7 Post-production tools

 

How to get to the part you need now

First choose your route:

Quick start guide: This is my first movie

First get an overview of how to edit

1 Condensed guide to editing	Chapter 7:1, page 243
2 Starting to work in digital	Chapter 7:2, page 244
3 Preparing to edit	Chapter 7:3, page 255
Then get the basic principles of editing
Aims of genre editing	Chapter 8:1, page 272

First develop your editing technique
1 Genre editing aims	Chapter 8:1, page 272
2 Devices used in genre editing	Chapter 8:1, page 272
3 Purposes of editing	Chapter 8:1, page 276
Then investigate montage technique to give depth to your editing
Montage	Chapter 8:3, page 290
Then go into more depth in your sound editing technique
Sound editing principles	Chapter 7:4, page 258
Timecode could help you edit more professionally
Timecode (whole chapter)	Chapter 7:5, page 265
And look at how to use text
Text in editing	Chapter 7:6, page 268

First investigate genre editing
Scene setting, pace, continuity	Chapter 8:1, page 272
Then see whether non-narrative editing can help in places
Devices in non-narrative editing	Chapter 8:2, page 281
Then go into more depth in your sound editing technique
Sound editing principles	Chapter 7:4, page 258
And work on titling
Using text and credits	Chapter 7:6, page 268

First investigate general non-narrative editing
1 Aims of the non-narrative edit	Chapter 8:2, page 281
2 Devices in non-narrative editing	Chapter 8:2, page 281
Then investigate montage editing
1 Montage	Chapter 8:3, page 290
2 Project 18, ‘Polymedia movie’, for ideas	Chapter 8:2, page 289
And see whether a creative use of text can help
Working with text	Chapter 7:6, page 268

1. Condensed guide to editing

As we saw in Chapter 1, editing is the most crucial stage in the film's development, since it is the time when it becomes more than just the sum of its parts, more than a collection of scenes on a theme. The task is daunting: to compress time, to make events filmed days or weeks apart flow seamlessly; to make space contract or expand, or simply to suggest locations or events that are non-existent. It is, simply, deception on a grand scale.

It is impossible to lay down a rigid set of rules that lead to great editing; since the needs of each film are different, such rules would inevitably change for each movie. But there are points that can lead towards a better understanding of what your film needs. The ideas listed below are some of the most common points mentioned by editors, but all will be broken as and when necessary. The purpose of studying editing techniques is to know when you use these and when you break them. Since you probably want to get out there and make movies rather than spend a few years as an editor's assistant, you need to jump the queue of experience and look at how you make a film look good right now.

Editing: this is how it goes

1 Know your footage inside out, viewing it again and again to get to know where your strong points are and what looks (sometimes unexpectedly) good.

2 ‘Log’ your footage tapes. This means making detailed notes, including the description of the shot, the timecode start and end points, its duration and whether the audio is of sufficient quality.

3 Make a rough, paper edit. More on these early stages in Chapter 7:3.

4 Make a first real edit, consisting of all the right shots you want in the film, but without any of the frills such as text, special effects, colour alterations and so on. These separate clips may also be untrimmed, which means they may still be cut down further. Full details of digital editing are given in Chapter 7:2.

5 View this first edit and go away and do something else. Go for a walk, do something physical, think about what you have made and consider all your initial plans, reflect on what you originally wanted and how this cut (or version of the film) relates to your intentions.

6 If you still feel good about it, go ahead and make the next version. This next cut is more defined, is smaller than the last and takes more time to complete. But at least you know that what you are doing is going in the right direction.

7 Leave it a week. In doing this, you are backing off from it emotionally, allowing you to make ruthless cuts if need be, and letting you see the film perhaps as others will see it eventually: objectively.

8 You still like the film. But beware of constant fiddling with the film, adding or taking away pieces as friends and crew see it and make suggestions, or new ideas hit you. The film won't survive as an artefact if you make it endure multiple rebirthing. Try to restrict your editing period to one specific term. After that, note down all new suggestions and ideas and make time for a reappraisal at some date.

2. Starting to work in digital editing

The more you understand about digital editing as a whole, the better you will be at seeing what it can offer you. Software designers do their best to make editing programs as versatile as possible, suiting every possible need but, if you look through the manuals that accompany these products, they are nevertheless aimed squarely at a large middle ground of programme maker. They will not go out of their way to find the most creative uses of their products; it is for you to find what parts of their product suits you and what is superfluous. If everyone uses digital editing software the same way, the potential for the technology to broaden what filmmakers can achieve will be undermined.

It is useful to look at what kinds of technical issues you may have to deal with, what certain bits of jargon mean and, of course, how your needs can best be served. If you are new to digital editing, or editing in general, then this will also explain the kind of route you take in putting a movie together. But we will leave all the artistic ideas about what makes a good edit for another chapter. For now, let's get technical.

Digital editing in six steps

Just about all software for digital editing involves the same basic chain of events. From the most elementary software that cuts and pastes your clips, to those with special effects and added features, the process is the same. Getting to understand this route from camera footage to finished film will give you the confidence to try out other software and will allow you to discover which kind of software is best for your needs.

1 Get hold of your raw footage. The tape will be played on either your camera or a mini-DV player.

2 Choose the bits of footage you want to work with.

3 Get all your clips onto your hard drive.

4 Trim your clips to the right length.

5 Play around with the clips on the timeline or filmstrip.

6 Put the finished film back on to tape.

It's like shopping

To put it in context, you could compare it to a trip to a supermarket. Each stage can be described as part of the wonderful shopping experience that is the modern mall.

• When you get there, you choose what items you want (like stage 2 above)
• Put them in your basket (stage 3)
• Take them to the checkout and put some items back you don't now need (stage 4)
• Go home and cook something edible (stage 5)
• Serve (stage 6).

The metaphor ends there, but experienced editors will have something to add, such as what happens when you change the recipe halfway through cooking (editing) or what happens when you find you don't have enough ingredients (footage).

Getting clips from tape to computer

As you know, there are only two types of information you are going to be working with: digital and analog. You can edit digitally with footage that is filmed in analog, first translating it into digital language — encoding. Digital tape is more straightforward and can be played directly into the computer, using a variety of different connections. The one you choose to work with is dependent on a whole range of factors, which we will look into in detail.

As for the actual device used for playing your footage, if you are working with digital tape you simply use the camera you shot it on to play the clips, although there are mini-DV players available at about the same price as the most basic, domestic camera. Using one of these would be useful only if you need to use your camera while someone else is editing, but it makes more sense to buy a second camera rather than a player.

