Production - Edit Week Review 11-17th March

This was a very busy edit week and today I wanted to show the work that has been completed. as I have been involved in the process much more since the advice from Simon at the start of the week. I worked with George mainly on the interviews as Cailan was back in Crawley focusing on work and his side of the edit. However, he was sending me regular updates and opinions as well as clips from what he was filming. It was a very productive week and I am much more confident than I was towards the start of the week when I worried about how far behind we were with the edit. Being much more actively involved allowed me to craft my vision much earlier in the edit. The reason I was unsure about doing this earlier was that I wanted to allow George space, giving him a chance to show off his skills. However, it has become apparent over the past weeks that to be productive George needs me to be there with him a few days a week to keep the editing on schedule. Splitting his role with Cailan will also allow him to focus on a smaller portion of the edit, meaning it is of the highest quality.


The Bobby interview with Team Brit was one of the first interviews I wanted to tackle as the Dan interview has been edited well, but our other two interviews are very long in their natural state, so I needed to decide which parts were the most important. I went through the full interview with George and I picked out the key questions and answers and we then put them into a rough timeline. Using multiple cameras really helped us in this edit as it allowed us to cut out large segments. Bobby does say a lot of important things, especially things such as "You have to follow your dreams". Unfortunately, a lot of the key answers come midway through an answer and typically are not given right away. This means we have had to be crafty with our edit and use the multiple cameras to our advantage. After I found the key moments I asked George to edit them together and we then worked on making the transitions between the questions and answers a little smoother. It's still a rough cut but it is getting there. We are getting the information from a 10-minute interview in a cut that is around 2 minutes long. I still know we need to cut this down even further as we are very time limited in our documentary. However, I do not want to cut out key answers before we understand how it works in the overall edit. Therefore I want a cut-down version without going too far so we can choose what to keep and cut when we have all the scenes in the main sequence. Things such as brightening the shot on me were absolutely needed, even in a rough cut, as it allows us to understand if it was usable or not. Thankfully, the shot is savable even though the raw clip is terrible. It also makes us realise that the shot of Bobby is not what I wanted or asked for so we may have to crop in this shot to make it be more personal.

The Jamie interview needed to be adjusted after opinions from Simon about when we could use the main "wide", as it does not work when he is looking off to the side. There are instances, however, when we can use it to cut around as Jamie looks more towards the camera which does not throw the viewer off so much. As with Bobby, Jamie does take time to get to the good answers meaning we used the multiple cameras to cut around this. I think this was vital and I am so happy I decided to create a 3 camera setup for all interviews. I knew we would face issues like this in the edit and I am happy that I was aware of this early on as we now have a few more choices in the edit. As with Bobby, we condensed it down to a rough timeline of the answers we did want. They still need to be smoothed out so it looks seamless because it is currently jumpy in some areas. However, this is much better than what we had previously, which was an extended cut of the interview with nothing condensed. Now we have the key answers, we can work on it further once it is in the full timeline with all clips surrounding it. This will enable us to put the right footage over the top of it as well as knowing if the tone is right. This is something we will need to focus on since we have had to split the editing roles between two people


We filmed a chat with my racing mentor for the day, Rod Birley  [Who has won over 600 motor races in the UK] at the Ford Puma test and I asked Cailan to put together a small edit for Rod and his motor club. This also proved useful for our edit as Cailan could pick out some key quotes from this conversation that we could possibly use in our pre-race montage. I think this edit allows us to further understand how we go about this montage because as I have a creative vision about how I want this to look. I am very happy to evolve this vision, however, when presented with new styles and formats. I did not have any input on this particular edit, other than selecting the clips to include as B-ROLL over the top of what is being said so all credit goes to Cailan on this edit.


Cailan got to work on a test edit for the "What else I did" montage, using footage solely from the Formula Ford shoot date. I had picked out the clips which I found the most interesting, but also told Cailan to use the ones that worked well with his edit style and vision. Cailan did not visit the studios to show me this edit so my first feedback was given after the video seen on the right. My feedback was that the music did not work and did not fit the tone I was going for in this montage, which would be hyping up the viewer for the final race. I also felt that the scenes that were sped up didn't fit into the visual style I was after. That style was more building tension and I did not feel that the sped up clips alongside the music helped create that effect. I liked the clips he used but I feel he should have slowed clips down [Where possible] instead of speeding them up, and using music that started slow and built up. That would have allowed the montage to fit the style I wanted. This feedback has been passed onto Cailan and I suggested he started placing the Puma and Formula Ford footage together as that would enable him to understand how this sequence is actually going to look. I think it's a good start as it allows me to see how Cailan envisions this sequence and hopefully we can find a good solution to this. We will speak over the coming days so we can fully understand how it's going to work. Most importantly we are getting things edited as a group and that is allowing this project to get back on schedule and I feel we are nearly back to where we should have been at this stage.


The biggest update was in the race license scene which has been shortened. After taking on board the advice given by both Helen and Simon we had taken out certain scenes and condensed it. It is still longer than we wanted for this segment but we do not want to cut it down too much. I am really enjoying working on this part of the edit as it shows my honest thoughts while I prepare myself for a big moment in the documentary. As I am the contributor, I am not allowing myself to edit out my quirks, however tempting it is. I know these are what give me a personality and make this story even more powerful. Being with George has allowed me to identify shots which can either be removed or condensed. Also, small edits like flipping the camera around [as it was mirrored] were things George had not picked up on and would negatively affect the viewing experience. These changes allowed this scene to come closer to what I had originally wanted, but we have a long way to go to create the tension and mood that I am after.

The editing process was further helped by myself and Cailan going through all the clips for his edit sequences and selecting the right shots. This was done on the drive up to Donnington Park and we did a great job of narrowing down his options for the edit. This means that we will spend less time looking at shots and more time editing.

It has been a very productive edit week and I'm happy to be much more of a prominent figure within the edit now. It allows me to have my input on creative decisions in the edit, meaning we get to the fine cut much quicker than if George was to edit by himself. I accept that I should have realised this earlier and thankfully we have now caught up on all the editing needed to be back on track. This means that after filming every sequence we can now edit it right after, meaning our thoughts are still clear. Going forward this will make for a much more productive edit and one that allows us to receive valuable feedback from our peers and tutors.