Lessons

Lesson Info

Trimming Part 1

It's time to talk about a dead body pom pom pom one of things that we've talked about is the fact that in this class I'm concentrating on how the technology itself works. We're not spending any time talking about content, and we're definitely not spending any time talking about the craft of editing. We've only got eighteen hours together over three days there just isn't enough time to spend time talking about the craft of editing. I mean, just discussing some of the storytelling aspects of moving pictures could take a week, but I want to put an idea in your head because what we've talked about so far talks about shot order the the selection of shots what goes first? What goes second, but I want to put a different idea in your head, and I'm indebted to norman holland, who teaches at the usc school of cinematic arts for this concept what norman suggests and he and I worked together to put this short scene together is that it's not just simply editing one shot after the other, where each ...

shot stands on its own, each shot has an emotional impact, which is based upon the shot that goes before it and the shot that goes after it what norman calls the rule of threes and I'd like to illustrate this for you let's go to a project, I'm gonna have the sound no, we'll keep the sound up so let's turn the sound up this gets a little noise he said don't have it be too loud but I wanna have you watched this scene and let's take advantage of a couple of other features that exists inside final couple type control command one that hides the browser and then we'll type shift command f shift command f which enlarges our picture full screen watch this scene. This is daniel. Okay, now what just happened? Danielle was going through a happy morning, walked into the room and all of a sudden to her great shock and surprise discovers a dead body on the floor notice when she discovers the body. Okay, let's, take a look at a second scene here. Same two shots. Watch this now, this time we saw the body first we knew the body was lying on the floor even before danielle walks into the room. This means that as danielle is crossing into the room we already know she's about to discover a dead body. This changes our emotional reaction because now our thoughts are when will she discover the body as supposed to look at danielle she's having a good day and all of a sudden wham! This dead body is at our feet it's an entirely different emotional response because the audience knows something that danielle does not let's compare the first scene one more time helps explain what's gonna happen in the third scene look at the moment when danielle discovers the body she discovers the body she reacts to the body and then we see what she's reacting to look at this she looks down and then we see the body let's try to third way this time watch the timing of when the body gets discovered way see the body first we look at the body we say it's a dead body and then what happens theun we look up and see danielle's reaction the exact same two shots all we're doing is changing the timing of where those two shots occur and we get three different emotional reactions one were stunned with danielle as we both discovered the body at the same time too we know about the body before danielle does building a sense of anticipation when will she discover and what will her reaction be? And the third is we see the body and then we look up to see what daniel's reaction is does she react with shock? Does she react with a slow, quiet smile saying at last he's dead our concentration on the third is not the surprise of seeing the body were in the first scene we're concentrating on the body in the third scene we're concentrating on danielle's reaction to the body did she kill the body or is this a complete stunning surprise to her I mention this because this is exactly two shots that runs seven seconds these are the decisions that we get to make us we're putting our features together as we're putting our documentaries together because the shot order and exactly when we change the shot order has a dramatic impact on the emotional response the audience has to what you're creating and everything that we've learned today everything that we've learned yesterday allows us to make these decisions I haven't done any trimming I haven't done any music I haven't done any special effect I haven't done any audio transitions dissolves none of that stuff it's simply cut cut, cut cut everything we've learned to date would allow you to make those three scenes and by being sensitive to the difference in emotion between exactly when we change from one shot to another you have stories which are much more powerful or totally lacking in power because you're switching to the right shot at the wrong time jim is that not a cool cool concept? I absolutely love it it's just so cool because it to me that is the what you guys have shown what you put together is the core venting is just you know that's you know when your mom says what is it you do again son you just spice everything together no you you that's not what we do mom you create different types of emotions by the way you cut so really beautiful work. Alright, trimming trimming is the process of adjusting where two clips touch. We already talked about that as I was describing the fact the last frame of the outgoing clip is called the out on the first train with the incoming clip is called the end justice. We can change the emotion of a scene by changing where we change from one shot to another witness our dead body scene of just a couple minutes ago. We can also change the emotion of a scene by the exact instant where I change from one shot to another, and probably the easiest way to describe this is the story of john and martha. Now I normally do this standing up, but this has a very low ceiling and I have to walk by kneeling as I come into the studio, so we're going to do this sitting down, which will somewhat cramped the style, but we'll do the best we can imagine, if you will. The camera