Capture cards

Apple have stolen a march on most other manufacturers by including FireWire ports — the best way of hooking up a camera — as standard with all units, and now bundle free movie-making and DVD burning software at consumer level. The new consumer-level low-end Macs are a good route for beginners who want a stable system with reliable iMovie editing software.

But with most PCs the options are not sufficient to satisfy the quality and speed needed for filmmaking. This means you may have to invest in a few extras to get your PC connected adequately. A capture card is a small addition to the PC which enables a camcorder to be plugged in and ‘captured’ regardless of whether it is analog or digital. At its most basic it allows digital video to be connected to the PC or, higher up the cost scale, will encode analog into digital, and beyond that may allow you to return digital films onto analog VHS. The one that will do what you need for straightforward capture of DV to your computer is a card with a FireWire port.

Choosing the right capture card

This means choosing the right one for your particular needs, taking into account the type of film you might make and where and in what form you want to exhibit. Some of the most common options are:

• Option 1. Films for showing on the Internet or to be viewed on a PC, possibly also stored on CD or DVD. Choose this option if you intend to make and show your work on the Internet or keep only digital copies, on disc or digital tape. You will need a capture card that has an input port but no means of outputting the film back onto analog tape. These cards are cheaper than output/input cards but still have editing software bundled.
• Option 2. Films that can be shown on the Internet but also to possibly make VHS copies to show to potential agents or to enter in competitions. These cards have additional output ports for you to export the finished film back onto analog tape and are slightly more expensive. If you have ambitions for your work this is the better option, because the vast majority of agents, competition jurors and film buyers will watch your work on standard 12 mm VHS tape at home or at the office (but be prepared for requests for digital too). However, if you can only stretch your budget to a digital output card, you can make analog copies by connecting your digital camera directly into your VHS player.

Within these two types of card, there are further options regarding the kind of software you need and the way you compress the films down to fit on disc or tape.

Checklist: ask these questions before buying

• What kind of processor do you need in your PC to run the capture card? Check whether the speed of your PC is going to suit the card.
• Has it got a FireWire port included? There is no better solution to connect your camera to the PC. You don't need USB 2, despite its claims to be as good as FireWire.
• Has it got a four-pin to six-pin adapter for FireWire? You may encounter either size of FireWire, so an adapter is essential.
• What kind of extras are bundled with it? Many systems will offer you editing and music programs, CD authoring software or DVD authoring, but check whether you are getting reduced versions or trial-only full versions.
• How much can I afford? The most basic, entry-level cards are surprisingly inexpensive. Don't forget that the main reason you are buying the card is for the ports, not all the extras, and bundled editing software is rarely the full program. So, if you have to go for one of the cheapest, it will do the job as long as you get the right port.

Which ports?

Ports have their good and not-so-good points. Some of these you may have already in your computer, others you will get as part of a capture card.

FireWire

This versatile and fast link is a brand name devised by its developers, Apple Computers, and is also known as iLink (mostly on Sony machines) or, to give it the proper industry technical name, IEEE 1394. It has grown in popularity to the point where it is now standard on most PCs, but when it was first introduced to the market its power was seen as excessive. In those days it was rare to own a desktop editing system and the digital video revolution was yet to take off. But its attraction was evident: for the first time at consumer level you could reliably capture information at a high rate using a very small and discreet plug. It uses either four- or six-pin ends, Sony preferring the former, Apple the latter, but you may come across either in any system. Adapters are available for connecting one to the other.

FireWire is about four times faster than USB 1.0, transferring information at a breezy 400 MB per second. The net result for the filmmaker is that with a FireWire port, even the cheapest, most basic or free bundled software like Apple's iMovie or Microsoft's Movie Maker will produce better quality movies than more expensive software using USB. If you have invested in a good quality digital camcorder, it would make no sense to then use a port that loses some of that quality in transferring onto the computer. FireWire should be used if you are keen to maintain technical standards in your movie.

USB (Universal Serial Bus)

USB is flourishing in the domestic PC market because it is a cheaper alternative to FireWire and serves the needs of the videomaker doing home movies of weddings, parties or UFOs. It is hard to criticize this port because it has helped broaden the home video market by making it possible for cheap PCs to capture video, therefore encouraging software manufacturers to cater for this market. It is also ideal for small businesses aiming to show short commercial movies on the web, where perhaps picture quality is not an issue. USB is great for capturing video quickly, but only at the expense of full screen capture and smooth frame rate. USB 2.0 is a significant improvement on version 1, but it remains less universal than FireWire.

Version 1.0 transfers information at a relatively slow rate of 800 kB per second to 100 MB per second. This will knock the screen size on your PC monitor down to about two or three inches square if you want smooth quality, with the result that if you later want to stretch the image to fill a full-size television screen or to project the movie, you will be struck by a heart-sinking loss of quality. The standard screen size for the UK (PAL system), for instance, is 720 × 586 pixels, but USB prefers to work with a screen around 320 × 240, roughly half the size, and works more smoothly the smaller it gets. You can try to alter this by enlarging the picture while cutting the number of frames per second from the maximum (25 in the UK, 30 in the USA) by half, but you have to be prepared to put up with the consequent loss in smoothness.

Capturing video onto the computer

Once you are connected using a capture card, you can gather the clips you need to start assembling a movie. Capturing clips does not have to be a precise process; you really don't have to be concerned about how much you select. The aim here is to grab what you think you might use plus a little more, leaving the decision-making about the precise length of a clip until later.

What to capture

There are different approaches to capturing. You may capture according to an edit decision list (EDL), where you will have clearly thought out in advance the shots you want and will have noted where you can find these on the footage tapes. Any larger production is going to benefit from this approach to some extent, simply because of the sheer quantity of material you need to trawl through to get to the useful takes.

Capture loosely

Alternatively, you may prefer to capture in a more intuitive way, gathering the footage you may or may not want to use as you go through the tapes, having first viewed them several times to build up an idea of what sort of film you are building. The advantage of this second method is that while capturing the basic clips you need to edit the film with, you can also gather footage that may add spontaneity to the film. A more likely scenario is to use both approaches, staying to a well-documented path but allowing considerable room for spur-of-the-moment acquisitions; allow room for the film to grow and develop. Do not be too precise about capturing; if a clip looks useful, grab it. You can always bin it later.

