This is huge and complicated. Whilst having done the tests for screening to my MA peers I underestimated the size of the project as these had only been two or three clips edited together to check that they worked. I am aiming for the piece to be no more than 20 minutes. Whilst this is an OK length to work with in actuality it is 60 minutes to edit as I am actually doing three twenty minute edits in effect as I am editing for three screens! These all need editing, most of them lip-synching, the sound tidied up and watching to make sure no errors creep in.
USING PREMIERE PRO TECHNCALLY
The best way to approach the edit is to layer it all up in the timeline stacking it. This works best with what will be the left hand screen on video track 1 with the middle screen and right hand screen being on video tracks 2 and 3 respectively. Below I have given an outline of potential issues and opportunities of the project with one eye on re-shooting some elements and adding others to make the piece work better.
LENGTH OF INSTALLATION
Length of the films may have to be shortened. This is due to the above and also as I am sure I have only got 10 odd minutes to screen it to my tutors for assessment so perhaps working to a really tight best bits 10 minute edit is the way to go initially.
PROJECT FILE MANAGEMENT AND WORKFLOW
Getting organised is always the key to a successful edit and this is definitely the case he times 3! As there are three screens there are potentially three times the issues and confusion as a normal edit. I have decided to break all of the four areas up into there own folders teachers, boys, psychologists and parents creating folders to keep the files in. As far as file naming goes I have created a labelling system 1L Isaac Psychologists for example for when I have imported the raw footage. 1L being screen one left, Isaac being the boy in the clip and then whose thoughts they are saying. When editing I shot the boys all saying the psychologists thoughts for example as one long clip. Slicing this up into 8-9 sub clips will take an age SO I will edit all of one boys footage at a time in a sequence based on whose words they are voicing and slice it up in there into the 8-9 clips. Then slice up the other two boys too so for example the psychologists clips of all the boys will be in their own sequence. From here in the same sequence I will layer up the boys voices so that they are all combined and overlaid working together as they will be for the installation. Then these can be cut and pasted in to MASTER track containing all of the clips.
SYNCHING AUDIO
This is really tricky as if the boys were recorded at the same time it is less of an issue but the problem comes down to the actual screening. I can make these work in a timeline on the editing software fine but getting it all bang on. However for the pieces recorded individually with the boys that need adding together I will need to create the right spacing and fluidity as each son contributes.
SYNCHING AND PREPARING FOR THE INSTALLATION
However even with these bits issues may creep in with sound overspill to the microphones of the other boys. If synchronicity of the clips and sound could be guaranteed to be 100% bang on then this is not an issue as the sound being played from all there clips to the screens would be in synch. However this looks very tricky and expensive to do for the installation. SO I will have to firstly erase any overspill from the other boys talking from the individual tracks so the only voice on each track will be the boy appearing on that screen. Then I will need to test and factor in the fact that the projections in the installation are unlikely to be bang in synch. So a pause (but not too long) will need to be left between each of the boys talking to allow for this so they do not end up talking over each other. It will be a "forced naturality" and will need testing on the screens ASAP to see what works best.
NARRATIVE AND STRUCTURAL GYMNASTICS
This is the tricky bit and stringing all of the footage together. The bits with the boys interacting as a three all obviously work as they are pretty much appearing "as live" as they were recorded obviously considering the above factors. They are all on a certain screen and either left, middle or right. HOWEVER for the psychologists, teachers and some of the parents thoughts the boys are voicing this is a whole different story. I want to create a randomness as to which screen the boys appear on and also who speaks first, second and third and creating randomness is trick. I created some grids to help me do this and to help plan how to link and theme the sections together.
FRAMING THE TOPICS AND VOICES/OPINIONS
The plan is to have all of the boys on screen discussing either the same topic or different thoughts and aspects of the same topic. This will involve theming the comments of the psychologists, teachers and parents. For instance psychologists comments on the boys personalities for instance are they scholarly mathematically, with the written word or creative and artistic. Framing the comments in themes will allow the audience to get a feel for how the siblings are regarded birth order wise. Also getting one son to set up the theme of the three opinions "In class" for school to frame who the comments came from for instance.
NARRATIVE FLOW
Not 100% sure at the moment but i do want to give the piece some narrative structure and vary the contributors thoughts with the boys as they bring a real energy to the piece. As well as just contributions I want to give the boys screen time saying nothing on-screen and just observing them giving another insight into their characters by watching their physicality and how they inhabit the screen space. I do want to provide an opening though of the boys introducing themselves and also a sign out and summation at the end. Titles to introduce the piece will be added too.
RECORDING THE LIP-SYNC
As I have mentioned earlier in the blog the aim is to get FIRSTLY get the thoughts from the different people commenting on the boys, for instance teachers views written down. THEN record the boys saying their words on camera. THEN using these clips of the boys show these to the teachers so they can get a feel for their speech patterns and mimic them whilst recording the voice overs that will replace the boys voices. This is never going to be bang on unless time is not a factor but you can get pretty close and then any tidying up to get the lip-synch as bang on as possible done in the edit.
VO & LIP-SYNCH WORKING?
The comments from the boys voicing the words of others worked fairly well. I used a studio set TheVO I recorded of a lecturer friend (Matthew Townsend a performing arts lecturer and actor) to lip synch to the boys saying them worked really well and was a success. The process however can be time consuming to try and get the lip-synch as tight as possible I will need to get the other voice overs done ASAP as they are pretty time consuming to synch them to the boys voices in post.
GRADING AND MAKING THE FOOTAGE LOOK THE SAME
This is close but not white balancing during the filming and the different lighting colours some more orange, some bluer (see above photo). Using three identical cameras meant that this was not too much of an issue but there are difference between the boys images depending on which of the three positions they were filmed in. Colour grading is a huge job and being a perfectionist it was my original intention to get the images always looking identical in terms of shot size, background AND lighting and colour. HOWEVER I will work with what i have for now as different tones and slight changed in tone and colour are a little bit interesting and will review this after the edit is starting to take more shape.
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