The Interview... The Edit

As we shot digitally as opposed to on tapes and captured the audio separate logging our footage was a much more complicated process. After putting the information from the memory cards on to the computer we had to use MPEG Streamclip to change the file format to a Quicktime Movie so that it could be read by final cut. To sync the audio we used a program called pluraleyes, which I highly recommend for DSLR users. The program runs as a final cut plug in, where you insert your clips with reference audio and the recorded audio in to the time line (they don't have to be in line with the right clip) and then get it to sync audio. Its that simple! However, it did lead to a very messy workflow which made editing a lot more unorganised, as all of our takes were in a time line as opposed to where all the content usually is.

This meant that doing the rough edit was tough, as it led to scrolling through the a long time line to find the best shots (as you can see above the time line was over 2 hours long). However, after the initial rough edit was put together, it was less of a problem as we knew the shots that we wanted to use. As Me, Josh and Elspeth all done edits, we decided to copy and paste our favorite parts of each other to create the ultimate edit. This however, was made slightly more difficult by Josh having a newer version of Final Cut Pro than University. This meant that we could not copy across his work, so to transfer the shots across, we noted the shot and its in and out points from the the clip and copied it across.

After we had a sequence that we were happy with, we needed to deal with the sound. In hindsight I feel that we should have done this after we had colour graded and had a picture lock. This is because we couldn't edit the pictures any more, as we feared that Rich Wood who was helping us with the sound might do things it, which would then be obsolete if we changed the sequence. After discovering no quick route to dealing with the issues of the tape recorder making a noise and then not, we had to go through every shot in the interview room and take it out manually. This was done by using a Soundtrack Pro add on called de-noiser by izoetope, where you identify to the program which sound you don't want in the clip and it suppresses its sound. As the scene in the interview room was only 3 mins it took about an hour to go through each clip individually in order to get it sounding good, however the levels still needed to be adjusted which Rich helped us to do. (This is what iZotope looks like).