Making the videos work

[Michael Pollock]

So I see from the messages that people like the videos - but what does
it take to really make them work?

We just did one. It was a documentary format as so many are - telling
the real stories of real people. And there was a whole heap of
footage, much of it with people talking. The director very properly
made written transcripts and from them made what is called a "paper
edit". This is like a script edited from what people actually said.
We read the paper edit and it made sense. However when we saw it all
put together it was not as compelling a piece as we had hoped. So we
went back into the footage and picked different pieces and told the
story somewhat differently. The point was to make a more emotionally
compelling piece. It was not perhaps as logical - on paper - but it
used the medium for what it does so well, which is to engage the
spirit.

I say let the logical pitch be in the catalog or the annual report or
in the speeches. Let the video move us to want to learn more.

Anyway - I had a long chat with a wonderful film editor today about
paper edits and whether I have too little faith or how to use them. I
hope she will join us in this thread.

[sue....@gmail.com]

I think that paper edits are a great starting point, especially if
they are written by a producer/director who went on the shoots and
knows all the footage. Stringing out the paper cut can give you a
good idea of where the story is going, what works and what doesn't.
There might be something on paper that seems completely essential, but
once you hear it, your realize that it is unnecessary or redundant.
Or something might make complete sense on paper, but once you hear the
person explaining it, it doesn't make sense because their intonation
is off, they flub their words, they don't finish their thoughts. The
content might be really interesting, but the person talking might not
be that interesting to watch or listen to. Or part of the story might
be really interesting, but there are no scenes, footage or b-roll to
support it. Sometimes sound bites might not look great on paper, but
the person might be really animated and their hand gestures, facial
expressions and delivery might make the point perfectly, and those
bits may not make it into the paper cut.

I find that the finished piece usually looks very different from the
paper edit, chunks are moved around to different places, alternate
sound bites are used, but that's what makes the process so much fun.
The piece continuously eveolves while you work on it and collaboration
inevitably makes it better.

On Jun 6, 4:46 pm, Michael Pollock <eloque...@cyranoproject.org>
wrote:

[SuzanneG]

The nonprofit where I work is in the middle of making several very
short videos for our web site. We use a producer who is experienced
with this format. She also happens to also be the parent of one of our
special needs clients and has brought to the process her own vision.
To create the rough cut edit, her team of editors watched footage and
selected story elements which had the messages we'd asked for and were
emotionally compelling. The 'paper' story was outlined before we
started, and it was straightforward enough. A paper edit of the
interview footage would not have been the best use of our time. What
was a good use was that the team gathered the 'story impact' needs
that we wanted (to reassure parents that their children would be safe,
cared for and positively engaged by our programs) and built the edit
using video that conveyed the message.

There were moments when they offered to give us the paper transcripts
of interviews to find someone making a specific point we wanted to
include but warned us it would likely be a waste of time since what
appears on paper is so different than what appears on video. We
learned to work around that by using still frames with text to make a
point that we couldn't get directly from the footage, but a voiceover
would have worked too.

> > hope she will join us in this thread.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[sue....@gmail.com]

I am currently editing a project that has tons of footage, but there
wasn't enough time to make a paper edit, do any transcripts or barely
any paper outlines at all. The one thing about paper edits is that
even if they are different from the final cut, they do save time in
that they can direct you to parts of the footage that have the content
that you are looking for. If there is hours of footage, without
transcripts, the edit can take a lot longer because you are often
searching a bit in the dark.

As an editor I personally like working with transcripts in combination
with the footage. If there is a specific point that you want to make,
transcripts often help you create a more succinct bite by combining
two sentences. They also can help finish sentences, help you find the
same word with different emphasis or intonation. Though I agree,
sometimes titles with text or voiceovers are the only way to explain a
point that just isn't clear from the shot footage.