Culture in the Digital Age: AC3: Technical Skill:
In this segment of documenting my production process in creating my documentary, I will detail the technical aspects of my production. I will describe my editing process and problems that occurred during; explaining then how I overcame said problems to further develop my skill-set as so that I can apply what I have learnt during this production to future projects.
Programs, Software, and Platforms I have used in producing my documentary:
Premiere Pro:
Premiere Pro is an editing software offered by Adobe. I have used program this to edit my documentary.
Action!:
Action is a free downloadable software that allows users to record/capture their screen and record audio. I used this to record my narration as I did not have access to a microphone at the time of the recording. Action is a rather favorable piece of software as it's primary use is that of gameplay recording for online streamers that wish to record audio whilst simultaneously recording their own screen - to share gameplay and commentary without having to overlay commentary over the gameplay at a later time. Action showing the screen allowed me to record my audio whilst being able to look at my script, on Google Docs, for reference. I found this to aid me greatly in the recording process of the narration.
FL Studio:
FL Studio, or Fruit Loops Studio in full, is a digital audio workstation that allows users to create music entirely digitally. The program allows for many plug-ins such as midi keyboards and samplers. We used this software, during the shooting of the Fortunate 35 interview, to create the instrumental for the interview with, Fortunato 35's, Lloyd Morgan and Luca Cilliberti.
Out-takes:
In this segment I will share footage that I recorded during the production of the documentary but did not use - along with my reasoning as to why I did not use this footage.
This take is from the interview segment with Fortunato 35 - in which I ask the question, " -----". While I think topically this response is adequate - in terms of delivery it does not meet the standard I think is necessary. Lloyd uses "like" as a connective too much - making the response come across as unformulated.
Prototypes:
In the early stages of my editing process, I created some prototypes of the interviews that I conducted as part of the documentary.
Editing the documentary:
In editing this documentary I have used Premiere Pro.
I used the cut tool to shorten the clips I collected to be at the given length that they needed to be. I used the cut tool in the initial opening montage: cutting several videos to a much shorter length.
These videos include, in chronological order: 'Strawberry Fields' by the Beatles, which I cut at three separate points. There are three separate shots of Sir Paul McCartney which is spliced together. Using the timeline - I placed these clips in succession with the phrase "this is it!" - with each clip corresponding to one word. I think this grabs the viewers attention from the offset of the documentary. I used another Beatles music video, "Don't let me down", which I cut down to 4 seconds long. Similarly, I used music videos such as 'Another Brick in the Wall Pt.2' by Pink Floyd, 'Thriller' by Micheal Jackson, 'Smells like Teen Spirit' by Nirvana, 'Hey Ya' by OutKast, 'Animalz' by the Gorillaz, 'Somebody that I used to know' by Gotye, and 'HUMBLE' by Kendrick Lamar. Each of these clips I taken from longer complete music videos, using the cut tool I shortened each music video to between 3 and 5 seconds long.
Once I had changed the volume manually - I could have the volume at a much louder point during the montage as opposed to the interview itself so that the interviewees are clear and discernible.
The documentary opens with footage from the first televised broadcast from MTV, music television in full, in April 1981. I cut the video, using the cut tool, at 23 seconds in. Having the montage of music videos proceed it. However, while I cut the footage I wanted to keep the audio. I achieved this by highlighting the video and its audio, right clicking, and pressing unlink. Unlinking the video and the audio allows the editor to act on the audio and video as separate entities. Had I used the cut tool on the video without unlinking them - it would have cut both the video and the audio. In doing this, I could overlay the rest of the audio over the montage of music videos whilst discarding the rest of the footage from the MTV video past the intended 23 seconds that I included.
In my opening narration - I used many images to reinforce talking points. However, when I placed the images on the timeline - they did not fit in to the frame. This was an issue as I did not want the sequence to come across as inconsistent. To remedy this issue I right clicked on the specific piece of media and pressed "Scale to frame size" - which is a tool that fits images to the frame as opposed to using its initial size.
