2. During my editing process I used two different pieces of software to edit my documentary. One of these was Adobe
Premier Pro which I used as it was an industry standard piece of software which was available for me to use when I
was in class at college. I used Premier Pro for the things I wanted to look extremely professional such as the subtitles
I used on my video to show the viewer what we were saying during the interview portion of my documentary. The
other piece of software I used to edit my video is called DaVinci Resolve 17 which I chose to use as it is very similar
to that of Premier Pro however it is a free piece of software to use and as I am a student I cannot afford to buy and
use Premier Pro whilst I am outside of college. Despite its more limited features in the free version of DaVinci it is
more than enough for me to use when actually piecing the different clips together as well as editing my audio. At
first, I had begun to edit my video with DaVinci and on this occasion I had managed to get roughly a minute edited
but I ultimately decided to restart and edit the first part of my video on Premier Pro the next day.
3. The next day when I went to college is when I began editing on Premier Pro and I had begun my editing process by
going onto the captions option on premier pro and I chose three simple title card to use so that I could do what
production companies usually do and begin their documentaries/films by first having the logo of their company fade
in and out followed by their production company's name and then finally the name of the documentary. However,
after seeing it play out, I decided to replace the name with a quote that related to my topic so that I could actually
include the name of my documentary after the first interview portion. This choice was inspired by the Netflix
documentary "The Social Dilemma" as I had watched it as research and really liked how they had structured it. After
I did this, I then went onto Teams where I had my footage saved and I downloaded each of the videos onto my
computer so I could put a copy of them onto my USB stick to ensure that I could avoid the issue of possibly losing
footage. I then sorted which files could be used and which I wouldn’t use for various reasons such as inappropriate
footage or one of us messing up something such as our answers or the fact I messed up one question quite a few
times.
4. Seeing as I was making my documentary about activism I had decided I would find footage of activism throughout
the decades so that I could clearly show my audience how much activism has changed between the years. I
compiled a list of videos that I had decided to use and then I tried a few websites to download the videos but I
ultimately decided to use Y2Mate to download the content I wanted to include in my documentary. I chose Y2Mate
as it was super easy for me to use however I also liked how it let you choose the quality you wanted for the video as
well as the quality of the audio. I felt this was a great feature. I then took all of the downloaded YouTube videos and I
made another folder on my USB stick like I did for my footage and I put all of the downloaded content in there to
ensure I had backup copies as you can see in the screenshot provided above.
5. In the screenshots shown on this page I show that I start the proper editing and I begin to piece the YouTube videos
together decade by decade. I am unsure why they have gone blurry however I had taken these specific screenshots
on my laptop so that may explain the difference in quality between the screenshots taken at college and then at
home. I had to readjust the positioning of the actual video so that it fit into with the other videos that I had included
in my documentary. I had added cross dissolves to each of the videos I had on as it was one of the only transitions, I
actually liked that was available to me on Premier Pro. This is because I didn’t want there to be harsh transitions
between the video as this isn't supposed to be an extremely in your face serious documentary and I want the
editing to show that clearly. I also added the effect 'exponential fade' to the audio on the videos because some of
the audio for the older videos is fairly similar, so I wanted there to be a clear difference between which audio
belonged to which video.
6. After compiling together the clips of the activism from throughout the decades I then moved onto editing together
the two interviews I had recorded. I edited together the first few questions that I had asked such as their name, their
age and what they knew about activism (as well as how involved they felt they were with activism itself). For the
captions I used the basic caption tool on Premier Pro, and I used the font 'Lato' as it was east to read. I originally had
just left it on the default font however after reviewing it later on I had made the decision to change it. This was the
same for every one of the captions I had included in my documentary as I ensured that everything was the same to
give it a more professional vibe than if there were a bunch of different fonts and stuff. I decided to make the text
white as most of the backgrounds in my video were dark so there was a clear contrast between the content and the
captions.