How much to capture

When capturing clips, you need to know how much your PC can handle according to the amount of RAM memory and size of hard drive. As a starting point, you should have at least 512 MB RAM available, but double or triple this is going to make editing much easier. If you are working with the absolute minimum of memory, you can maximize space by splitting up a movie into smaller chunks, working on each part separately and storing digitally. If space allows, you may then be able to capture each section individually and piece them together as one movie later, using the space freed up by dumping all the clips you used for each section. But no solution beats getting a more spacious PC.

Systems and hard drives

Whatever computer you have, it is going to become too small for you at some point when the internal size of the PC — what it can handle in terms of data — will start to strain under the weight of your movies.

• Get the fastest processor you can. Athlon processors deal with video better than any other.
• Get the most memory you can, bearing in mind that some programs require at least 128 MB just to get going.
• Add extra hard drive space to that existing on your PC. You are going to need about 40 GB to make short films easily, moving up to 150 GB to make longer movies, allowing you to cope with most situations. But if you can, go for something much larger than this. Work on the basis of 1 GB taking up about a minute of video, allowing the same or more on top of that for footage stored on the hard drive while you edit.
• Use your PC for editing and nothing else, freeing up space used by other programs.

Files and saving

As soon as you start to capture, you need to start putting them somewhere that is easily accessible. Create a folder to contain all your clips, rather than within the software folder itself (which is often the default place it suggests you save it). Within this, always save your clips into separate folders with, for instance, titles in one folder, establishing shots in another, audio in another and so on. It is very easy to mislay files given the number you are going to create with each movie, and the ability to wade through files quickly to get to the one you want is paramount.

Importing your clips

The next step is to get the clips up onto the desktop, ready for use. In some basic software, this is called ‘Get Clip’, but more commonly ‘Import’. Look for your clips, which should be arranged in easy-to-find folders. Once you have imported the clips, they will appear as a list with some information about the length and date of creation. You can be selective at this point, choosing only those files you want to use right now. At the end of this stage you are ready to start building the film.

Figure 7.1 In Adobe Premiere, as in most editing programs, three windows are used: a project bin containing clips, a monitor window for trimming and a timeline.

Trimming your clips

This part of the process is where you start making creative decisions. You are deciding which parts of each clip you want to use and whether you need to split them up further into smaller clips. The clips you captured to start with are rough around the edges and need refining before they can be used in the film. Trimming is an exact art. The tools for this are precise to the frame and, provided you can access the original again and again, you can try out several versions of clip if you are unsure of how to construct a sequence.

The obvious question here is why don't you trim them earlier when capturing? Why import a larger file only to cut it down now? The answer is that you need to try to focus all editing decisions into one stage of post-production. Editing is a creative process which requires you to treat the film as a whole; all decisions, such as the nature of the cuts and the order they appear, are creative and need to be undertaken in one process.

How much to trim

Choosing how long a clip will be depends on a number of factors and is influenced as much by the previous trim as by the look of all the clips on the timeline. You need to evolve a rhythm and energy to the film when editing, and to do this you should cast your net wide early in the process and focus on the look of the film now. It can upset your momentum if you find you have too few clips and have to go looking for them in the middle of an editing session.

Experiment in trimming

Trimming is similar to part of the old analog editing process and is devised as such to appeal to editors schooled in the old ways. The basic idea is to select ‘in’ points and ‘out’ points to denote the start and end of the new cut within the clip. In most software, altering the clip allows you to drag the new revised length onto the timeline but leaves the master copy in the project bin untouched. However, it is worth checking whether your own program alters the original clip, as does Windows Movie Maker. This is more common in free editing software, including those bundled with hardware. Clearly, this is not a popular feature as it takes away one of the great aspects of non-linear: the ability to experiment, for you to see first and make up your mind later, with the option to return to the original if you don't like what you see.

Look at other clips when trimming

One of the basic tenets of editing is that it is all about how one clip looks next to another, not how each looks in isolation. As we saw in some of the projects, clips change dramatically when placed next to others. Editing should become an organic process during which a film gradually emerges, in which decisions about each part of the film are made with reference to the whole. With this in mind, view the last few clips you just trimmed before you trim the next one and, if you can, view the one you think you are going to use immediately after it. In practice, this means looking at the effect of each clip on what has gone before, by playing sections completed so far, but allowing these sections to alter under the effect of later clips.

Using the timeline

The timeline is a central part of the editing process, the place where the film sits and is assembled, and it is common to all software, though it is sometimes referred to as a filmstrip or storyline.

It is usually placed at the foot of the screen, a horizontal track running left to right displaying video and audio, looking like train carriages placed end to end on a rail track. The timeline is one of the most important windows in DV editing and it is worth taking the time to get to know what yours can do. Software varies greatly here, with low-end units offering just one track for you to build a film on, others offering the opportunity to layer text and images on up to 99 tracks.

A—B tracks on the timeline

Another principle seen in software in the mid-range level is the twin A–B track. Yet another aspect that will be a familiar feature to those who have worked with linear editing systems, this operates by allowing a film to be built across two tracks, track 1A and track 1B. This lets you place two clips together but choose how ‘A’ runs into ‘B’ (known as the AB roll) using perhaps a cross dissolve, a page tear or a simple wipe. Don't worry if your package does not offer this — great films are the sum of their images and the structure that binds them; if people notice your great AB rolls then the film may have little else going for it.

The method you select from the menu to roll from ‘A’ to ‘B’ is called a transition. A clip placed in track A will have a transition placed between it and the next clip, B, where the two overlap.

Play with the timeline

Part of the whole point of non-linear editing is that you can make the film in any order you like, starting in the middle and working outwards, or laying out the basic clips and returning to work on a particular section later, and the timeline becomes the main arena for this. Unlike linear editing, you now have a tool for experimenting, for trying out new ideas about how the film can look. Using the timeline as a creative, intuitive tool enables you to use it to its full potential; it is a place of play and trial and error, and no matter how detailed your plans are for editing, you cannot foresee the exact effect of one clip placed next to another until you see it played on the monitor. Be prepared to change your plans, using the timeline as the place to explore the possibilities presented by each clip.

The implications for this, of course, are that editing can potentially be a never-ending process, with endless variations and versions. Try to be aware of the danger of stirring the pot too much, of refining the life out of the movie. Give yourself a deadline for completing it, perhaps by setting up a first showing for other filmmakers or friends. The objective insights gained by looking at how other people view your film can be invaluable and at least give a solid reason to re-edit if you choose to do so.

