Day 4: Montage: Post-Production

Check in re: Production (20 min)

Welcome back, Smartphone Filmmakers! So I'm curious how your shoots went. We'll spend a few minutes at the beginning of class today talking about how production went. The positives and the areas where there can be improvement. It'll be helpful to share victories and lessons for everyone.

Post-Production and Editing

INTRODUCTION

So post-production is what we call the time we dedicated to editing our film. It typically happens after you shoot all of your footage, but in some cases, post-production happens with production. In Korean filmmaking, they have an editor on the set and it's helpful for them to see the film come together as they are making it. So they know what's working and what is not. I think this is not a bad practice.

Editing is the actual bringing together the footage from production and figuring out how to put it together to make your film. It also includes adding visual effects, transitions, music and sound effects. It's one of my favorite parts of filmmaking because you have so much power to make the film better. And sometimes worse!

Getting your footage to the computer / editing system

So I want to make sure I make some key points here about your footage and getting it to your computer or editing system.

1. Your footage is precious. You put a lot of work into it and you want to make sure it's not going to get accidentally deleted. Please save multiple copies of your footage. It has happened to me that my footage was lost for a film and it was heart breaking. Especially if you're using SD cards which are very small and very delicate. Be careful!

2. In terms of getting the footage to your computer, it really depends on what camera you're using and what computer you're using. Here are some examples:

+If you're editing on your phone, obviously, you don't have to worry about getting your footage on the computer. It's just there.

+If you're using an i phone and a Mac computer, then I recommend air drop. Check out the video below.

+And then there's android and PC people. Here's a video I found on the subject. I don't have an Android or PC so let me know how it goes. If it doesn't work, then, I would recommend either email it to yourself (if it's not too large). OR we can talk to Cristina.

Editing Demo on i Movie

So below I'll take you through the basics of editing using i movie as an example. I think for many of my students it's helpful to just demonstrate it first and so you can see it in action. So below are two videos that show you how I would edit using i Movie. Then, after you watch that, I think you can use the information afterwards as a reference.

2. INTRODUCTION TO THE MAIN SCREEN

So the main screen of i Movie is below and it will be probably similar to most editing programs. There are four major areas in the main screen:

+Library: This is where the media is stored in your computer. It's one main way to access all of your media (videos, music, etc).

+Browser: This is where you have your film clips for your project located. It's where you store them before you put them onto your timeline to make your film.

+Timeline or Project: This is your film. You drag the film clips onto the timeline or project and make your film.

+Viewer: This is where you see your film. When you want to watch it, you see it in the viewer.

Editing Part 2: Organizing your footage

So after you started your project, then, you can import the footage of your film into i Movie or your editing program. So here are the steps:

1. Click onto the "Import Media" arrrow.

2. Then, a window will pop up and you'll select the video clips you want. If you press "command" and click, you can select multiple clips.

3. Then, you click "Import selected clips"

4. Then, you'll see the clips loading into the i Movie browser.

5. If you want, you can label the clips. This can be helpful if you are doing multiple scenes and/or longer projects.

The Rough Cut: Putting Down the Film First

So now is time to put together the rough cut. There are two major ways I recommend to go about this.

The first way is PUTTING THE FILM DOWN FIRST

So simply, this is selecting the video clips and arranging them on the timeline. Here are the steps.

1. Look at each video clip in the browser. As you drag your arrow on the clip, you should be able to see the video in the viewer. Then you can select the part of the clip that you want to bring to the timeline. In i Movie, it looks like a yellow outline.

2. Then, you drag the video clip onto the Timeline. Or in i Movie, you can press the plus sign.

3. Then, you arrange the cilps on the timeline and figure out what order you want.

4. You can also lengthen and shorten clips to figure out pacing.

Putting Down the Music First

So if you want to build your montage film around the music, it can be helpful to put the music down first. The reason this is helpful is because you can decide what kind of music you want and how long the video should be (in this case we're shooting for a minute) and then, use the music as the spine of the film. It can work well if you find the right type of music that fits your film's tone and the length of your film. Every song has a structure to it and the that structure can dictate how your film will be cut together.

I really like using this website Art List to get my music. It allows you to search for music based on many factors that you need to consider and with a license, you can use the music fairly freely.

I'm going to let you use our account which I'll email you the information. I'm going to be shutting the account down soon so it won't last long. I do recommend if you're serious about filmmaking to get your own account.

