Preparation techniques

The first thing you should do when preparing to edit, it check the material for faults. There are three stages in which we do this, which include;
1. Check your play back to double check that the scene works. We also would do this to check for colour balance, white balance, focus, exposure and to check the overall framing.
2. Log sheets - Make sure you log the footage in detail, making specific notes of the shot description, taking not of which scenes work, and which don't work as well. Doing this can also reduce the production costs, because it will help a lot in speeding the process up when coming to editing.

This is an example of a log sheet I created for Documentary

3. Log and Transfer - This is the process in which the editor captures the footage. This is the stage in which any potential faults, such as the alignment of a shot being wrong, would be spotted by the editor, so it could be rectified at this stage, rather than discovering it when you come to the final edit.

The next thing that is important when preparing to edit is synchronising rushes.
This is an old technique that is still used today. It consists of checking that scenes and shots work with one another in transitions.

An example of this being used in olden film technological days, is that you would have had to line the two reels together, get them at the same speed and then mix them together.
Another version of this from analogue video editing is that you had to get player A, player B, sync them up together and move from one scene to another using a vision mixer. This was known as A, B roll editing.

A modern example of synchronising rushes is doing a live shoot with two or more cameras, both editing in final cut. You do this by putting one cameras footage on track one, the other cameras footage on track two, and then you would choose mix or select.
For example, in the Dark Knight, they used 7 cameras in one scene, and would have to sync these up together using a clapper board.

This is a live news show, in which they would use more than one camera, then sync them together

Produce a rushes log

Log sheets are produced to log every single frame in your footage. This will help you to identify where all your scenes are, and to know which tape to use within your scenes. This also helps to determine which footage you want to use and why, which will make the editing process a lot more organised.

Marking up a script

Marking up a script includes looking at scene numbers, and the general shot descriptions so they would know the following day to shoot that scene again if it needed doing. The script would then be passed to the editor to help them during the editing process.

This is an example of an edited - marked up script

Labelling tapes

It is important to label tapes to secure the footage and ensure that it doesn't get filmed over, and also to ensure you know what footage has been shot on what date, so when filming, you know how much footage you have, and how much you still need to get, before passing it on to the editor.

Storing tapes or film

Film used to be stored vertically, so that it would dry. This would be done at room temperature, as if it was too hot the film would go sticky, and if it was too cold then it would go brittle. So they would have to be very careful of the room temperature, or all of the film could be ruined.
Nowadays, we use external hard drives, or an archive server, to upload all of the footage into. This is so the editor can just search through this and find the footage quite easily. This is known as a film/data bank.

Producing an edit decision list

An edit decision lost is a much more organised version of the tape log. It has all of your shots in the order that you want the final film to be in, so this can then be passed to the editor, along with all of the storyboard and paperwork, and would be able to put everything in the correct order during the editing process. If this is done correctly, the edit decision list should look like your storyboards.

This is the edit decision list I created for Documentary