Audio

Once the film has been assembled, you can begin to think about audio tracks. The advantage of nonlinear editing is that you can see the audio clips and can link sound to vision more easily and more logically than on linear. Some of the lower-end software titles do not allow you to separate sound from vision or add music, but just about all in the middle lower upwards allow this.

The options for gathering sound are:

• importing music from CD or other digital source onto the timeline
• using audio from elsewhere in the film
• using modified sound, created using one of the many sound packages available
• using sound recorded yourself on a mini-disc player or other digital recorder.

If you have gathered the right audio tracks during filming, this process should present few surprises. The best option is to use sound that you have recorded rather than sampled from other sources. Taking sound from other sources stops you from having control over this most important of elements, and in any case, copyright implications should steer you away from it. However, if you don't want to record original sound effects yourself there are some very good programs, some available as free downloads on the Internet, enabling you to generate sounds. Copyright-free CDs are also available, including a wide variety of sound effects. Be aware, though, that these often sound ‘canned’ or unreal. Natural sounds you have recorded will give your film added realism.

If you are working on a music video (check you have a licence from the copyright owner to use the track), you may find it easier to place the audio track on the timeline first and then add images later. This enables you to match images and sound correctly, with correct timing.

Rendering

Once the film is completed on the timeline, it needs to be assembled as one file. This process is called ‘rendering’ or building or in some programs is called simply ‘make movie’. Rendering takes time and is lengthened if your film has added filters (effects), titles or other layers and transitions, in fact anything other than straight clips.

Mid-range programs will allow you to render as you work through a film, saving you from the trouble of having to re-render the whole film just because you changed a part in the middle. In general, it is better to render in parts as you go, partly for time reasons and definitely if your package is not a real-time editing tool. Rendering is the only way to test the effect of filters, layers or transition; the movie won't play them until they are rendered. However, if you have a fast, powerful workstation then you will expect to render in a time that does not disrupt your evening — in the early days of DV editing, rendering was an overnight job. With up-to-date processor speeds and an average or small memory space of 512MB to 1 GB, you would expect short films to render during a coffee break, or two coffees if using 64MB. RAM of 256 or 512 MB is ideal and will release the potential of your software more fully.

Output to tape

Once the film has been assembled in its final completed form, you will need to produce ‘hard copies’, digitally stored copies so that you can re-edit the film if necessary and VHS ones for viewing, as it is very useful to be able to see a movie's progress after each session. Seeing it projected or on a television screen enables you to get an opinion of the film as a whole and check that it is going in the direction you want, preparing you for the next editing session. It is therefore useful to be able to output the film occasionally as an analog VHS copy. It is also essential to have a hard copy of your film should anything go wrong with the computer during post-production. Output each new version onto something real: tape, CD or DVD.

Output options

1 Output to analog tape. Connect your PC to a VCR or camera and follow the instructions on your software to ‘export’ the movie to tape.

2 Output to CD. Typically, a 650 MB CD will hold only a short film. Don't be tempted to compress the movie for storage; master copies should always be at the full frame and full pixel rate. If you really have to use CD and no other method is available but your movie is too big for the CD, store sections of the movie on successive discs. But generally avoid storage on this format.

3 Output to DVD. DVD, on the other hand, is a whole different story given its dominance in the marketplace for some time now. Films compressed using MPEG-2, the method used for DVDs, will retain excellent quality and can be reworked repeatedly, while the huge quantities that can be held — feature films plus additional material — make this by far the better storage option. But remember that it is always more desirable to re-edit a movie from an uncompressed original on mini-DV tape rather than disc, even if it is compressed in such an advanced way as DVD.

4 Output to digital tape. Once you have wired up your camera to the PC, it is easy enough to be able to reverse the flow of information and get the finished film back onto the camera. Again, FireWire is the quickest and safest method at the moment.

5 Output to the web. If you have completed a film and wish to send it to a third party via the web or show it as part of a website, you can output to the web very easily. Most programs, including entrylevel ones, have evolved greatly in this respect and allow a film to be saved in compressed form ready for viewing.

The Crunch

• Digital editing is easy
• Get the right capture card for your needs — don't overspend
• Any edit programme will do — it's what you do with it that matters, not the range of special effects it has
• Use the fastest, most efficient port you can (FireWire)
• Try to get the largest hard drive and RAM within your budget
• Make full use of DV's non-linear approach — edit in any order you like
• Get to know your software and your system
• Play, play, play — experiment and try out anything with your software, whether it is in the manual or not
• To improve your skills, try teaching someone else how to edit — it will reveal any gaps in your knowledge and, in any case, other people ask questions you haven't thought of
• Always store a master copy on DV tape when you have completed editing — keep a copy after you finish editing too in case the unthinkable happens and you lose the movie off the system.

3. Preparing to edit

Although editing has been somewhat liberated by the arrival of the at-home, take-your-time desktop editing system, enabling the filmmaker to make infinite variations of a film, it pays to take some time before editing to consider how to go about it.

Edit log

The edit log is the first step to take. The aim is to identify and mark the clips on each tape that are satisfactory and make life easier by noting where to find them.

The log shown in Figure 7.2 has four vertical columns. In the first vertical column, note the timecode that the clip relates to. In the second column, note the tape on which this appears, if you are using more than one. In the third you may have a shorthand way of referring to each part of each scene, either describing a shot by name or numbering it. The last column gives a description of the shot, including notes on its quality.Z

Although we look at timecode elsewhere in more detail, there is a point worth noting here that affects your ability to use it in log sheets. Timecode exists as a continuous line of information, labelling each and every frame on your tape. If, however, you interrupt the tape, by pausing filming now and then, you may create a breakage in the timecode information and what you would see when playing it back would not be a continuous timecode but a series, with each new clip starting at zero. This is true of most domestic camcorders, but is easily overcome during shooting by coding the whole tape with timecode before you start filming, simply by recording continuously over the whole tape with the lens cap still on the camera.

Go to: Chapter 7:5 for more detail on how to work with timecode.

Logging software

There are computer programs which are designed for logging tapes and which work along the same lines as described above. The advantage of using a program is that you are then able to compile an edit decision list (EDL) by cutting and pasting each clip you want in the order you want, and if you have been able to label each clip with timecode then you have a fast and easy way of getting hold of those clips.

Figure 7.2 Example of an edit log.

Edit decision list (EDL)

The EDL is one of the most useful tools for the editor. Although much is made of the need to edit intuitively so that you get to know how one clip affects the next and how your decision-making changes throughout the editing process, it is important to be aware of the way most of the industry works. For today's editors, the EDL is a way of arranging the production as a set of plans for an editor to follow through later. Editing in this case is a technical operation rather than a stage in which possibilities can arise and changes made at any point.