In this same initial introductory narration - I included subtitles. Subtitles I believe are a simple yet very effective tool to maintain the viewer's attention as well as furthering the message of the documentary. I done this by going on the graphics tab and selecting the option for subtitles, inserting them in V4, over the other media as so that they are visible. I then manually inserted the given dialogue by typing it in - using the timeline to line up the subtitles with the dialogue.
Following the introductory narration - I placed the interview with independent music label - Fortunato 35. For this segment I used an an instrumental created independently. However - I needed to the instrumental to be at different volumes at different points during the interview. I needed to find a way to manually change the volume.
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Identifying technical Setbacks:
Introduction:
The documentary opens with a montage of historically significant music videos - with the audio of the first broadcast of MTV layered over the montage. This creates a juxtaposition of what the viewer is seeing as opposed to what they are hearing. This, I believe, illustrates the evolution of music videos over time. I intentionally sequenced these music videos in chronological order of release - in order to show a progression in the style and production quality of music videos across time - paired with the audio of the very first MTV broadcast, I intended this segment to illustrate what music videos became, in a cultural sense, through platforms such as MTV.
In terms of technical difficulties I came across during the production of this opening montage: I could not get the aspect ratios to match between videos. While this is simply a minor aesthetic problem and does not directly affect the functionality of the documentary, in terms of structure,
Introductory narration:
In this opening narration - I overlaid relevant photos over the top of my narration. I think this is effective as it helps the viewer visualize what I am saying - further helping cement the core ideas of the documentary in the mind of the viewer.
Interview 1 - Fortunato 35:
When shooting this interview, I used an iPhone 11 for the footage of the two musicians being interviewed. I intended to use a canon camera - but due to the camera running out of battery after a short take - I was unable to use this camera. While it would've been in my best interests to use this camera given its features - we instead opted to retake the interview with an iPhone 11 camera. While I had one take of the interview - the introductory question, "what is your label (Fortunato 35)", on the Canon A700 camera, I opted to retake the take using the iPhone 11 camera.
For the footage shown during the montage segment edited in between the interviews - I used a canon camera. While the difference in quality is somewhat noticeable - I have used lighting and color correction in Premiere Pro to ease the difference in camera quality. Something else noticeable between these two segments is the lighting.
Being the guest - I simply recorded Lloyd and Luca during their production process, using FL studio - in an attempt to create and maintain a sense of continuity in the short montages between the interview segments; I wanted this sense of continuity to make the audience feel as if they have good understanding of how Lloyd and Luca create their music - without having to tell the viewer verbally. However due to changing in lighting between montages - the montages do not share a similar aesthetic and I find upon re-watching my initial rough draft that this change in lighting could come across as quite jarring to a viewer. I intend to change this somewhat in further editing through further colour correction as so that the montages have more of a sense of continuity.
Another technical problem I ran into was that I was unable to obtain a tripod in time for shooting this interview - meaning that there is some visible movement of the camera as opposed to if I had access to a tripod; the camera trajectory would be much smoother resulting in a more compelling shot.
I had some difficultly shooting the computer screen. Due to the light emitting from the computer - I found it difficult to make the camera focus on Luca, using the software, and the computer displaying the layout simultaneously. In a shot within the second montage between interviews, within the Fortunato 35 interview, there is an over-the-shoulder shot of Luca using FL studio on his Apple Mac computer. Upon re-watching this clip in my initial draft of the documentary - I think the shot is not very well focused and upon further editing or re-shoots I intend to correct this by re-shooting these shots with continuity in mind whilst filming.
During the initial editing of this segment of my documentary - I ran in to an issue with changing the volume between the montage and the interview. Editing this on Premiere Pro - I used video resources to learn sound tracking to manually change the volume throughout the clip.