7. Once I was finished with the captions I had decided to stop editing for the day and I decided to render
my documentary as it was so far and then I decided to export it so I had many different versions of my documentary
as this not only showed the progress of my documentary, but it also meant that it was harder for me to actually lose
my documentary and fall behind having to redo some of the editing. I continued to do this every time I editing my
documentary and stopped and by the end, I ended up having around twelve different versions of my documentary,
all in different stages of editing. I used these to show the subtle changes I made to my documentary during the
editing process. All of these versions are saved on my USB stick as well as I wanted to make sure I kept them safe.
8. Seeing as I was using other people's footage, I wanted to keep on track of who I actually was using footage from as I intended on
making a credits scene at the end of my documentary where I give those who deserve it credit for the pieces of their videos that I
had used in my own documentary. I had also looked up the rules around fair use so that I didn’t accidentally use too much of one
video or another and I found out I could ten percent of a video or three minutes of it, whichever is shorter. These rules apply to
this piece of work as it is for an educational project. I kept this file saved to my one drive to ensure it wouldn’t be lost and
whenever I found a new video to use I would just add it to this document. I also returned to uppbeat to find some music for my
documentary as I was toying around with the idea of adding music behind all of the footage. I had ended up choosing a piece
from uppbeat under the 'sad' category on their website and the one I had ended up choosing was called 'Wake Up' by a creator
on the site who called themselves 'Hartzmann.'
9. After I had found a piece of music that I felt would suit my documentary well I then found a place where it
would fit well enough and I added it there, making sure to cut it down appropriately so that it wasn’t too
long and getting in the way of other parts of my documentary where music wasn’t appropriate. From here I
then used a basic title on premier pro so that I could include my title of my documentary after the
compilation of clips from different activism movements that took place throughout different decades. I did
this after taking inspiration from a documentary I had watched during the research stage named 'The Social
Dilemma' which had a slightly similar concept to mine. One I had finished adding my title I had returned to
the editing of the actual clips and I began to compile together the YouTube videos I had decided to include
and although I had originally just complied them together without any thoughts of including a voiceover this
changed after the next few sessions of editing as I had looked over my documentary as it was at the time
and I had decided that my documentary needed a voiceover not only to aid my technical skill grade but I
also felt that this would make the project feel more complete and more profession which was my aim.
10. From here I then moved onto adding title cards to my
documentary as I had realized that all professional
documentaries have title cards that give a clear notice of
what the upcoming content will focus on. I did this for all
four of the topics that I had decided to discuss in my
documentary. I had also added a cross dissolve to the start
and end of my title cards to ensure that they would fade in
and out at the appropriate times. I feel like this looked
better than a more abrupt way of introducing the different
topics in my documentary. I then edited out the sound that
was playing in the places where I felt they would fit. I also
made sure to work out the times of the voiceover so I knew
how much space I needed to fill with different pieces of
footage.
11. From there I then recorded my voiceover on my phone due to me not
being able to actually get into the studio. I figured it would be better
for me to just risk the quality instead of wasting time that could be
better used for editing/recording. However, the actual audio quality
did not prove to be an issue. I did however have to mess with the
settings of the eq on a few pieces of audio so that the audio didn’t
sounds as echoey. I had tried out a few locations around my home
however the house I live in has high ceilings so the issue of the echo
could not actually be helped depending on the location. In fact, this
location was the best as it was the only place that was not affected by
the noise pollution of the outside world such as cars and people. I
continued to piece together my footage bit by bit as I wanted it and
after doing some final checks on audio and the timing/placement of
everything I decided to move on with my post-production work. I did
not provide screenshots of the final render and export however after
six different version I had my final documentary ready.
12. After I had finished my final edit, I had
returned to my project after deciding to
include a pros and cons list like I had
originally planned on including. I had
included all of the pros and the cons on their
own separate title card to ensure that if there
was an issue with one of them I would be
able to change it would that effecting any of
the other pieces of text. Seeing as this was
done on DaVinci Resolve I didn’t have access
to the fonts I had used for everything else
text wise so I had just used the most similar
one that I could find and I put them all at size
68 so they were all the same. This was more
appealing to the eye in my opinion than if
they were all different sizes and fonts.