opens on a wide shot of an office in downtown seattle, sitting behind a desk the size of a small aircraft carrier is a gentleman dressed in a full armani suit. His name is john. This is a gentleman that does no work for a living because there's not a sheet of paper to be seen anywhere on his desk. Telephone rings cut too tight shot telephone a gold be ringed, hand reaches in cut too tight, shots on space telephone reaches up to john john, says john here, cut to wide shot a kitchen ah, kitchen that house beautiful would kill to put on its cover. A island the size of rhode island is floating in the center of the stainless steel kitchen. Ah woman clad in an outfit that she could not cook and even if she wanted to, is standing in the corner, huddled, clutching a phone, saying, john, john, we have to talk cut two medium shot john's office john says, I'll be right there clearly, john does not have a job because you could get up and leave at any instant if he wishes cut to wide shot car driving down seattle city street, cut to wide shot tilt up pushing apartment building, penthouse top floor cut to wide shot interior, john opens the door of the living crosses through the living room, cut to wide shot kitchen. John crosses to the edge of the the island cut to over the shoulder shot of john over the shoulder shot of martha. Looking at john john, says martha. I'm here cut to a over the shoulder shot of john john looking of martha, martha says john, cut to an over the shoulder shot with a slight pushing of john looking at martha john, says martha, cut to a tight head, shoulder shot of martha, martha liggett. John john, says martha cut to a type with a slight pushing shot of john, john and martha, martha says, john says, martha cut two lips and I shot of martha, martha says john cut to a lips and I shot of john john, says martha, cut to adjust, trembling. I shot of tears coming out of martha's face, martha says. John beat. I'm longer beat pregnant down what happens next determines the plot structure of that soap opera for the next six months. If we are in celebrating baby mode, then we know that john and martha off f a o schwarz because babies are born four weeks after their announced on any soap opera. But we are not in celebrating baby mode because john knows even before martha has told him that john is not the father of martha's baby. And so we are on a search for the guilty and a punishment of the innocent, which will cause the entire soap opera to be recast over the next six months to skew younger for the younger eighteen to thirty four demographic that soap opera's most desperately need, which means the entire cast is going to get fired, and new people will be hired, which is where we're going with the drama behind the scenes, which the entertainment magazines were talking about. But think about this scene for just a moment. Think about where the drama is in this scene. Is the drama in this scene, john saying, martha and martha saying, john, or is the drama in this scene, john, with his knuckles turning quite on the steering wheel of a car, driving across the streets of seattle to have a meeting with a woman that he does not want to talk to? Is the drama in the scene. Martha in the kitchen, clutching the phone, saying, john, we have to talk or is the drama in the scene, martha pacing back and forth inside the kitchen, desperately trying to avoid the confrontation, is about to occur? Is it in the person talking when they are face to face across the island in the kitchen, or is it in the person reacting to the person talking john waiting for martha's next words to fall, hoping that he won't hear what he's about to hear martha desperately afraid to say the words that she has to say, but wishing she didn't have to say them in every single instance, the drama in the scene is not the person talking it's the person reacting to the person talking. We are seeing one thing and we are hearing something different, and we don't know how to do that. We can edit clips from the browser down to the timeline, but audio and video editor at the same point, every shot changes in lock step with every other shot we need the ability to adjust where the audio in the video at its occur, so that we can tell the story with the emotion that we need, and we don't know how to use the tool to achieve that. That is what this section is all about. The process of trimming adjust where two clips touch so you can deliver the emotion that you need now. Let's, go to the computer here, for instance. I have to clips. I have an outdoor scenic clip, and I have I call it the blue clip on the green clip where these two clips touch right there that little vertical lines called the other point. I can adjust the the end of the net it point by simply grabbing the end of the other point in dragging it left or right. This's called ripple trim there's a there's, a tool inside final cut that makes this whole process a lot easier, is called the precision editor, and I can reveal it by double clicking on an edit point. When I double click on an edit point, the outgoing clip goes to the top track, and the incoming clip goes to the bottom track. What this does, and it does it better than any other piece of software I've ever seen is this clearly illustrates what's happening in a trim the brighter portion of the clip it's easier to see down here. The brighter portion of the clip is that part of the clip that we are playing a cz part of our timeline the dimmer portion which is before the end or after the out is called handles and it's, not a classical composer handles are extra video after the out and before the end, which we need to be able to do trimming or to be able to add transitions if I grab the outright here noticed that as I grab the out and drag it, everything downstream moves, shifts, position it's the effect ofthe rippling the out ripples through the rest of the project. I can pull the out up, which means my first clip runs shorter. The little black boxes with numbers indicate that the clip runs, say, fifteen frames less or fifteen