Here is my reasoning for taking this approach: I wanted to still have the instrumental present whilst the two were being interviewed, though at a lower volume comparatively with the montages. I decided to do this for two reasons:
1) Lowering the volume whilst the interviewee is talking helps focus the viewers attention on what the interviewee is saying - though without the sound losing continuity. If I were to play the instrumental solely during the montages - this could come across to a viewer as rather jarring. To avoid this - I lowered the volume in order to maintain continuity between the sound design. I used Premiere Pro to track the sound and make the dialogue louder at points in the interview - as with the instrumental track. This helped me change the viewers focus using volume.
For the footage shown during the montage segment edited in between the interviews - I used a canon camera. While the difference in quality is somewhat noticeable - I have used lighting and color correction in Premiere Pro to ease the difference in camera quality. Something else noticeable between these two segments is the lighting.
Being the guest - I simply recorded Lloyd and Luca during their production process, using FL studio - in an attempt to create and maintain a sense of continuity in the short montages between the interview segments; I wanted this sense of continuity to make the audience feel as if they have good understanding of how Lloyd and Luca create their music - without having to tell the viewer verbally. However due to changing in lighting between montages - the montages do not share a similar aesthetic and I find upon re-watching my initial rough draft that this change in lighting could come across as quite jarring to a viewer. I intend to change this somewhat in further editing through further colour correction as so that the montages have more of a sense of continuity.
Another technical problem I ran into was that I was unable to obtain a tripod in time for shooting this interview - meaning that there is some visible movement of the camera as opposed to if I had access to a tripod; the camera trajectory would be much smoother resulting in a more compelling shot.
I had some difficultly shooting the computer screen. Due to the light emitting from the computer - I found it difficult to make the camera focus on Luca, using the software, and the computer displaying the layout simultaneously. In a shot within the second montage between interviews, within the Fortunato 35 interview, there is an over-the-shoulder shot of Luca using FL studio on his Apple Mac computer. Upon re-watching this clip in my initial draft of the documentary - I think the shot is not very well focused and upon further editing or re-shoots I intend to correct this by re-shooting these shots with continuity in mind whilst filming.
During the initial editing of this segment of my documentary - I ran in to an issue with changing the volume between the montage and the interview. Editing this on Premiere Pro - I used video resources to learn sound tracking to manually change the volume throughout the clip.
Here is my reasoning for taking this approach: I wanted to still have the instrumental present whilst the two were being interviewed, though at a lower volume comparatively with the montages. I decided to do this for two reasons:
1) Lowering the volume whilst the interviewee is talking helps focus the viewers attention on what the interviewee is saying - though without the sound losing continuity. If I were to play the instrumental solely during the montages - this could come across to a viewer as rather jarring. To avoid this - I lowered the volume in order to maintain continuity between the sound design. I used Premiere Pro to track the sound and make the dialogue louder at points in the interview - as with the instrumental track. This helped me change the viewers focus using volume.
2) During the montages - the music should be the primary focus of the viewers attention - this is why I increased the volume at this point. I think as I have framed the montage as a visual aid for the music - as the music featured during this segment was created whilst we were filming - using FL Studio. I think this approach makes the scene come across as organic and natural - as opposed to using a pre-established instrumental that was not directly related to the topic at hand; this would not have the same effect as using the music of the interviewees as it helps the audience develop an understanding of what type of music that the interviewees created.
This is later juxtaposed in the documentary by the second interview with Tyler Clementson, Tom Daly, and Lewy Farquhar: in which they play an electric guitar (insert specific name) and a bass guitar - to convey basic insight into generally what type of music they create - despite the genres being different, acoustic lo-fi and industrial hip-hop, it has the same effect.
Overcoming/Resolving technical difficulties:
Introductory segment:
Introductory Narration:
Interview 1: Lloyd and Luca of Fortunato 35:
I used sound tracking to manually change the volume during this segment. This was an issue as without learning the ability of how to do this through video resources - I wouldn't have been able to have the instrumental that we used during this interview at a satisfactory volume whilst having Luca talking. Having the instrumental and the dialogue at the same volume could come across as rather jarring to a viewer, as they would not know where to place their focus.
Equipment List:
Initial Cut of Documentary:
This is the initial cut of the documentary I created using Premiere Pro.
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