So here's how to use Art list to get music for your film:

Go to Art list website at this link:

Then, you'll see the website and follow these steps:

1. Sign in with the info I give you.

2. You'll see on the left side of the front page, the following categories:

Mood

Video Theme

Genre

Instrument

3. I find Mood and Genre the most helpful.

4. Pick the kind of mood you want to have your film. You can select multiple moods.

5. Then, select the genre of music you want. Again, you can select multiple genres.

6. Art list will start giving you choices based on these parameters. You can listen to each song by pressing the play symbol.

7. You can refine your choices with the top bar above the songs. I find that the most helpful elements are: length (you can select how long the songs will be), tempo (you can choose slow to fast), vocals or no vocals (that one looks like a mic symbol.)

8. Once you find the song that you want, then you can get it by clicking the cart symbol.

9. Then, you'll see the cart symbol at the top near Peter's Music say that it has the song. You click that cart symbol.

10. Then it'll prompt you to check out. Click check out.

11. Then, it'll say success! And you'll go to Peter's Library to find your song.

12. You'll see your song in Peter's library and then click mp3 to download the song.

13. The song will now be in your download section of your computer.

14. You can drag the song into your editing program now.

Titles

So there are usually two major types of titles that you will be using.

The introduction of your film and the credits.

For the introduction of your film, here are the steps:

1. Decide where you want the introduction of your film titles to go. This usually goes at the beginning but sometimes, people wait after the teaser or sometimes even the end.

2. Then, you look through the titles that are offered and figure out which font and style fits your film best.

3. Then, you lay them down onto the time line. The titles can be my them selves or you can use an image or video clipg or background clip to be behind the titles.

4. NOTE: If you want your film to look very professional, before you put the title of your film, try "THE NAME OF YOUR FILM COMPANY presents". If you put this before the title, it feels like it's more like a real movie.

5. NOTE: Also note, by having music and titles at the beginning of your film, you are setting up a distinct mood, this helps the audience get into the right frame of mind for your film. If it's a drama, they should feel a sense of drama at the beginning or whatever the genre is.

6. For the credits, just pick the credits style you want and do the same thing. It's good to put anyone who worked on the film in the credits.

Transitions and Effects

So you may want to add a little more effects to your film. Here are some options:

1. Transitions. This is how one clip moves to the next clip. Honestly, I think in the beginning most filmmakers go a little wild with their transitions but it's often not needed. The most common transition is cross fade which is used for passage of time, dream sequence or fading in or out at the beginning or end of your film. But try them!

2. Color correction.

If you want your film to look a certain way, that's where color correction is involved. There's a lot to color correction but for now, just try the different options available.

3. Cropping.

This is how you cut the image to the size that you want. It's a good way to fix an image where the action is not as obvious. You can also use the Ken Burns effect which is fun and we'll cover next time.

4. Stabilization.

Sometimes your footage is shakey and you need to fix it. This can help.

5. Speed

This is one you'll probably use soon. It's a great way to speed up or slow down or even freeze a clip. Play around with it. It's very fun.

That's it for now! So there's a lot more to editing than what I've shown you today but you're probably only going to use some of this. But as always ask me questions if you have them.

Homework: Uploading to YouTube or emailing me the video

Everyone needs to email me their film by 1 pm tomorrow. So I can prepare for Friday's class where we'll watch them all.

When you're done making your video, you need to export it as a video file like .mov. Follow these steps.

1. Click onto the share button and click "file"

2. You can title your film and then click on "Next"

3. Then, make sure you put the file on the Desktop so you can find it.

4. Then, you can try to email me the file. If it's too big, I would recommend uploading it to YouTube and sending me a link.

Uploading to YouTube:

Here's a video that explains it.

More information on getting your footage to your computer

So below I've put some videos that address some of the issues that have come up with students have a hard time getting their footage onto their computer. I hope this helps.

Adobe Premiere for those who want to take their editing to the next step

Below is the link to Adobe Creative Cloud which then takes you to Adobe Premiere Pro. It's a great editing system that has a lot of functionality.

Below the link are two videos and a play list.

Video 1: Adobe Premiere Pro Basic Part 1 introduces you to Adobe Premiere from the beginning and takes you through all of the fundamentals.

Video 2: Adobe Premiere Pro Basic Part 2 introduces to a few more intermediate skills like slowing speed, titles, transitions and color correction.

Playlist is a collection of videos that take you more in depth into Adobe Premiere Pro.