If you are not using one of the many software programs for EDLs, it is equally effective simply to cut and paste the information for real on paper.

The paper edit

The paper edit consists of a series of notes laying out the basic order of clips for a movie. In Figure 7.2, you can see how the paper edit is arranged. Vertical columns show the place where a particular clip is to be found in timecode on the footage tapes and the point at which it ends, followed by a short description of the clip, another column describing audio necessary for that clip or sequence and, finally, the length in seconds of this cut. It follows on from the ‘edit log’ in that the information you use for the paper edit is taken from the log you have made of each single take you shot on the footage tapes. In the paper edit you have simply extracted the good clips from the edit log and played with the order they occur.

There are many reasons for pausing awhile and working some of the edit out in advance. It is never possible to predict exactly how the film will look after the final cut is in place because you are presented with problems and choices all through this stage, each of which can affect the film in different ways. A more likely reason is that although you may have a good idea of what kind of footage you've got, there is no telling how one clip looks when placed next to another. A ‘paper edit’ prepares you to make better choices and decisions and gives you a baseline point, a model from which you can deviate or remain with, but which gives you some idea of how close or far you are from the original plans.

Practical uses

In practice — in the real world — the paper edit does not have to be an exact plan as such, but more a way of triggering off ideas about how to edit. If you go into the editing process blind — that is, without any forethought about what kind of movie you are looking to create — you risk making a movie of pieces with no sense of the whole. In a way, the paper edit is like organizing the seating for a table of guests at a party; if you place certain people next to each other you can be sure that more interesting conversations or situations are likely to arise, none of which you can predict yet, but the overall arrangement will make it more possible.

Speeding up editing

If we go into the paper edit in more detail, it becomes possible to save considerable amounts of time by working out the order of shots and the rough timecode points for each clip. You can then start to add up the clips and get some idea of the length of the film and choose whether to cut or alter the overall structure in some way. Trawling through the tapes seems like excessive work at first, but to demonstrate its usefulness, try ‘editing’ just a few minutes of footage on paper and then try trimming and editing the sequence for real using the paper edit; you may notice the speed with which you work now and the freedom it might give you to concentrate on the way the film is looking as a whole.

Alternative methods

Some editing software programs now include a feature allowing you to import a series of clips, arrange them quickly into an outline of the film and then export the whole plan onto the timeline. This is a useful alternative to the EDL, as it allows you to quickly move and arrange a film as a general plan, in big blocks, before going on to do a fine edit later. Since each clip is labelled beforehand and shows timecode, you don't lose any of the accuracy you might want with the traditional EDL.

The Crunch

• Make an edit log of all your shots
• Use timecode to tell you where the best ones are
• Make an EDL
• Save time editing — do it on paper first
• Plans always change, 100 per cent of the time, when editing for real.

4. Editing with sound

What does good audio do?

Audio is one of the areas of making a film that is often the last to be resolved. Since the nature of filmmaking is primarily a visual medium, it is often seen that music and sound are there to prop up the images; by the time shooting has finished and you view the footage tapes, it is not easy to consider that there is a further element which can radically alter the effect of the carefully won visuals. Too often, sound is an element that threatens to disrupt the edit-in-progress, but it is the path of least resistance simply to place a soundtrack that adds nothing new to the experience. Digital editing allows much greater creativity and control over audio than ever before, but few filmmakers take full advantage of its tools. The aim of this section is to encourage the use of sound as a central part of a film.

Compensating for low budgets

Sounds fulfil several roles in a film, beyond simply emanating from what is occurring on screen. One of the most useful for the micro-budget filmmaker is the capacity of sound to convince the viewer that more is present than we can see, suggesting a wider world outside of the frame. Cheap sets can be made to seem more realistic, small crowds of extras more populous and action scenes more dynamic, all by using more creative sound. The restrictions of your budget do not necessarily need to be reflected on screen.

Helping continuity

In post-production, sound can be a way of rescuing a scene if unforeseen problems have occurred. A scene can be given a better sense of continuity if a single audio track covers and links shots, acting as an ambient presence throughout. Jarring cuts can be made smoother by covering both with the same sound. Furthermore, a soundtrack can offer stability and continuity so that more abstract visual sequences are sustainable. Whatever the visuals look like when you have finished a rough edit, if you feel that they are not quite as exciting as you had planned, sound can start to turn them into something approaching a full cinematic experience. For the low-budget filmmaker, sound is one way of adding invisible dollars/ pounds/euros to the value of a scene.

Editing programs and sound

In many editing software programs audio is not given a high priority, but in mid-range software (not free software like Windows Movie Maker) this improves and the timeline is arranged so that you can work with audio and visual tracks simultaneously. Basic ‘cut-and-paste’ programs do not always allow the separation of sound from image, although most will allow sound from other sources such as CD. Creative filmmaking is only really possible in one of the more versatile programs. In Adobe Premiere, for example, many audio tracks can be added (up to 99) to bring complexity and depth to the soundtrack. You won't necessarily ever need to use all these, but at least five could be used on a regular basis.

Building a soundtrack

Layers of sound

Building a soundtrack is going to be something that evolves over successive edits. The basic tracks linked to dialogue or essential sound effects will be placed early on in the process, but other layers could consist of a multitude of extras that add, paradoxically, a more natural sound to the film. In the earlier chapter on production sound we saw how sound is dissected and recorded in layers so that it can be manipulated later. That ‘later’ is now and you will start to see the value of having each part of the soundtrack on separate parts of a tape. Even simple scenes require several layers of sound to replicate the natural feel of real live sound. This illusion is necessary because in real life we are bombarded with many sounds constantly and our brain focuses only on what we think is important: dialogue when talking with friends, the sound of the underground train when waiting at a stop or the sound of a baby's cry to a parent. The way we layer sound mimics the way we order and make sense of the mess we hear. Your main tool is the relative volumes of each of the tracks in the scene.

As an example, we could take apart a sequence in which a figure is entering a room in expectation of finding a crime scene. In this, it is essential that a certain atmosphere is carefully built up, perhaps a feeling of apprehension, fear or anxiety. The actors have done their part, you lit the scene as well as you could and the camera framing is just right. But when played silently, the scene is rendered almost harmless. The way you layer the sounds that relate to each part of the scene will form the basis of how the audience view that scene. So, a list of the kinds of sounds that would be needed would include the main ‘diagetic’ sounds — the ones that are created from action within the scene as opposed to musical soundtrack or other invented sounds — and the range of sounds that you think generate the kind of atmosphere you are trying to evoke. It is this second part that is the most interesting to play around with.

