow. He showed me a lot useful thing using key commands for editing. It can be awkward to use at first, but it makes a big difference in how quickly and smoothly you get things done. Eventually you can work entirely through the keyboard, with your right hand and the mouse in your left hand. Or vice versa, if you're a lefty.
Between learning Avid and editing a dialog centered movie I have a feeling, shared by a few people in class, that this project is much harder. Rather than trying to create a completely finished final cut, I'm spending my time playing with different types of edits. Trying to keep the story moving ahead smoothly. I'm relying on straight cuts, no transitions and looking for shots that lead well into each other. The dialog is controlling what I choose to keep in and out and if it deviates from the script, I'll take that chance.
So I'm not thinking about the finished film, but how I take care of individual aspects of the film. Hopefully that will lead to a good, finished feeling cut. Same results either way, but different methods. I'm hoping that I'll learn more by taking the long road.
I need to investigate storyboarding, it would help me visualize the film better before I begin shooting. It's very easy to overlook crucial takes at certain angles and frames. I believe it would have helped identify how one shot would lead into another. I'm discovering that at certain points in my cut I need a specific view, or angle of one character to help lead into another character's dialog. I can see that what I want isn't there. I would like to know what that would be while I still have the opportunity to shoot it.
I include a brief description of how to prepare still images for use in video. Despite years of trying to understand it, I still get confused when I talk about it. If you take anything useful away from my comments, let it be to do research for your own understanding. here are some links about different types of TV screen resolutions, NTSC (what we use in North America and western South America) PAL and SECAM. You have to be careful of the pixel dimensions of your still image because TV uses rectangular pixels, unlike square pixels that are used for computer displays. Find a good book on Avid too, like the one we use as a manual class.
Show notes are in the lyrics section of the mp3. Drop me a line at videostudentguy.gmail.com.
