The Video Editing Process for Interviews: Creating the Story Edit | Sean Dykink | Skillshare
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The Video Editing Process for Interviews: Creating the Story Edit

teacher avatar Sean Dykink, Story is your guide

Watch this class and thousands more

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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Introduction

      1:20

    • 2.

      Understanding Throughlines

      7:51

    • 3.

      Editing in Passes

      0:44

    • 4.

      Reviewing the Footage

      7:35

    • 5.

      Cutting the Obvious

      7:16

    • 6.

      Summarizing Points

      7:25

    • 7.

      Creating Scenes

      2:56

    • 8.

      Engaging the Audience

      5:53

    • 9.

      Creating Story Structure

      6:41

    • 10.

      Final Thoughts

      1:53

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About This Class

One of the most challenging video editing processes is the art of interview editing. There can be hours of footage to cut down, fewer takes if any, and the telling of the story relies heavily on the interview itself. Let's just say, we don't have 100% control over this process. In this class, we will explore the video editing process to put more control in your hands and better shape interviews for a foundational story edit.

I’m Sean Dykink, a filmmaker and video editor from Canada! I've been working in a number of studio and freelance roles professionally since 2006.

What will you learn in this class?

  • The process of pass editing for interviews
  • Throughlines and their role in storytelling
  • Storytelling tips for audience engagement

Who is this class for?

This class is designed for video editors and storytellers who want to create or refine their own interview editing process and learn how to better engage their audience. This is not a follow-along tutorial going over hotkeys or technical editing skills. This class is an overview of interview editing, providing process, and storytelling techniques for an effective story edit.

What do you need before taking this class?

I do recommend that you have some technical editing ability so it's easier to understand how the lessons relate to your chosen editing program. I will be using Adobe Premiere Pro to demonstrate the learned material but, because this is an overview of the interview editing process, you are free to use whatever editing software you prefer.

Questions? 

Go ahead and ask any questions you may have, I'll do my best to answer in a timely manner. All questions are welcome and encouraged.

Enjoy the class!

Meet Your Teacher

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Sean Dykink

Story is your guide

Top Teacher

Hi everyone, I'm Sean, a filmmaker and video editor from Canada! I've been working in a number of studio and freelance roles professionally since 2005.

My main focus in teaching is storytelling. I believe that the stories in our lives give us purpose and are the reason to learn all of this technical filmmaking stuff in the first place. We learn technical skills and storytelling craft, to effectively bring creative expression to stories that otherwise remain thoughts in our minds.

Join me in learning more about creative storytelling, filmmaking, and editing techniques. Looking forward to seeing you in class!

I post some additional tips and content on my Instagram account, check it out!

