Documentary: Edit Workshop With Tim Bentham

As part of the pre-production for the documentary unit, I took part in an edit workshop with a professional picture editor, Tim Bentham.

EDITING WORKSHOP

To start the day off, Tim spent some time telling us about the sort of work he normally does. He also told us about how we ended up working in television, and it was interesting to hear that he didn't study a television based degree. He ended this part of the workshop by showing us a film he had recently edited for Channel 4.

THE EDIT

First I imported all of the footage into Adobe Premiere Pro, and organised it into bins. I then viewed all of the interview clips and cut them down to what was needed, based on the highlighted transcript we were given. After I had cut the clips down, I used the audio and cutting tools to blend all the clips together all the cuts were hidden, and the clips sounded like full sentences, with no bits taken out.

Some of my bins

Editing the interview clips

Once I had fine tuned all of the interview clips, I began to put together a final edit. I started by putting all of my final edit clips into a new sequence. I then went through and started using GVs to cover all the edits, also ensuring the GVs matched what was being said on screen. Next I created a small opening sequence using some exterior shots of the Cathedral.

Next I began to work on the sound. I added a music track and went through the edit, raising and lower the levels when the man was and wasn't speaking. After I had fine tuned all of the sound, I added some titles and then the edit was complete.

Editing the interview clips

My workspace set up

The feedback I got from Tim was all positive, in fact after the viewings he came and spoke to me to find out how I edited it together because he thought it was perfectly executed. Overall I am happy with the final edit and if there was one thing I can take away from this workshop it is that having a transcript of the interviews makes editing the final cut much easier and quicker.