Editing Demo Critique

1. The first story of a student playing bazinga and the other student going to the bathroom demonstrates the concept of intercutting because the camera cuts between the two separate lines of action that are happening at the same time. The second story of a student working on a project and another student not saving the project and going on Facebook demonstrates the concept of axis match. The two stories demonstrate my concepts really well because they show how different shots and camera angles combine to make stories more creative and entertaining. Some problems I had during the pre-production was thinking of two stories to demonstrate the concepts. The story demonstrating intercutting was not as interesting as I hoped. If I had the chance to do this project again, I would create two lines of action that meet together in the end that brings more dramatic tension for the viewers.

2. Andrew was the director during the production, and I think he has done a wonderful job using creative shots and techniques that would bring the story to life on screen. The shots flow together and follow the rules of continuity. The most creative shot that I like is the intercutting story. In this story, a student is playing a game on the computer while his partner, student 2, is walking to the bathroom and back. I like how my group and I did a over the shoulder shot of student 2 opening the classroom door and suddenly it cuts to a shot inside the classroom. The shot of student2 can be seen already walking in the classroom, and the door is closing behind her. This is called a match action cut or movement match. It was a smooth cut that followed the rules of continuity and came out perfect. Another shot that I love is in the axis match scene, where a long shot of a student can be seen working on a project. The camera suddenly moves forward along the z-axis and we see a close-up of the computer screen. The angle from which the camera shoots the action remains the same from shot to shot.

3. Challenges that I had during editing was importing the music and voiceover. I didn't know that I was suppose to save the music and voiceover in my student folder, so when I was editing in final cut pro, the audio wasn't playing. It was dead silent. I was freaking out, until Mr. Bigue explained how to solve the problem. Another challenge I had was finding the right background music to complement my editing demo. I had to search for music one by one in garage band and itunes, so it took a while to find the right one. Also, limiting the scenes to about one to two minutes was a challenge because the shots we took were kind of long. I was forced to cut out some shots and speed up most of the clips in order to make the entire movie within the time limit.