The Editing Process: Using Final Cut Pro

Trying Final Cut Pro for the first time would've been a nightmare had we not had a couple lessons to research specific areas of Final Cut Pro to help us get started with our editing. We found that this information was very useful to learn before coming to the editing stage of our Preliminary task, and that initially, we were referencing to the handouts and power points whenever we forgot certain aspects of using Final Cut Pro. 

Operating Final Cut Pro

<Toolbar

     -Arrow is the select tool. As any other select tool, this allows you to select certain clips to move etc...

    

  - The fourth tool from the bottom is called the razor or blade. By selecting this you can cut        any desired clip anywhere. 

  - Finally, the magnifying glass tool allows you to expand your view of the timeline as well as shrink it. The Advantage of this is that you can be as precise as possible should you need to make cuts in very specific areas of the clip. Simultaneously, if the sequence you have created is extremely long, by shrinking the zoom of the timeline you will be able to see your entire sequence of clips in a small amount of space, helping you determine where certain areas of your sequence are. One common misconception is that by zooming in using this tool, you are expanding time, which is obviously not true, as I have already explained; this tool simply allows you to see your sequence at a larger or smaller scale. 

                                                     Layout of Final Cut Pro

- The bottom rectangular shape is the timeline. This box, as you can see consists of layers- in this particular image there are five layers in total, the single layer above the thick grey line will contain the visual part of you clip and any layer below this line is a sound layer. 

Layers are arranged by priority (top being priority), this means that if you had two layers perfectly aligned with each other that the top layer will play first. Say you had a top layer with one minute's worth of footage and below you had a layer with two minute's worth; once the top layer would finish playing the second would start where the first finished. 

If you want to mute any sound layer or alter the volume then you click on the green button on the left side of the timeline with the speaker sign on it.

-The last box on the top right-hand corner is called the canvas. This allows you to view a clip you're importing, a clip in your sequence or your whole sequence. 

-The box in the middle is the viewer. Here you select the area of your imported footage you want to include in your sequence, You do this using in and out points. by tapping the "i" key you add an in point and by tapping the "o" key you select and out point. In between these two points is your desired section you wish to import into your sequence- you can see this in the image above in between the two arrows. The viewer also allows you to add certain filters to your footage and edit it in other visual ways (e.g. slowing the pace, quickening the pace etc...).

- Finally the box in the top left-hand corner is where you store your footage on Final Cut Pro. Here you store all your imported footage and sequences in a "bin". 

As with any piece of technology, it takes a little time for you to grow accustomed to the way it works. The same goes for Final Cut Pro. Knowing the basic information really helped us, and I think it would've taken longer to edit our sequence trying to guess what tool did what had we not learnt this before. I found (and I think the rest of my group would agree) the importing of the video most annoying. Whilst we were importing the footage, during the change between two different clips on the tape, Final Cut Pro would sometimes take too long separating the different clips, during this our footage would still be playing and as a result it would not load what it had just missed. As a result some of our shorter clips were either missing or cut even shorter. This is difficult to explain, but the point is that it caused us to take longer re-importing footage. Other than this, I don't remember any particular problems that got in the way of our editing process. Not knowing everything about Final Cut Pro is of course a disadvantage, because there was so much we wanted to do to our footage, but the pressures of time and limitations of what we knew on Final Cut held us back from achieving this. 

                                                    

The Awesomest Action Movie Ever!

Our final edit of our Preliminary task, based on the script "Pop Goes"

Info:
Directed & Filmed by - Cary Banks, Keeley Burridge, Lorna Edwards and Victoria Paul
Genre Given- Action
Key Prop- Gun
Editing by- Keeley Burridge, Lorna Edwards, Cary Banks and Victoria Paul

Representation- Female appearance in the media (Marilyn Monroe)

Norma Jean Baker

Born Norma Jean Baker and died as Marilyn Monroe at the age of 36, she is arguably the most identified female  actress and performer there ever was. We studied the representation of female performers in the lesson however, I wanted to do a post on a particular actress I thought was one of the victims of this representation and someone I admire also. I chose Norma for this post on representation because I thought what she went through with all the wrong "dumb blonde" roles, the unwanted attention and the "sex-bomb" reputation, Norma is an example of the classic representation of women in the media. Although through time, the media's perspective has morphed into different representations of women, some of the previous typical representations that Norma herself faced still linger in today's representation of females in the media.

Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn in "The Prince and the Showgirl" (1957)

Marilyn's story was sold as "the beautiful girl who got discovered by chance" hiding the reality of how much work and effort she put into being noticed. This was the first step for Norma, and she soon understood that to do this she had to sell herself.
 Norma started out as a model & making adult movies, because although Hollywood made it out to be this way, it was quite rare you'll get noticed by chance.
Women at the time in the entertaining business were expected to be "pretty" in order to be successful in entertainment- particularly in singing and acting. After Norma signed her contract with Fox, she was told to change her birth name of Norma Jean Baker to Marilyn Monroe, to make it more memorable and appealing to the public. She bleached her hair following the advice of Fox and had minor plastic surgery carried out. All of this trouble was put into enhancing her appearance rather than her acting skills. It was Marilyn's choice to pick a mentor  helping her achieve her full potential. This alone displays  just how look-driven the media is; particularly with females, as an attractive actress also meant someone to look up to for the female public and a "perfect woman" to dream of being with for the male public.

 Throughout Marilyn's acting roles, she was expected to bring nothing more to a role other than her obvious attractiveness and sexuality, which affected Marilyn's life on a large scale because she wanted to be taken as a serious actress rather than a woman who's famous for her looks. Most of her roles displayed a weak-minded, pretty female who fell for the handsome and dominating "prince" figure. Constant battles with the studio took place for better acting roles and more creative control. Despite all of this Marilyn would settle for nothing below a good performance in any role she got, pressurising herself to be the perfect performer and woman everyone expected her to be. Although now the media's representation of women has changed now, appearance still means a great deal.

Significance of Lighting & Colour (continued)

The three main sources of Lighting use on a film set

 The Key Light is the main source of lighting.

The Back Light's use helps to replicate the lighting of objects/subjects we see with our own eyes- to make the subject appear more "rounded" so to speak

Finally the Filler Light creates a softer effect on the subject by literally subtly filling in any harsh shadow or use of harsh lighting, it also helps the subject/object to appear more "rounded" in addition to the back light.

Some scenes in films require a certain filter to achieve a particular effect a director is going for. I'm assuming that this can be achieved either during filming with certain camera settings or (more professional alternative) during the editing process. Some filters may depict a particular emotion/physical feeling such as contentment or coldness. 

Angling of Lighting

Top Lighting- can be used to depict glamour of a star, could depict  weakness of a character or single a character out to appear as a victim

Back Lighting - Source comes from behind subjects/objects. This can create silhouettes if used extensively as shown below. 

Underlighting - Source comes from below subject/object. This can create a menacing look, depict danger and show the subject to be of high importance/status.



Representation of Teen Drama's in the Media

During the lesson we were given an example of a Teenage drama (Skins), for which we commented on the representation.

extract- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shjkid9qw3Y

Of course this being a teen drama, it's audience is clearly targeted at young adults. This being so, the audience needs characters to whom they can relate and recognize similar personalities in reality; such as the geek or school nerd, the popular guy/girl, the rebel etc... These are examples of characters stereotypically that may be displayed in teen dramas.

In the extract given the main characters are obviously of an age group close to that of the audience, again, to make the characters relatable for the audience.  The location or situation displayed in the extract involves what seems to be a night club, which is a location associated with the audience watching further maintaining their attention. The gender types in the extract are obviously a combination of male/female, however there is a shot within the sequence of a female participating in the fight part of the extract, going against the stereotypical portrayal of females to be the weak figures who aren't expected to be the participants of a fight as much as observers. In terms of the class and status of the group of adolecents in the extract, seem to come from families with a standard income judging from the decoration of the area where the party is being held, and the costume worn, which doesn't appear to be particularly expensive.However the fact that a venue such as the one shown in the clip is the location of this party shows that the family/parents can afford to pay for such a venue, therefore aren't in a grave financial problem.