frames maur the little black box shows the changes that I'm making, and when I let go now, this brighter part of the clip is in the sequence. This part of the clip is not when I go down to the end and grab this, I push thean earlier or pull the end later. I'm using the extra video before the end that handles to make that second clip the incoming clip shorter or longer. I give more examples of this in just a second, but I love the precision editor because it shows me what I'm actually doing. I'm using some of the handle tto make the first clip run longer or to make the second clip run longer or shorter. In either case. By clicking on the out itself, I'm able to trim one clip, the outgoing clip or the incoming clip. By grabbing this thumb in the middle, I'm able to do a roll. Trimm noticed that both ian and the out are changing at the same time in the same direction by the same amount. What you'll discover very shortly is that ripple trims adjusting thie out or adjusting the inn affect the smoothness of the action from one shot to another. Rolling the edit point affects the emotion of the edit it's like an emotionally just er we'll talk more about that in just a minute then to close this all you need to do is press the return key and the clips than just locked back again the precision editor is an amazing tool double click and at that point toe open it up to be able to see the changes that you are making to the outgoing clip or the incoming clip press the return key to close it and it is a remarkable teaching tool because it makes this so abundantly clear but the problem I have with the precision editor is that although I use it in every class and it is a perfect tool to explain what trimming is, it doesn't allow me to trim audio separate from video and it doesn't allow me to trim connected clips for this reason I always use the precision editor as a teaching tool, but I don't use the precision editor for actual trimming because its features are too limited but as a teaching tool I've never seen anything better and I always start all of my classes when I talk about trimming using the precision editor because all of a sudden stuff that was confusing makes a whole lot more sense jim so I might have missed it but vanessa b would like to know does the audio also move with the purse? Is it precision editor? Yes. Great, thank you. Right now. At this moment in time, I've turned off the audio because I don't want to confuse the issue, but the precision editor if there is audio associated with the clip and there is not in this case but if they're wass, the precision editor will trim both the audio and the video by the same amount the exact same way, and that is to me the biggest limitation of the precision editor you're gonna learn better trimming tools in a second, but there is no better training tool at explaining trimming conceptually at the very beginning that the precision editor so just to let let her know I use this as a teaching tool, but I don't use it as an actual trimming tool. Any other questions? Um so ari would like to know is the precision editor good for continuity in two shots as in final cut pro seven or is there another tool for continuity and there's, another tool? Think of the precision editor as a teaching tool help understand the concepts I'm going to give you a better tool in just a minute. Anything else? Ok, now there is, although the precision editor is a wonderful tool to use because it explains what's going on, it has limited, and the biggest limitation is that cannot add it audio and video separately and it can't edit clips in that are connected to it. We're gonna talk about that in a second, but on ly if I write a note so how do we trim instead if I let zoom in and see this in detail, you can see where these two clips touch if I take my cursor my mouth, sir, my trackpad and get close to the edit point and click notice that it now has selected one side of the edit and as I drag this, I see the left hand number the four fifteen represents the duration of the clip. The right hand number negative eighteen says that I've made the left hand clip eighteen frames shorter or I've made the left hand clip eighteen frames longer, negative numbers move to the left positive numbers move to the right and I'm on ly adjusting that which is selected and noticed that I've selected the out of the outgoing clip. If I move my cursor to the other side of the edit and get close to it but not actually on the adage is close to it and click now notice that I've selected the incoming clip and I congratulate this and I make thie in shorter positive always moves to the right negative always moves to the left my right hand clip now runs three seconds, eleven frames and I've shortened the n moved it to the right by eighteen frames or I'm making the incoming clip longer it's now four twenty two in duration and I've moved the into the left it's a negative number twenty three frames remember each frame is an individual image and our video was shot so many frames a second twenty four frames a second twenty five frames a second thirty frames a second and so on and this shows you the duration on the left and the amount of change on the right when I am in the air o'toole tara I can on ly select the out or the end even if I click directly on the edit point I can't select the edit point itself I can select the whole clip or I can select the edit point simply based upon the position of the cursor, but I want to adjust both ian and the out curse earthy aero tool allows me to ripple the out I can ripple whoops close that up I can ripple the n but I can't adjust both that involves a new tool, which is in this arrow toolbar selection and it's the trimming tool keyboard shortcut is the letter t as in trim now with the training tool I click directly on the other point a notice that now both points are selected aargh tool is the letter a the trimming tool is the letter t with the training tool selected I could now click hold on drag and notice that I'm moving both ian and be out by the same amount negative moves left