5 Master Editing Skills

5 Master Editing Skills 

By: Sharmeen Shivji

           

    This project was something I was looking forward to doing because I have always wanted to learn how to edit a video in different ways.  However, coming up with ideas to portray some different editing skills was harder than I thought. 

    To begin with, the editing skill contrast was the one of the easier skills to portray because it is simply drastically different shots. So to portray this shot I put in a video of me with my cousins sitting at a table painting and talking. The shot then cut to just me sitting in the same spot as I was before, but with my family not there. Through these shots I portrayed the huge change of me being with my family and then just me being alone. I think I could've been a little bit more drastic with the changes in the shot because when I look at it put together I think they portray more parallelism than contrast. If I did myself being angry and getting violent and then spending time with my family, I think that would've conveyed the meaning better. 

    The next shot was parallelism, coming up with an idea for this shot wasn't the easiest and filming it wasn't any better. To convey the meaning for this shot, I had my baby cousin wearing a pink hat which then cut to a shot of me wearing the same hat to show a difference in time periods but with the same visual item. This shot would've been the easiest to film if my baby cousin was being cooperative, however she had decided not to wear the hat. It took her mom and I at least 15 minutes of just convincing her to put on the hat and then another 10 of explaining what she had to do. But, once we finished we were able to put together the shots and bring the idea together. I think I was successful in getting the meaning of parallelism across, however I just wish I lined up the shots better to have a flawless change.

     To add on, the editing skills shot for symbolism was the hardest shot to think of an idea for. I understood what needed to be done, however thinking of relating two things through a storyline and then filming it was very difficult for me. For this skill I showed someone texting another person who was very interested in hanging out, but the other person did not want to at all. I also then showed the uninterested person searching up on google "how to tell someone that they are annoying" to show that this person was very mean and uninterested in the other person. To symbolize this person I then showed them drinking water with ice to portray their ice cold personality. I definitely think I could've come up with a better idea for this skill and that this shot was a little difficult to understand.

    The next editing skill I conveyed was simultaneity, to show this skill I had someone walking towards the door in a hoodie and a butcher knife and then someone else alone inside the house. As the person with the knife was walking towards the door and the other person was just inside, through the editing I made it seem as though the person with the knife was going to murder the other person. However, the person in the hoodie was actually just going to trick-o-treat as it was halloween. These events were happening simultaneously but at different places, however to the audience it made it seem as it was happening at the same place. I think I was successful in conveying the simultaneity skill because to the audience it really looked like this was going to be a murder scene, but it was just someone going to trick-o-treat.

    

    The last editing skill I portrayed was leit motiff, this skill was the most interesting to think an idea of because the tone of this skill could've been changed very easily. My first idea was to do that every time my baby niece would hit me a song would've played, however, my cousin and my mom were telling me that she would destroy me if I let her do that. So I moved onto another idea where every time she walked in, a specific song would've played. For these shots I tried to get my baby niece to walk in a very dramatic way to really showcase her personality. Next, was to think of a song every time she walked in, and after much deliberating I decided on "Level Up", I chose this song because I think this was the perfect song to get her dramatic personality across to the audience. I think I was successful in getting the message of leit motiff across, but I think I could've made the small clips before she walked in longer because I think it starts to get confusing. 

    

    In the end, this project was very interesting as it made me really think outside of the box of how I could get the message across without just telling them. 

 https://youtu.be/Oe6sPAHD-dY