Post Production Diary (BBC)

 Intro Scene Editing

Now that all of the filming had been planned and done I could move on to editing both projects as quickly as possible. so the first thing I did was start at the beginning of I See Her Online, All The Time. This scene was relatively easy as it was only three shots of Rebecca walking in, sitting down and staring at her phone. 

I had to cut down the three clips in terms of duration so people won't get bored and stop watching but still long enough to show off what's happening and also keep a level of intrigue from the audience. Another thing i did was for the last clip of Rebecca in the dark I unlinked the video and audio and deleted the audio. The way i would do this was by left clicking on the clip then right clicking to which id be met with alot of commands and one of them would be 'Unlink' so i would click that and the audio and video would no longer be connected. The reason I did this was so the title drop would be more impactful and the isolated vocals from 'If Your Too Shy (Let Me Know)' would be clearer. Below is the video I got the audio from on YouTube and me adding it to premiere pro.

Obviously, I just wanted the audio from this video so unlinked the video and got rid of the visual so the words for the title could be seen. The way I wrote text on the screen was by using the 'Text Tool' which is just to the left of the panel where the clips sit for editing. I would click the T icon and then go to where the video is shown on the screen and just type out what I wanted. To time the text with the audio I wrote the first half of the title time it to the audio and made the duration go until the end of the clip, then I wrote the second half of the title and timed it to the audio also putting the duration to the end of the clip too. 

Once typing out the title, I wanted the font to be bolder and bigger like the text I saw in BBC Three videos during my research. To change the font I would left click on the text and to the right there would be a panel called Essential Graphics I would then click on the text in the panel and it would show how I could change different aspects of how the text looked on screen one of these aspects being font. Here is a visual example of what the panel looks like 

  I decided after looking through the different fonts that Britannic Bold fitted best as it looked the most like the font used in the BBC Three videos and was bigger. I also could change the position and size of the text manually by going back using my cursor and clicking the text on the screen and moving it around. So I changed their positioning to be more centred in the frame.  Here is what it looked like after I had sorted it out.

After this, the intro scene was done but I realized that I was editing in Premiere Pro 2022 and not 2023 so I decided to just export it as a normal video file. To do this I had to save the file and then go into Media Encoder and place it there so the file could be used as a clip in the editing. I then created a new project in Premiere Pro 2023 and added the now exported file to the editing.

The Presenter Scene Editing  

For these scenes, the main pieces of editing consist of just cutting down the footage and outtakes. The way I would do this is by watching the clip and getting to the point where I say the part of the script I'm reading correctly then using the razor tool to cut away that part of the footage then deleting the excess recording. I ended up doing this a lot at the start just so I could get everything in the right place.

Some small bits of editing like pictures being overlayed, which was done by going into effect controls and lowering the opacity of the image, or text being on screen had already been done because I had started editing before I lost the footage so the first day of actually editing was just a case of repetition and reviewing footage. Below is a video I made discussing what more I could do in terms of editing after placing everything in its place. Alot of the other scenes were not finished yet so i placed "Insert Interviews" or "Insert Black and White" in between clips as a note to myself where certain scenes needed to go. below are pictures of said notes.

Some of the improvements would be made in terms of things appearing on screen more at the beginning so I can retain the audience's attention. I added time-appropriate images that related to what I was talking about. For example, when I am talking about Instagram or social media their icons would appear on the screen so the audience has something to look at during the first few minutes which can make or break if someone is going to keep watching or not. The Outro music is a remix i found on youtube of 'I Like America and America likes me' I thought there need too be something more so that the documentary didnt feel empty so i added that in to add character to it below is the remix and a example of icons appearing on screen.

These icons are on screen for a short period and they transition in and out. The way i did this was by right clicking either end of the clip and a command called default transition comes up and if you click it it will add a transition for you. I did this on a lot of other things too such as transitions from the presenter scenes to the black-and-white scenes. You can also see the BBC Three logo at the top left now. This watermark is a constant throughout the entire documentary, I turned down the opacity of this icon because in BBC Three videos it is see-through so i was trying to replicate that.

I also added in more background music throughout all of the presenter scenes so it feels more full the audio I used is also from YouTube and is more ambience than music. This is cause I didn't want something too distracting.

The last improvement that made was adding the lyrics to the bottom left corner along with a rectangular border. This is so if the audience gets lost on which lyric I'm talking about they can look and see what the line it is. The way the rectangular was made was with the rectangle tool. The way the tool works is by going to the screen that displays the videos and drawing how big or small you want the shape to be. The settings used to make the rectangle look the way it does are pictured below.

 

The Interviews Editing

The first footage of interviews used was lost along with the SD card but the text that was edited on top of that footage was still there so I just placed the new footage in with the text already on top. Below is the old footage with the text. 

  In the new footage in the first few takes you can see the other end of the slider in the shot. To fix this is zoomed in on the footage through premiere pro. I did this through the effect control panel and by changing the numbers next to 'Position' and 'Scale'. Below is a picture of the settings i put the clips at.

I set all of the interview clips to setting so that there isn't a noticeable unnatural change later when the next interview clips come up.

My Skin Is Fire, It's So Desired/Black and White Scenes 

The first thing I did with editing this side project was place the footage in the correct order. The only editing that needed to be done on was cutting out Adam's audible instructions, changing the colour of the video to black and white and adding the lyrics on top of the footage. 

First I'll start with the colour of the footage. To change the colour you would have to select lumetri  colour and bring down the whites and blacks to change the overall colour of the footage and that's as simple as it gets.

Then to get rid of unwanted audio i would unlink the footage then use the razor tool to get rid of Adam talking. After that i would copy and paste a section of the audio with no talking and just diegetic sound and place it in the gap that was left behind by cutting out Adam's voice.

Before adding in the lyrics, I was originally going to be the voice of god for this documentary but just didn't think that my voice would sound good just reading out the lyrics. So I got Siri to do it instead. This was done by pasting out the lyrics into the notes app on my phone and then asking Siri to read the note for me while screen recording on my phone. Below is the recording of Siri

Siri being a narrator is also a little reference to an interlude song on 'A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships' where Siri tells the story of someone whose best friend is the internet. This story is both quite funny and quite sad which epitomises the album itself. Here is the interlude  I am referencing

Once this recording was added to the editing panel, I cut apart the audio to make it feel more spaced out instead of Siri just talking at you. once I had placed each part I used the type tool when the audio would play and type what Siri is saying. The text font is also a reference to The 1975's YouTube series 'ATPOAIM' 

After My Skin Is Fire, It's So Desired was finished, I exported the file with Media Encoder and put the full video at the end of the editing panel, and cut out with the razor tool the necessary parts and placed them in the appropriate places basing it off the script. 

End of Editing Video

In Conclusion, this editing process was a lot more stressful in terms of losing footage and having to regain it then it is longer. But in another way was a lot more of a calming experience cause i felt like i actually knew what i was doing and was confident in my abilities.