Add atmosphere

The kind of sounds you could play with could include some extra effects to suggest the exterior atmosphere, outside the room or apartment building. Sounds of rain and wind, of sirens, car horns or other residents arguing in the block could all help create a sense of something wrong. Discordant sounds could be brought to the fore, such as the buzzing of a faulty neon light. In practice, this soundtrack could be composed of several separate sounds, most of which were not present on location when shooting and some of which were created electronically.

Prioritizing soundtracks

In every film it is necessary to consider which sounds are made most clear to the audience and which are less distinct. It is something that needs consideration before you start editing, as it needs to be consistent throughout. It can easily be described and arranged on paper, and these notes can be directly translated into what appears on the timeline when editing. When recording sound it is most useful to have recorded each element of the scene separately so that they can be given relative value later in terms of volume.

To see this in action, we could use a scene in which two actors are talking in a bar, with noisy customers and the television permanently switched on in the corner. Later in the scene, another character enters the bar. If one microphone was used in recording the action, the result would be a mess in which everything is heard but nothing understood. The correct way would be to mic up the actors, record presence or ambient sound, record the television and exaggerate the sound of the door opening. There would be a strict order of importance in arranging these sounds later, based on the effect the director wants to create. It is likely that we need to hear the dialogue, so that would be placed as optimum volume. Second billing would be mood music accompanying the scene, also heard over the din of the crowded bar, with ambient sound third. Sudden necessary sounds, such as the door opening, would be brought unnaturally to the front to signal their importance.

Go to: Chapter 5:3 for more details about recording sound on location.

Foreground and background

Throughout this process you are thinking in terms of foreground and background, with shades in between. Prioritizing sounds in this way makes editing far more straightforward, avoiding the chances of sounds pulling in opposite directions to the images, or sending out false messages to the audience. As an example of poor layering order, a scene in which two people are talking at the same bar could be disrupted by the sudden loud sound of an off-screen door being opened. As viewers, our response is to presume that this is significant and start to look for who has entered the room, but placed at a less noticeable volume it would be more natural to the setting.

Make it natural — artificially

This last point is crucial: that sounds must conform to what seems natural (in other words, what conforms to what we feel the sounds of the bar should be), not what is natural (in other words, sounds recorded by a mic placed randomly in an actual bar). Natural sounds appear artificial, but artificial sounds appear natural. On the other hand, the filmmakers' group Dogme would argue that it is only our dependence on how we expect sound to be heard in films that makes us feel one way is better than another.

Getting to know audio — key terms

ADR

This stands for automatic dialogue replacement and is something you will hopefully avoid, but if audio for a scene is below standard you may need to re-record dialogue later and replace the existing track. This is more common when you are limited in the equipment you can use and cannot always record to the desired quality. For example, an actor performing lines near busy traffic needs a particular microphone that picks up only the voice, not the background sound. If it is a choice on set between shooting it with poor sound and overdubbing later or not to shoot at all, it is worthwhile doing the former. Make sure, however, that you have the agreement of your actors to return for post-production work if necessary.

The process involves speaking the problem lines again in a recording studio while watching the accompanying footage. The actor tries to synchronize the words to match. Most actors don't mind doing this, but some filmmakers remark that when you do this the emphasis is always on getting it in sync and not about getting the best performance, with the film suffering as a result.

Non-diagetic sound

This is a widely used device in sound and is present in most movies in some way. It refers to sounds not emanating from what could be called the world within the film. For instance, words spoken by characters within a scene (on or off screen) and sounds from objects in the scene — known as diagetic sound — would all be present in the real world, should this scene take place for real. Non-diagetic sounds, however, could include the voice of a narrator, music or additional sound effects. Ever since the striking uses of subjective sounds in early films, the filmmaker has been able to heighten the dramatic content of a scene with non-diagetic sound.

Hyper-real sound

This idea refers to the deliberate exaggeration of certain sounds to make a scene seem more realistic. In real life it would be hard to distinguish one sound from another in most situations, but in a film it is crucial to the story that some sounds are closer than they ought to be. An example is where a scene may need a figure walking along a street at night. In reality, the sound of footsteps would mingle into the other sounds of cars, people and so on. But in a film, that sound would be recorded separately or more likely be reproduced later by a foley artist, someone who specializes in recreating sounds for overdubbing in post-production. It is usually sounds that are important to the information conveyed by a scene that are treated in this way: car doors slamming, keys being turned in doors, phone numbers being dialled and so on.

Sound motif

Sound motif is yet another way in which the aural element of a film can reduce the load on the visual in telling a story. As with visual motif, this is used by the director to convey ideas that help the plot, giving it extra depth. In sound, its uses are often to associate a certain place or character with a sound and in so doing suggest some meaning to attach to it. As a filmmaker, you need all the tools you can get to convey your intended meanings. Ideas about characters or places are hard to put across to the audience, and this is one of those instances when the size of your budget is irrelevant. Sound motif can be a more subtle, almost subconscious way of telling the audience something and does not intrude in the on-screen action. Such sounds can be abstract and quite unreal, but can take their cue from a description of what is being depicted in the script.

Music

A music soundtrack undoubtedly helps create mood and yet this is an area where the filmmaker can find some pressing problems. For some directors, such as Martin Scorsese, music not only supports a scene but dictates some elements of it. Scorsese often filmed while playing a recording to the whole set of a piece of music he intended to use. If used well, as in Goodfellas (1990) or Bringing Out the Dead (2000), it is hard to imagine a particular scene without its musical accompaniment, but for some filmmakers, music is a way of lending a film a purpose or style absent from the visuals, as a kind of shortcut.

Permission

If you intend to use a musical soundtrack you need to look long and hard at the kind of sums needed to gain permission to use a track, as well as the legal hurdles to be jumped over. To use a track by an artist you need first to get written permission from the owner of the rights to that track, usually the publisher of the music and the company that releases it. You will probably not get free use of tracks unless you know personally the artist concerned and provided they have some clout with their record company. If you do intend to use licensed music, you need to get an entertainment lawyer on your side, to deal with potential problems such as how much the artist receives or whether a track can be used in promotional trailers.