positive moves right I moved by the same amount as I dragged back and forth. Well, there's some visual reinforcement that final cup provides is we make these changes I'm going to go back to the air o'toole keyboard shortcuts the letter a when I click hold on drag noticed the two windows show up in the top right corner the left hand window let some let's get something that's got some movement here to second due to do where do I want to go to work? Okay, I now have a snowboarder watch this. I've got to snowboard scenes. This is courtesy of standard films, which is ah, lake tahoe based company that makes action films and one night when I have them as a client when I talked to him a few years ago they not only graciously shared some of the footage with me, but they said that they make one film a year. They spent a year making a film and they funded the company they fund the company out of one film a year think about the pressures and editor oh, my gracious a greater level of risk taking and I'm willing to do watch what happens is I play this back we've got an intrepid snowboarder skiing off the face of a mountain he goes down wait a minute wait wait wait wait wait wait look at that a point again he goes down the mountain but he's going off the mountain are shot order is correct but the action is not correct here he's pretty much almost down the face of the mountain and now in the next shot he's just taken off the shot order is correct but not the point where we transition switch from one shot to another so if I grabbed the out and drag this back noticed that the left hand picture is changing that shows me how I'm changing the out of the outgoing clip I'm trying to find the best place to make the transition dough I want to do the transition where he lands let's just watch that for a second just a cz he touches down so he's touching down there I grabbed the n and drag this toe where he's just touching down right there it's the exact same shot by the way this camera is located on the mountain about a mile away. I've got a camera right here we're not using that cameras action and the other camera is below right about down here, which is how we're getting the secondly you'll see the camera we held that shot longer so this is actually being covered with with um three cameras and I'm using two of them one from the mountain about a mile away this guy we're not using and the guy down below as you can see is close now watch how this place back falls off the edge of the cliff and lands all right emotional concept we use wide shots to set the geography of a scene we use close ups to set the emotion of the scene and generally the parson in a scene who's changing who's going through some sort of a shift as part of that scene changing emotion changing opinion, changing position whoever is undergoing the change in that scene gets the first close up. Well, let's, look at back this thing think again we've got the wide shot, okay, look at how brave he is off that cliff, but this is just like a geo locator. I don't have any sense of tightness I don't have any emotion there's no reaction because we're watching it from a mile away, okay, cool. That could be a strong man who knew it could be a stunt man. I have no idea what I want to do is I want to be able to get in tighter and get a sense of who he is and the tighter you get, the more emotions there are on emotions live in the face this y in sporting contest, we wantto stay wide to see everybody running around on the field, but if we want to see the reaction of somebody to scoring a goal there scoring a touchdown, you cut in tight because it's in their face that you see the exultation of hey, I scored, congratulations to me, this is really cool! We can't see emotions from wide shots, we see emotions from close ups, so what I've just done us, I've said, this is a really nice stunt, but I'm looking at it from such a distance. I don't have any sense of participation, it's more like, you know, watching something from a far distance, you don't feel involved so let's select the trim tool and the thing that makes this really interesting is thes two films were shot, a different frame rates, the the wide shot is shot at normal speed and the close up a shot at ah high speed so that runs in slow motion and it took me the better part of an hour to figure that out. The first time I was working with this clip is trying to get the two frame rates to match his driving me completely nuts. I'm on the air, o'toole types the letter a I want to find the spot where his notice this snowboard is starting to rotate like a clock. I want to find it works right at the ten thirty position see how it's rotating it's about nine about ten thirty about noon I want to put it around the ten thirty position I'm going to match that with the other shot now he's coming off the cliff right there it's about nine about ten thirty about noon I'll set it to about ten thirty right about there and now watch the difference as we follow that fall down the face of the cliff on a closer shot look at it again look at how the transition occurs so smoothly you don't even pay attention to it because the one thing that you want to see as an audience is please take me in closer wait do there's an entirely different emotional feeling by cutting to that close up counter sooner the shot order hasn't changed, but the timing of the edit point the trimming of the edit point has changed and it totally changes the feeling of that scene let's just do this one more time we'll blow it up full screen cool. So what we've done is we've used that the two trimming tools they're inside final cut when I'm on the arrow tool grabbing the edge of a clip we'll make one side of the edit the out or the n longer or shorter and everything to the right ripples to make room for those changes I grab the other side, make thean longer or shorter, and the effect ripples. Select the trainee tool keyboard. Shortcut is the letter t click on the edit point, and now I'm rolling. I'm making an emotional adjustment for how those clips are different.