Editing Lab 1: Effects and Transitions

So after collecting all my footage for my trailer, it is now time to start editing. So here I thought I would talk about some editing I have chosen to use which I feel help to enhance the effect of my trailer and make it seem more dramatic and more importantly professional.

Adding Effects

Firstly, I came up with an idea that I wanted to create a scene which consisted of a still shot of a location, which has been sped up to show the progression of time i.e. showing fast-moving cars, people walking quickly, etc. So firstly I grabbed my footage and sped it up, as you can see from the image.

'0' Black and White, meaning the clip starts with full colour

After this, I wanted to change the colour so that it eventually turns into monochrome from colour. So here I added the effect 'Black and White' to the clip, making the whole clip at first black and white. I then began to add in 2 key frames - one at the start of the clip and one at the end. This is what lets me change how much black and white I want the effect to have. Therefore, I gave the first clip no black and white (by making the effect '0'), and the last clip full black and white (by making the effect to its maximum - 100). This then makes the effect slowly turn from colour to black and white as the clip plays, thus working effectively. This now shows the progression of time in my clip as well as hinting to the audience of the deprivation my trailer creates, as it goes from being colourful to monochrome, therefore bland and monotonous

'100' Black and White - meaning the clip has no colour

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Adding Transitions

To help make clips from my trailer flow more easily, I decided to add transitions, which too makes the trailer seem generally more professional and effective. This however was only used several times as I felt that straight shots from one to another work more effectively for some parts of my trailer e.g location shots to help set the scene.

The best example of a transition I used would be for the ending. I purposely added the transition 'Fade to Colour' just before you see Tay getting stabbed, where I then faded it into a blank screen (by using a text clip but removing all text so its just a black clip). This helps to maintaing the enigmatic atmosphere which my trailer conveys as the audience don't know what happened to Tay, therefore having unanswered questions.

This is similar to the transition I used to help emphasise the change in soundtracks in my trailer, as well as swapping from the first half to the second half (as I mentioned in my 'Soundtrack' post). Here I used the transition 'Flash' to show the narrative in my trailer changing, as it swaps from Tay punching the wall into a establishing shot. Without these transitions, I feel that my trailer wouldn't flow as well and it would be hard to help emphasise essential key parts of my trailer and maintain the dramatic intensity.

So far, I feel that the editing I have completed so far is quite significant in terms of making my trailer seem more attractive to the audience. However there is still a lot of work i need to do before my trailer is complete!