| Throughout this book, we'll edit an entire dramatic short film together. Based on Robert W. Service's poem "The Cremation of Sam McGee," "The Midnight Sun" is a 12-minute story. Shot entirely in Colorado on 16mm film, the story is one of those "wild-west ghost stories" that occupy the American literary tradition. I've always loved surprise endings, and this film has a good one. I also hope to give you some pointers on organizing your work in the most convenient and efficient way possible, which will carry over into your future projects for the rest of your editing experience on any nonlinear platform. I also hope to impart some editing aesthetics to help you learn to make your contribution to the storytelling process more valuable to you or your clients in your editorial future. We'll tell our story with pictures, composites, voice-over, sound sync, dialog, wild sound, a Foley track, and, of course, music. This sounds like a lot of audio tracks, but in reality, the pictures tell the story in this movie. We'll use jump cuts, L cuts, matching action cuts, and transitional effects to aid this process. We even have to do some compositing to keep our producer's budget down. In short, you'll learn the mechanics of Final Cut Pro and how to use them most effectively with any project. In all, there are about 300 edits to program. You'll work with all the major tools, including color correction, keys, titles, filters, audio filters, and more to make the finished movie. I hope it's as entertaining for you to edit as it was for me. |
