Your first Editing Workshop DVD-Video

Before you take this course

Before you begin this course, you must test your software.

• This super simple Editing Workshop is an excellent way to see if you have the right equipment and software

• This DVD-Video disks tests to see that you are a serious film student.

Available in most locations

This disk is available for shipping to most locations of the world.

Select one of these

Free

Once you complete the first half of the basic filmmaking course or you complete the first half of the film scoring class, this disk will be sent to you for free.

From your local film school

You can get this disk from your film school. Available at better film schools everywhere.

Direct purchase

Or you can purchase this disk from the Star Movie Shop. It costs $20 US including shipping.

This is a test

"The Promotion"

To get started with the film editing course, you must edit and score an extremely short scene called "The Promotion" on the Entrance Exam DVD-Video disk. This is a test to see that you have the right equipment and software.

For best results use Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere for editing and GarageBand with Jam Pack: Symphony Orchestra for film scoring. If you do not have these, try whatever you have. If it works, you are in!

Watch the DVD-Video disks

Start by watching the entire content of the DVD-Video disk (which plays automatically when you put it into a DVD-Video player or a modern computer. The entire program is only 6 minutes long. You will see

1. A rough edit
2. A very brief overview of the film dailies
3. A spotting session (instructions to the music composer person)
4. Six film dailies

From the DVD-Video disks, you will see that this scene is a typical over-the-shoulder conversation. The scene consists of she says then he says then she says then he says and then he exits. All of this happens very fast!

DVD-data disk

In the data section of this disk , there are six film dailies clips (both MOV and AVI). This clips consist of two camera setups with three takes for each camera setup. You need to copy these clips to your hard drive.

Because this is such an easy scene, you should be able to edit this scene in ten minutes or less.

However, creating the best possible edit with just the right emotions is surprisingly challenging... even though there is a sample edit of the scene on the DVD-Video disk for you to look at.

In this scene, the man has almost no expression yet there is enough difference in his voice to give a whole new meaning to the scene depending on which clip the student selects.

In this scene, the young woman changes the volume of her speaking voice from take to take which greatly effects how you might edit the scene.

The Music

The scene needs two musical sound effects to give the scene a clear meaning. The young woman needs "Joyous Anticipation" music and the man needs very grumpy music or sound effect at the end of the scene (comically, not serious.)

Important -- If you do not add the necessary music, the audience will not clearly understand the feelings of the characters in the story. People do not know if the young woman is serious or is pretending or playing a joke or whatever. Only the music can explain this. The dialog does not explain this.

Therefore, to make the meaning of the scene absolutely clear to the audience, the music, no matter how brief, must explain and clarify the situation to the viewer.

Getting Started

As mentioned above, you start by watching the DVD-Video section. It will play automatically and the entire content is less than 6 minutes long. They do not have to select anything.

Later, you can look more carefully at all of the items a second time by navigating in manual mode.

Begin editing the clips

Copy the clips from the DVD-data section to your hard drive and begin editing.

For Music Students

In the data section, there is a film scoring section. In this folder is an edited version of this scene. Download this to your hard drive. Import it into your music program and begin film scoring the scene.

Your instructions for film scoring are in the Spotting Session on the DVD-Video disk section of the disk.

Please share

The informational content of the DVD disk is release under the GNU Open Source Document License. Please share this disk with other film students in your area.

Additional help

All the rest should be self explanatory. If not, email me!

The next lesson

Later, there will be instructions for editing this scene. For now, just go ahead.

After you are finished editing this scene, you quality for a free copy of the "Follow Dave?" Editing Workshop CD which is the next disk in this series.

Click here to return to the course outline.

Contact your instructor

Your instructor for this film editing class is Robert Elliott. You can email me by clicking here.