Sampling tracks

Similar issues need to be addressed when a track is sampled. In legal terms, it is fine to use music that is briefly sampled through no fault of the director, such as the sound of a radio as a character walks past it. But elsewhere, if you use a substantial part of a track without permission you may be pursued by a publisher and it is likely that you will need to pay a substantial sum. But there is no need for this situation to arise; you can use relatively inexpensive software to create unique soundtracks using samples of sounds you have collected yourself from videotape.

Use local musicians

Alternatives exist for adding music to your movie. If you contact an unknown (read: unsigned and not covered by copyright) local band or musician, it may be possible to involve them in your project in the same way you involve other members of a crew, either for deferred payment or as an investmentin- kind, for later reward from the film's profits. Given the exposure this would allow for an artist, it is a deal that works both ways.

Do it yourself

If you don't want to follow that route, it is possible to use music created without copyright, without having to create it yourself. Some software programs designed for use with video have a selection of music that can be used ‘off the shelf’ — in other words, music that is written to use within films, suggesting certain moods. Music is categorized by mood or situation (for example, car chase, suspense, dream sequence and so on) and you can change the tempo up or down according to your requirements. Critics of this approach suggest that such music is essentially elevator muzak and indeed you do need to think carefully about whether you want to let prefabricated soundtracks near your film.

DIY 2

Of course, there is no reason why you can't have a go yourself. Make your own sounds using a piano, guitar, tin can. David Lynch took this route when he made Eraserhead (1976), which has a richly dramatic score consisting of circus-style organs, vaudeville melodies, and industrial thumps and bangs. It is much better than this description, however.

Special audio effects

Many edit software programs allow you to modify a sound, or work with plug-ins which allow this. You can, for instance, give a sound an echo, reverse it, warp it or change the pitch. As with visual effects such as strobe and negative, these should be approached with care, and with the maxim ‘if it ain’t broke, don't fix it'. Sounds should not necessarily need digital alterations if the original recording was correctly produced and if you are using sound to make up for a shortfall in the quality of your shooting then this is best approached with layered sounds rather than by special audio effects.

Capturing audio

Audio clips are captured and used in the same way as standard video/audio clips and appear as different icons in the project window. You can use this stage to adjust the gain of the audio clips on the soundtrack. So, if a certain clip was too quiet when recorded, you can increase the gain so it becomes louder. But bear in mind that increasing gain too far will emphasize background noise or interference. The audio setting of a clip is 100 per cent for no gain, and anything above this increases the power of the audio signal. Some programs have a suggested gain feature that brings out the track to optimum level without distorting, but in general, try to avoid increasing gain above 200 per cent.

The Crunch

• A $100 film but a $10 million soundtrack
• Record sounds separately and layer them for maximum control
• Create illusions through off-screen sounds
• Beware of unlicensed music
• Sounds can be like extra actors — use them to add expression and meaning to a scene
• Prioritize all the sounds in a scene
• Become a technical master of sound in your editing software.

5. Understanding timecode

Timecode is one of the more complex areas of video and any explanation of it does veer into technical language. Although it is one of those tools in DV filming that you can live without, once you understand what it is you see the benefits for your production and the way it speeds up your work rate. ‘Stripe’, or timecode, your tapes before you shoot and your computer will really appreciate it; it makes it easier for the PC to locate each clip on your footage. Here goes.

What is timecode?

Timecode is a way of numbering each and every frame of a videotape. Videotape has a certain number of frames in each second. Timecode exists as a separate track — invisible to the viewer when you show the movie — recorded on the tape. It is an eight-digit code consisting of frames, seconds, minutes and hours. An example could be 03:16:45:12, which shows that the particular frame attached to this code is three hours, 16 minutes, 45 seconds and 12 frames into the tape. Those last three words give you a clue as to the purpose of timecode. It is a navigational tool, allowing you to find the exact point of every take and every shot in your tape.

Different countries, different systems

Unfortunately, to make it all more complicated, each part of the world uses slightly different amounts for their television programmes. In Europe and the United Kingdom, a frame rate of 25 fps (frames per second) is standard and is known as PAL, whereas in the USA a rate of 30 fps is used, referred to as NTSC. This has no discernible effect on the programmes that are made, but it is true that in terms of quality a higher frame rate is desirable.

Go to: Chapter 2:2 for a complete list of international television standards.

Timecode in the USA and other NTSC territories

Timecode in the USA and other countries using NTSC is 29.97 fps. It is fine to round this up to the next whole number of 30 fps, but it may be useful to go through the implications of this if you intend to make productions larger than an hour in length.

The frame rate of 30 fps is actually devised for black and white television and for technical reasons a slightly shorter frame rate was introduced for colour. If you edit assuming a rate of 30 fps then you will end up with a 3.6 second error every 60 minutes. The solution to this is something called ‘drop-frame timecode’, which removes 108 frames — from the timecode not your film — per hour. This requires your counter to drop out two frames per minute, but since this would lead us to drop too many — 120 — we need to not drop frames every 10th minute. This is not something you have to think about — your timecode counter does it all for you and when you watch the timecode counter you will see at the end of every minute it will jump suddenly over the dropped frames.

It doesn't affect your movie

Don't worry at all about how this affects your movie — no actual frames are dropped, only their numbering. Nothing changes about the way it looks and there will be no sudden jump cuts as the timecode jumps forward — it is simply a device to keep the numbers looking good. In most short productions, such as news footage or short business videos, drop-frame timecode is not necessary, but it is important to opt for this rate when you first open your editing program if you intend to sell programmes or movies to television or cable broadcasters using this frame rate and especially if working on productions over 60 minutes.

Timecode in PAL

In territories using the PAL system, timecode is recorded at a rate of 25 fps. As with NTSC, if you are working with a specific client or market in mind whom you know is working on a different system, alter the settings of your software before editing and those of the camcorder before recording. In addition to the 25 fps PAL, there is also PAL 60, which aims to be a more compatible with NTSC territories.

Ways of recording timecode

Timecode is recorded directly onto the tape so that it can be read on any unit, anywhere. There are, however, different ways of recording it, outlined below.

Audio track timecode

In this method, timecode is recorded onto the audio track of the analog videotape using sound impulses, in much the same way as a modem converts digital signal into sound to send down the wire. This is called longitudinal timecode and although it has improved over recent years, it still has two problems: it can only reliably be read when the tape is moving and it can suffer from loss of signal when it is copied or played repeatedly.

Timecode as part of the video signal

This is known as vertical-interval timecode (VITC) and is generally the best method to opt for. This method involves recording the timecode signal using the video heads rather than the audio, leaving all audio tracks available for you to use.

