Lost in Transition: Using good screen grammar in the edit bay.

Video stories are comprised of scenes, sequences, and shots or clips. A scene is a part of the story that takes place in one location. Scenes are created from sequences and shots. A shot is a single piece of video created when the camera begins recording until the end of the recording. Shots are usually edited (trimmed) into clips and combined into a series of clips called a sequence. A sequence shows the same action from different perspectives to move the story forward. A transition is used to join clips. You have probably viewed many video transitions on television and in movie theaters.

I've written in this blog in the past about making smart choices when editing your project and how like good punctuation an editing transition can hanlp tell you story in the clearest visual language. The most basic transition is called a cut. A cut is a simple switch from one clip to another. In most cases a cut is the best choice to keep your story moving. When using cuts in the video editing process you should question the reason for your choices. Cutting may:
  • Change the scene
  • Compress or expand time
  • Vary the point of view
  • Build up an image or idea
Less abrupt transitions are achieved with the fade, dissolve, and wipe but chances are your editing program has many many other types of flashy, 3D or motion transitions. Editing transitions are fun to use, but they have narrative meaning. Like bad punctuation, flashy effects that look cool often do real harm to your story.

Watch what happens when you take a classic movie action scene and use the worst possible transitions to keep the story moving. I call it 'Cutting like an 8th grader'.

'Nuff said? : )

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

iPod Nano video camera in professional development...who knew?

Image
This iPod Nano Video workshop has just been named Best of CUE, as evaluated by the attendees and participants of the CUE 2010 Conference in Palm Springs. It's pretty easy to be a snob about video cameras if you went to film school. It's a Hi-Def, progressive-scanned, 1080i pixel resolutioned, cine-geek's wonderland! I have learned since then, most often by necessity, that good work can be done with the simplest tools at hand.   So when I was challenged by my friends at the recent Computer Using Educators Conference to present a Lights, Camera, Learn! workshop featuring the video camera on the new iPod nano , I was intrigued. This new 5g iPod Nano is certainly cool, it boasts a video camera, FM radio, pedometer among its extra features and absent a world with flying cars, the new nano is strong proof that the future is here! It captures certainly 'good enough', cell-phone quality video and sound, but it's so light and small you wonder if a strong gust of w
Read more

My First Class

Image
This week International Polytechnic High School in Pomona graduates it's class of 2009 and with it, the students of I-Poly Video. This year was my first year as a classroom teacher, these were my first students! The California state sponsored career-track outreach called ROP gave me opportunity to pilot a video class at a high school, which was a big change from the professional development training I was doing at AFI. Piloting a program in this case also meant designing a curriculum with engaging projects. I was lucky in that my class was motivated, adaptable and creative. Qualities any career counselor will tell you are critical keys to success. So, I had that going for me...which was nice. So, the kids were learning to be filmmakers and I was learning to be a teacher. We had a lot of fun this year. Here's what we came up with. Filmmaking is part of the curriculum at I-Poly, every student makes a movie as part of their study of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. So, I wanted to
Read more

A Thousand Words - Storytelling and Editing

Image
A picture is worth a thousand words, as the popular saying goes. The poetry of that statement belies the underlying truth of just how powerful images can be. A picture can show a view of reality, but the objectivity of that reality can be profoundly affected by how that picture is framed, how an individual's eye travels across the image, and how that image is interpreted by a viewer's own point of view and life experience. How an image is composed, read and interpreted can give that image the power to inspire and arouse great passion and sometimes great change. I wanted to develop a lesson for my ROP Video class at I-Poly H.S. that would challenge my students to 'read' a picture and to really think about how they use, and often misuse, editing tools such as transitions and effects. First, I set up a series of photo buckets with my Picasa account containing some historic photographs by Dorthea Lang and Lewis Hine from the Library of Congress' collection.
Read more