NMP 4 - Editing

Editing my take on it

After a great into session explaining the starting points in Adobe Premiere, one of those programmes I’ve always wanted to get into, yet never had the time/reason I now feel a bit more confident in getting started, it’s an Adobe package so the familiarity and ease of use is there you sometimes just need a reason to have a go at it, one of the other reasons for my MA.

So initial thoughts on editing are mixed, it’s quite the time consuming process, it’s one that can be revisited many times although I’m not sure of some of the benefits of my revisiting, sometimes too much stirring can spoil the sauce.

Another downside at this stage is that it never feels like it’s completely finished, even when it is, therein lies another difference to photography, I can always see when I’ve overcooked an image through editing but with moving image it can be difficult as further editing may improve what you have built up.

So my first foray into editing is with my piece “reading” I see this piece as the constant struggle between reading for research and work when you are at home. The distractions that are both implied and urgent that appear when you start reading, this is a very time specific piece but I had been planning this for a while so wanted to shoot it as the day went on. This particular day I had set aside to research read, the shots consisted of what was pressing and what needed doing to distract from the task at hand when the text became too dry, heavy or dated.

The shooting was familiar as I was mainly shooting still style imagery but through a moving piece, more of which I can put in another blog.

I felt like all the pieces I had shot would work well in a short 2/3min moving piece, what became apparent in this part of the process was how the story came together in the edit. Through editing I discovered the way I wanted to tell this story and how I wanted it to be seen which is an interesting way of working, one I’d done in photography and now is being applied through moving image.

Editing definitely has it’s own ways of working successfully and requires a certain skill set, one that needs to be learned and analysed to get the most out of it. It’s also good to see the piece take shape as you add elements in. 

So my takeaways from this going forward are to be give it time to develop, take time to consider and work within time.

Time, time and time.  

Thanks for reading