Master Edits

Welcome back!

This week's assignment called for the use of a combination of our knowledge and experience. We learned about the five master shots (contrast, parallelism, symbolism, leit motif, and simultaneity) by watching the video on this page: 5 Master Editing Techniques That Appear in Everything From 'Psycho' to 'Hugo'

We were then instructed to work either by ourselves or with one partner to come up with our own examples for these shot types. We would have to create a scene, film it, and edit it, including at least four examples of sound from a set list. My friend Nevaeh and I decided to work together on this project and, after brainstorming, agreed to meet up after school to film (we also employed the help of my friend Jason, who knows nothing about film but was eager and useful). Other than the clips for parallelism and about half of the clips for simultaneity, we got all of our filming done at my house in just a couple of hours. 

Fortunately, our premiere pro accounts were now working again. Unfortunately, my home laptop is running a more updated version than are the school computers. I had already uploaded and organized the footage into a team project at home, and Nevaeh and I were unable to get much work done at school (we did try to find some background music to add in, but that didn't work out either). 

Before I get into too much detail, here's our finished product:

Starting off with leit motif, my character has a signature knocking rhythm. In this storyline, my character is not entirely sane and gets jealous/upset about Nevaeh's character getting into Harvard without her. After hearing my character knock on the doors earlier, it is expected that my character will be standing at the door after hearing the knock in the last clip (and this expectation is satisfied once the camera moves). For this scene, we decided to use direct sound. The characters are hearing everything that the audience is hearing in real time, so the audio is also diegetic and synchronous. This gives everything a more realistic feel, and the audience can feel like part of the action. I learned a lesson about b-roll from trying to edit the footage for this story, that being I need to get more of it. Some of the cuts seem too short and a bit rushed, and a big part of that comes from a lack of b-roll in the footage, but I did my best to save the scene.

Next on the list is symbolism. In the first clip, Nevaeh and I are shown posing for a picture, forming a heart with our hands. The video then shows a close up as our hands move apart, breaking the heart in the process. The next clips show me on the ground, with blood on my chest. This symbolizes a few things, including how friendship and relationships (metaphorical hearts) can be important to our livelihoods, just as our physical hearts are. It also symbolizes how losing a relationship with somebody can be painful and can make us feel like we are dying, especially as the relationship may have been something that we relied on. For this scene, there is an added heartbeat over the sound of Nevaeh's frantic breathing. This places more emphasis on the idea of the heart, but it doesn't take all of the attention off of what is occurring in the scene. This audio is meant to be post-synchronization dubbing, as it is meant to represent my actual heartbeat as I am dying and because it was added after filming. Originally we were going to use a stethoscope, and I feel like the post-synchronization dubbing classification would have made more sense that way, but we decided against it after altering the storyline slightly. I also find it interesting because the heartbeat can be diegetic or non-diegetic, depending on the viewer's perspective. It is possible that what the audience hears is what I am hearing (and my heartbeat is loud in my ears as I am dying), or it can just be added sound to influence what the audience is feeling.

Contrast! Finding the right music to go along with this scene was... annoying. I don't think I fancy sound editing very much. We wanted to use intense music for the visual clips of me breaking into the house. This not only adds a lot of value to the scene itself (I find that it has a very different effect without sound), but it also helps to highlight the contrast between the situations of my character and Nevaeh's character, who is meditating in a calm area with peaceful, quiet music. I think our idea for contrast could also have worked for simultaneity, as I think we do get the point across that our characters' actions were occurring at the same time; however, the actions are so different that this scene also works well for contrast. This scene includes both diegetic and non-diegetic music for meditation and for breaking in, respectively. 

Moving on, we find ourselves at parallelism. This is a relatively short clip, featuring Nevaeh and her little brother. Our original idea for this master edit had to be revised, as our intended actors were unavailable for filming. We had planned to have a boy riding in the backseat of a car with wired headphones in (possibly arriving at a specific location), followed by an adult version of that boy, riding in the backseat of a car with Airpods in (arriving at the same location, if we decided to go that route). Instead, we have a young boy laying in bed with wired headphones, followed by an older girl laying in bed using Airpods. This shows parallelism because both characters are laying in their beds listening to music. It somewhat expresses changes in maturity and life as people get older (for example, notice the lack of stuffed animals in the second clip-- a nice touch by Nevaeh). We were planning on using a different song, but I don't know much about copyright and was having some trouble getting answers out of Google, so I ended up choosing some royalty-free music that I felt added to the atmosphere of the clips. This is diegetic music, as it is all the characters are hearing as they lay in their beds. The music helps the audience connect with the characters and understand to a point what they are feeling; watching the clips without the added music makes the audience feel more detached.

Last but not least, simultaneity (my favorite one to spell). These shots would also work well for parallelism, as they show the characters getting ready in the morning and doing pretty much the same things. We had this idea for simultaneity, as the characters are getting up and getting ready for the same thing, and they are doing very similar things at the same time as each other, even though they aren't at the same place. The voiceover is important for this scene because it helps establish context for the actions that are taking place in the clips. It also helps express that the characters are getting ready at the same time. 

This project was very fun! I enjoyed the acting and editing, and I am excited to do it again soon. 


To be continued...












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