Edit Foundry

This week were going to talk about Pacing and Emotion.

Please watch our story for the week Karen

 

How many times have you gotten a good story and no video to suppport it?   That’s a rhetorical question by the way because it happens everyday to us.  This is a story about a women that could of been a victim of a serial rape suspect.  She was very emotional throughout the interview.  My job as an editor is to try to convey her emotion as much as I can. 

• The best way to convey emotion is with pacing.
  

The story begins with the reporter track

This is the man police say has raped 6 women in the Denver area.

I dissolve from a police sketch to Karen crying.   For 2 full seconds there is no track, no sound until you hear her sniffle.  Any time she shows a little emotion I’m going to leave her up for as long as I can.

• I’m controling the pace of the story from the first edit.
  

This is a day turn.  So I’m using some of the tricks that are rountine to me andI hope you find useful.

     1st Trick

• There is at least 10 frames of silence between the reporter track and any soundbite.
  

Go back and listen to it again.  If you listen closly you can here all these pauses in the between track and soundbites.  Why do this?  Pacing.  It slows the story down.  It’s very subtle, but very effective.  It won’t cost you but a few more seconds in the end run time of any story.

Her first soundbite

I just kept thinking if Shawn hadn’t of come home with me, I just know what would of been happening.

After that bite she looks at Shawn (her boyfriend not me) and then turns her head and takes a deep breath.  I leave her up for all of this because it’s very powerful and very emotional. 

 

• Emotions are an easy way to connect with the viewer.
  

After the soundbite is a slow 80 Frame dissolve to a car going by and I put a slow zoom in on the shot.

     2nd Trick

• I put a slow zoom on static shots to help pull the viewer into the story.
  

Unless the photographer shoots a re-enactment there is really not much video to work with.  I hope no photographer would ever ask a women to re-enact a story like this.  We still have to cover the story with video though.  So, the next three shot are pretty generic.  The women didn’t want her house identifiable.   So, I used tight shots.  I put slow zooms on each of these shot.  It’s a way of pulling the viewer into the story and having some movement in static shots.  If you’ve read previous post, you know I’m a big fan of movement!

At :45 seconds her soundbite is

It was the first thing that popped into my mind, that it was him.

There is a full second (30 frames) of silence before I start reporter track.  I’m giving the viewer that extra time to feel and see her.  Again back to pacing and emotion. 

• Sometimes nothing is just a powerful as something.
  

There is one last good opportunity for emotion at the end of this story.   At 2:08 the reporter track is

And thought the rest of us would certainly consider her lucky, she can’t stop thinking about the victims of this man.  The ones who are not a fortunate.

I bring her back on camera, silent and that silence goes for a full 9 seconds.  One last sniffle and back to reporter on set.  I wrote in the script for the director to hold this shot until she sniffled.  I also reminded him person to person as well.

• About the Dissolves
  

I dissolve mostly by feel.  I know that it is hard to teach feel.  So I’ll try and rationalize these dissolves with some logic.   In this story most of the dissolves represent a transition in space.  Dissolving from inside the house to outside.  Dissolving from a sketch to Karen.  The 3 shots of the exterior starting at :22 seconds are cut together because they are all outside shots.

As for the dissolves from Karen wide to Karen medium or Karen tight, I simply don’t like cutaways in this type of story.  Karen is the story.  Her emotion is the story.  Cutaways of her hands, of a lamp, or anything else won’t add to the story.  Dissolves are a interesting topic.  Perhaps a future entry we’ll just discuss dissolves.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 15th, 2008 at 1:58 pm Filed under General Assignment and. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.