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Transcripts

1. Introduction: One of the most challenging video editing processes to learn and master is the art of interview editing. Interview editing can be incredibly time-consuming with hours of interview footage, and there are many uncontrollable aspects, fewer takes, if any, and shaping interviews relies heavily on the interviewee telling the story. Hi, I'm Sean Dykink, filmmaker and video editor from Canada. This class is the video editing process for interviews, creating the story edit. In this class I'm going to teach you the pass editing process. Included throughout the lessons are storytelling tips and practical ways to engage your audience. These tips and processes will help you get to a rough story edit. The story edit put simply is a stripped-down version of your edit. This is the heart, the foundation, and the guide to the rest of your editing decisions. This class is designed for video editors and storytellers who want to treat or refine their own interview editing process and learn how to better engage their audience. This is not a technical tutorial, but a bigger process that you can implement into your own interview editing or even storytelling workflow. After taking this class, you are going to have a better understanding of the interview editing process to get a story edit and you're going to come up with some awesome tips and tricks for storytelling and interview editing. [MUSIC] 2. Understanding Throughlines: Understanding the various hidden threads that connect your story together will not only help you create a more engaging story altogether, but will also increase the efficiency of the video editing process [MUSIC]. The through-line is defined as a connecting theme, plot, or characteristic within really any type of media. The through-line was originally coined by Constantin Stanislavski, world renowned theater actor and director. It was a way for actors to understand their character's motivation throughout a story. A lot of people know that I'm a filmmaker and editor, but not a lot of people know that I also went to acting school. At the time I was studying acting, I read some of Stanislavski's books and found them very helpful. But little did I know that it would be just as helpful when working on storytelling within the edit. The objective is what a character wants, what they're trying to achieve throughout each individual scene. In this scene from the movie Hot Rod, Rod aspires to be a great stuntman. His objective in this scene is to impress Denise by completing this pool jump. [NOISE] The super objective is the ultimate goal that a character wants to achieve that contains each individual objective. Even though Rod really wants to be the best stuntman man ever, that's not his super objective. He wants to be the best stuntman ever because he wants to gain his stepfather Frank respect. One day I'll punch you right in the face and then you'll respect me. You will respect me. All I want is to earn your respect, Frank. How can I do that if you won't fight me? His super objective is to gain the respect of his stepfather. Each individual scene has its own singular objective with an overarching super objective, or connecting through-line. Through-lines of evolved into many different definitions. But I generally like to think of them as invisible threads that connect any given story element throughout a film's duration. There can be a number of different invisible threats, including our previous example of a character's objective. Another through-line can be a movie's theme. A theme can be any topic or subject and directly contributes to a film's purpose. For example, one common theme in movies is overcoming adversity. Movies with this theme tend to have character's face challenge after challenge. Just when you think they will give up, they keep going and going until they reach their goals or die trying. These films have similar recurring themes that drive a number of character's actions while moving the story forward. Throughout the film, we continue to see this theme of overcoming adversity. [NOISE] The plot or series of events that occur throughout a film can also be seen as a through-line. This can be the story of an individual's journey or multiple characters with their own story and through-line and the main overarching through-line or bigger story that contains all of these characters and individual through-lines. In the movie The Impossible, every character has similar events occur, but they experience it in a different way. Their journey towards safety unfolds in its own way. [NOISE] An easy way to think about a plots through-line is to think about what questions may arise for the audience. In the movie The Impossible, the question I asked and wanted answered was, are they going to make it? Are they all going to make it? Are they going to survive? If the question asked or presented by the filmmaker is enticing enough, you know you can string the audience along from start to finish. The more enticing the questions, the easier it is to keep an audience engaged. As you can see, through-lines or threads can connect many different creative facets and can sometimes be loosely defined or blurred together. What really matters is that they are helpful to you in shaping an intriguing interview or story. The following examples aren't necessarily through-lines, but patterns. Patterns can also create a common thread. These recurring instances can be specific colors used throughout a film, musical scores. [MUSIC] Really, any filmmaking element can treat a pattern throughout the film, technically creating its own through-line or invisible thread to create meaning. I talk a lot about how the purpose or point of your project is the most important and every creative choice you make as an editor or a filmmaker should aim to serve this purpose. The same goes for through-lines and patterns. These through-lines need to serve the purpose of your story overall. Through-lines for interviews can be helpful in determining what content to keep and what to cut. Through-lines are extremely helpful in shaping an overall narrative. The interview particularly is very interesting in that we have some control over the through-lines we create, but at the same time we are learning and unearthing the through-line of the interviewee. This is what differentiates written narratives and documentary style interview edits, which contributes to the unpredictability of documentary style edit, but also the magic behind them. As you're working through your own interview edits, it's important to pay attention to any patterns throughout the interviewee's story. These patterns reveal what is important to the interviewee, uncovering what they want within the story they tell, essentially revealing what their objective is. For example, when working on this interview for a housing non-profit, I eventually noticed in Todd's interviewed from the beginning of his story to the end, it's incredibly important for him to find a sense of family, connection, and belonging. Having a better grasp of his story's objective, along with the common themes, I was able to create a specific beginning where he mentions the problem of not being able to find a sense of belonging. My family splintered young in life, and that was the beginning for me of just, well what happened? Where was a sense of family or belonging in life. The middle where he mentioned how this inability to find belonging negatively affects his life and housing. Through my housing, especially you move into an apartment buildings and people go their separate ways. There's no real sense of community or belonging or gathering. The only people I talked to were people in retail stores or the bus driver. That effect that it had on me was, I literally could feel my spirit starting to