Visual Composition: Montage Post-Production
Reading
The Bare Bones Camera Course for Film and Video
Chapter 10 | After the Shoot – Editing
If you look at the world around you, what do you see? What do you notice? What draws your attention? The human eye has an angle of view around 25 degrees wide, but the eye automatically focuses on something interesting – like bright colors, busy patterns, or out-of-place objects. It also takes a few moments for your brain to process visual information, especially in new settings. We can see a little beyond the 25-degree area with peripheral vision but much less clearly than anything inside this area. Standard 50 mm lenses on a traditional 35 mm still camera or a full-frame digital camera use an equivalent angle of view to the human eye.
As the video editor, you have full control over the world you introduce to your viewers: you control what they see or hear and when. This also means you must make every choice with clear intention. Careless editing will disengage your audience, as will unexpected transitions. Ease into and out of camera movements, leaving a few beats for your viewers to process the change. You can also follow a moving object in your shots to aid the viewers’ attention with the camera movement. Of course, there are situations where you will want to unnerve or confuse the audience. Jarring transitions or peculiar editing techniques might work best for these instances if you edit them with purpose.
Where do you start with editing a video? The script will help you understand how your audience should feel by the end of the film. You can also mark scene or mood changes in the script to help differentiate individual scenes. However, it is always to ensure the final product has a cohesive style. Whether you are acting as both director and editor or just the editor, you will need to review each take with fresh eyes. Either the shots benefit your story, or they go bye-bye. You are not Rumpelstiltskin, and you can’t spin poor takes into gold, so don’t waste precious time editing.
Preparation is key to starting off editing on the right foot. First, keep a detailed log of your materials with consistent identifiers, abbreviations, and descriptions. This way, you can search for your good takes of a specific scene without going through the bad takes. If you have a script to follow, you can also denote material with keywords from your script. Then, take some time to familiarize yourself with your material to help you visualize the most effective way to edit your footage together.
You can also use paper edits to organize your thoughts before doing any permanent edits. Paper edits are deconstructed editing logs reshaped to fit your vision. You can rearrange the material as you wish. It will also help you find connections between scenes or define your most powerful visuals to use as bookends for your final cut.
As you begin editing takes, your first concern will be introducing viewers to the world in your video. Establishing shots tell the audience where they are and what rules apply. Don’t leave the audience wondering where they are, or they won’t focus on the storyline. Many people also won’t remember the visuals from two or three scenes prior, so continue to offer wide and medium shots as a subtle hint. Closeups tend to have minimal visual cues for the setting and can disorient the audience in long sequences.
Pacing refers to how often you change visuals or audio, but frequent change is distracting. You should limit the number of changes, except to clarify your message or keep the audience’s attention. Your audience will already understand a dissolve or full-screen visual effect denotes a change in time, place, or subject. These can be distracting if used for a different purpose.
L-cuts are great for editing dialogue scenes or documentary footage together. For example, if you have two people talking in a scene, jump to a visual of the second person reacting to the last sentence of the first person’s dialogue. This keeps the audience attentive and reminds them that these two characters are supposed to be talking to each other. The reverse of this (telegraph cut) introduces the audio before the visuals.
Here are a few options for adding music to your video. For a head-sync, you start the music with the visuals and fade the music out near the end; The opposite is a tail-sync: match the end of the audio with the end of the video. Your final option is to divide the clip in half, head-sync the beginning, tail-sync the end, and crossfade the middle where the divided sections overlap. Your sound mix should improve the message of the original recordings to move your story along.
Research to Inform
Maid, Season 1: Episode 6
This scene from Netflix’s Maid was my primary inspiration behind creating a montage with a peaceful atmosphere. This clip opens with a flashback of an upbeat drive through Missoula supported by Maddie’s favorite song, “Shoop.” The song crossfades with a new track that creates a serene atmosphere. The cuts between shots are simple jump cuts - no frilly dissolves or decorative transitions.
The Fosters, Season 3: Episode 10
In this scene of The Fosters, Callie is fighting for her foster family to adopt her despite facing several complications in the process. After the judge announces her official adoption into the Adams-Foster family, the emotions of the court battle are emphasized with a montage of the family celebrating together, edited with cross dissolves and supported with soft background music and delayed vocals.
Supergirl, Season 1: Episode 1
Winn designs Kara’s new superhero outfit in this episode of Supergirl. This scene uses moving shots for transitions and cleverly transitions from the first outfit to the second outfit by following Kara’s skirt with the camera. Most of the scene uses an editing method similar to a montage but with a sophisticated, smooth style.
Create
An old college professor used to constantly remind my classmates, “A failure to plan is a plan to fail.” This has always been such a brutally honest wake-up call to me: I plan everything. If I forget to plan one thing, everything else falls apart. For example, last week, I tried to film a montage video at the Enchanted Rock State Park in Fredericksburg, Texas. I tried to get everything set and ready for a smooth filming process but plans changed, and I had to choose between getting to the park too late or changing to a new location. So, I changed to the Hot Wells Conservancy in San Antonio with about one and a half hours to film before dark.
I went to the Hot Wells Conservancy on a road trip with my family. So naturally, everyone was tired by the time we arrived at the park. I wanted to incorporate the sunset in my video, but my troop was too concerned about the safety of the conservancy after dark. As a result, we left earlier than planned and, though I did capture some decent takes, I was dissatisfied with my materials. However, I do have some lovely photographs.
Alas, I decided to change the location yet again, this time to a state park near my hometown. Natural Falls State Park is located in Colcord, Oklahoma, about an hour’s drive from my home. I took an initial trip for location scouting and captured a “measly” 280 pictures. (I later narrowed this down to 80 appealing photos.) During the first trip, I also decided which trails would provide the best shots of the waterfall (Dripping Springs Trail) and angles for a time-lapse of the sunset. I attempted to record audio with a Zoom H1n, but too many families were chatting in the final recordings. After scouting, I took my initial story ideas for Enchanted Rock and created a storyboard with my on-site images.
I made my second trip to Natural Falls a few days later. Before leaving, I spent some time cross-referencing the storyboard with the location images and trail maps. Then, I marked where each scene would be shot on the maps and created a shot list organized by time of day (as it pertains to sunset). I packed my camera with spare batteries, both lenses, and a Zoom H1n for audio recording. Luckily, the park was nearly empty and perfect for recording clear audio. I started rolling the camera for each shot then set the Zoom on the ground to record (my hands holding the device created a shuffling noise).
Shortly after the sun tucked away behind the trees, the sunset was complete, and my last two videos didn’t turn out well. So the next day, I began editing the usable shots and took a third trip back for those missing scenes. I also tried using a skateboard to roll my camera across the wooden bridge, but the final footage is still bumpy.
For the nature ambient audio, I used my recordings of the park. I sourced the office cacophony, heartbeat, and breathing sound effects from SoundBible and Zapsplat. Without further ado, the montage:
I also created an additional video without the digital eye-closing effects for comparison between the two videos.