Uses of timecode

This section started with the statement that using timecode could save you time in editing. Much of the technical information above is good to know, but you are not often going to be called upon to use it. The value of having timecode on your tape is that you will need to spend less time shuttling around your tape to find the right take when you come to capture your clips.

Get around your footage tape fast

It is true that getting to know your footage by constant reviewing is a way of speeding up the editing process, but mistakes occur if you rely on notes such as ‘good take of Marvin singing, third take after the car scene’. That may be sufficient for home movie family films, but anywhere up the scale from there and you desperately need a more exact and mathematical way of finding that good take. So, on your edit log sheet, you might describe the scene as ‘Marvin singing good take: 01:49:12:17’. Now when you want to find that take there will be no mistakes. The edit log sheet is hardly worth the paper it is written on if you are unable to find the precise location of clips whenever you like and, similarly, the edit decision list (EDL) is only really a viable option if you use timecode throughout filming. With this degree of forethought, editing can become something you are more in control of and less frustrated by.

Continuous timecode in filming

It is crucial that you keep timecode as one continuous line, uninterrupted by filming breaks on the tape. If, for instance, you pause and then continue filming, you may have created a break in the code and the new recording will start at zero timecode. The problem with this is that when you start to capture your clips ready for editing, the capture software starts to get very confused, as it soon realizes that there may be several clips each labelled, for instance, 00:00:20:43.

Stripe your tapes

The easiest way to ensure that you have timecode present is to place it on when you start filming. As we saw in the section on shooting, place the lens cap back on the camera and press record. When the camera has finished recording over the whole tape it will have placed continuous timecode from start to end. When you later go and shoot over this, the shots fit into the timecode that has been burned on. This process is called ‘striping’ the tape.

A further method, and the one to use if your footage was not shot on a pre-timecoded tape, is to make a copy of the tape containing your footage with new timecode burned on. You can do this by capturing large chunks of continuous footage and outputting it back onto digital tape, captured now with timecode. Copying in this way presents no problems with loss of quality, unlike analog.

The Crunch

• Timecode is good for your films
• Get to know how timecode works in your camera
• Get to know how timecode works in editing
• Put timecode on all your tapes before you shoot on them.

6.Working with text

As we have seen, part of the task awaiting the low-budget, independent filmmaker is the necessity to use ingenuity and imagination to utilize what the medium can offer, before having to start spending money. When the main elements of the film have done all they can — camera composition, lighting, shooting, script, images — the use of text in a film can be a further way of supporting the ideas you are trying to put across. This applies as much to the traditional use of text in the opening credits as to their use throughout the film, setting off other meanings or adding a layer of visual density that the images alone could not supply. In this section we will be looking at the way creative use of credits and titles can bring a more professional look to your film and make its meaning more apparent.

On the whole, this is territory most often occupied by the more unusual, non-narrative films, including music videos, commercials and video art. As the projects on non-narrative film showed, there are many lessons for the narrative filmmaker that can be picked up from investigating non-narrative forms. So, stick with this section, even if you can't see a place for text in the films you intend to make; its benefits can be felt in many forms of filmmaking.

Better credits

Every film needs them, and they are most often the first indication we see of the style and mood of a film, but still some films look as if the opening titles are taken off the shelf, selected from a menu of preset examples and excluded from the kind of thought and attention that goes into the rest of the movie.

Credits grow out of the movie

When the film has been completed and you are in the process of designing the right look for the opening titles, complete storyboards and visualizations just as you did when devising the look of the whole film. Take your cue from the images and colour schemes seen in the film. If you have been working on the film closely, covering nearly all tasks yourself, it is sometimes difficult to assess what makes the film look and feel the way it does. After a while you can't see what makes your film distinctive, so caught up are you with the glitches or negative aspects of it. Where other people see style, you might see the problems you encountered while shooting or how the scene was assembled.

To get around this, base the designs for your credits on the same notes you made at the start of the production, when you were deciding what constitutes the core of the film, what makes it tick. If we take as an example David Fincher's film Seven (1995), the extraordinary and distinctive credit sequence seems out of keeping with the rest of the film. The words flicker and move, are scratched and creased, and are reminiscent words on a shaky Super 8 movie, filmed by looking at etched graffiti on a toilet wall. Given that the film itself is high on production values, this seems out of sync, style-wise. But both credits and film are working towards the same ends and relate right back to the same theme, of a distorted and disturbed world, at its centre a figure sending out crude messages with violence. Looked at like this, the credits do not just fit into the film, but offer a way of understanding the whole theme behind it. Like Fincher, you should be able to use every part of the film to advance your cause.

Stages in designing credits

1 Take the central theme in the film and describe it. Work out how you have manifested this theme on film. What devices did you use, such as colours, shapes, mood?

2 Take the image that you think defines your film. Look through the whole movie and try to see which single part sums up the aims of the film. Think of this as you would for choosing the defining image used for advertising the film.

3 It helps if you have a sense of graphic design or can hire the services of a designer, but try looking for the design characteristics of the credits: font, size, allusions to other films, colour and so on. If you are not sure, try looking through style or design magazines to work out what you do and don't like. If you are doing the designs yourself and have little experience, it is usually better to under-design — in other words, keep it low-key and simple.

Captions

Captions are sometimes used in a film to indicate the start of a new chapter. If your movie has a need for clarifying the time or location of a scene, a caption can help the audience to maintain their involvement. In action films it is common to see them used to build tension towards a specific point, counting down to a meteor impact, an invasion launch and so on. In all cases, captions used to assist theme or plot should be kept low-key, with modest typefaces.

Other films use them to add further layers of meaning to the film, breaking it up into sections marked by theme rather than plot progress. For example, Hannah and Her Sisters (Woody Allen, 1986) separates the action by the use of seemingly oblique captions which later make sense. In one part, titled ‘Not even the rain has such small hands’, Michael Caine ensures he runs into Barbara Hershey, who he is infatuated with, in a bookshop. He insists on buying her a book of poems by ee cummings, from whose work the caption is taken.

The Crunch

• Credits grow out of the film
• Credits are often the first part of the film that the audience see — make them good
• If in doubt, go for clarity in terms of font, design and size.

Figure 7.3 Editing software guide. This guide focuses on the main market leaders in video editing. Beyond semi-professional or student grade software, there are hardware systems consisting of an entire unit of monitors, hard drive and so on. But for the low-budget filmmaker, software remains the most accessible option.