wither. Lost my ability to learn how to be social. The end, where he discovers Co:Here, the foundation that provides affordable housing with the goals of intentional community living. It's here where Todd finds a sense of security and belonging. When I moved into Co:Here, it's really one of the first opportunities in my life where I landed in a place where I felt safe and secure. Sometimes in the interview itself, the interviewee will clearly state what they want or what they wanted. In the final film, I've also included a sound bite from Todd that explicitly states his objective. When I read the application for Co:Here, there was something in there about, what does it mean to be a good neighbor? Questions like that, talking about doing things intentionally in community. It just really spoke to me. It sounded like something that would fit in my life and something I've wanted for a long time [ While you're editing, these through-lines can help narrow down your interview questions to the essence of the story that the interviewee is telling and the story that you want to present to your audience. To recap, the through-line is that invisible thread that connects various story elements throughout the duration of a film. Overall, through-lines need to support the purpose of your project. The purpose is everything and the various through-lines that contribute to the overall purpose will help guide your editing choices, which helps you determine which parts of an interview to keep and which ones to cut. 3. Editing in Passes: Editing in passes is the process of breaking down your interview edit into smaller steps, allowing you to more easily manage larger amounts of content, helping you not become overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information that you have to get through. Depending on the complexity and length of your interview, the amount of passes needed will vary. If you're finding your interview challenging, I would suggest breaking up the edit into multiple passes to make things more manageable. If you find the interview to be straightforward and feel confident with its direction, combine multiple tasks within fewer passes. You may find your own way here so feel free to adjust this process as you progress through your own project. Remember with each pass to keep those through lines in mind. 4. Reviewing the Footage: Completing the first pass of your edit will help you understand the content of the interview, compartmentalize the questions and answers, and also help you begin to see possible directions for your interviews story. [MUSIC] I've already gone ahead and synced my camera angles, my sound, and created a multicam sequence. That sequence is named multicam-SYNCED. I'm not going to touch this sequence, I'm going to copy paste it and rename it to indicate that it is the first pass. It's important to be redundant with your sequences so you can edit your sequence non-destructively, and you can always go back to previous passes when needed. I'll name them pass 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on so that they remain in numerical order. But of course we're going to delete passes 2-5 because we're not on those passes quite yet. In the first pass, my main goal is to simply review the interview and take notes using markers. I find markers helpful in giving a somewhat bird's eye view of the timeline and almost a visual idea of what is going on in your sequence. There are so many ways to use markers, and really it's dependent on what you find helpful. As I go through the interview, I'll add markers where each question is located and even write the question down so I can see the question on my timeline when zoomed in. What this is useful for is to get a visual structure where each question and answer is located in the timeline and how long the answers are to these questions and gain context to those answers quickly. A lot of the time, later on in the edit, I will come back to the sequence to review the questions and reintroduce an answer or portion of an answer into my interview edit to fix any potential story problems. I'll also add a number of clip markers to the answer to the question. However, I will summarize in some way the different points of the answer in full. Summarizing an answer helps you become more focused on what the interviewee is actually saying as opposed to just taking in information. Being able to summarize an answer or a point in your own words gives you a deeper understanding of what the interviewee is actually saying. These notes don't need to be groundbreaking or anything like that, they can be quick, point form summarizations that helps you understand what a segment of the clip is about at a glance. Because I'm using these markers the most, I'll use the green markers because they're selected automatically by default. When adding these markers, I'd suggest adding them directly to your nested multicam sequence clip. Using clip markers to summarize your answers rather than sequence markers can be helpful because when you start cutting up your interview into segments and rearranging your clips all over the timeline, the markers will move along with the different clips, allowing you to still see at a glance what each clip is about. There aren't any ways that I know of to accurately adjust the length of your clip markers directly within the timeline, so I would suggest moving your play head to either the beginning of where the marker needs to be or the end, double-click to load it in your source monitor and then adjust from here. You can of course also reveal your nested sequence with Control Shift F and then review the interview using your sync sequence and add markers while making length adjustments here. I may know interesting sound bites or if I have any hunches about how to use a sound bite, I'll write that down as well. Just to clarify, in my mind, a sound bite can be as little as a word or as big as a full answer to a question. So the definition for sound bite in this class is going to vary in that way. A lot of the times, the notes I'm going to make might be things like, this could work great as a hook or maybe an interesting way to introduce the theme of the edit before getting to know our interviewee. Or I might say, okay, this sound bite would be great to end the story with because it just ties up the edits purpose nicely. Of course, I'll use different colored markers to differentiate these remarkable sound bites. In this case, the red markers are the sound bites that I'm going to strongly consider using, and these are the sound bites that best fit the story, theme, or overall purpose. My family splintered young in life, and that was the beginning for me of just what happened, where was a sense of family or belonging in life and that continued through my life. Through my housing, especially, you move into apartment buildings and these people go their separate ways. There's no real sense of community or belonging or gathering. The orange ones are just hunches. I'm not exactly sure if they're going to fit or not, but I have a hunch about that. In this sound bites case, I thought this was a very interesting fact, but I wasn't sure if it would fit or not and where it would fit. I've moved over 51 times in my life. It really helps emphasize the second sound bite, which I've used a red marker for. A home is more than just an address. It's more than just a building. It's more than just somewhere you pay rent. Your hunches may be completely useless at the end, but you'd be surprised how often you'll end up using these sound bites in your edit. This step of the process is also extremely helpful in getting the brainstorming, ball rolling, so to speak. So don't worry about getting it right, just add your immediate thoughts about each question's answer. On the flip side of remarkable sound bites, I'll note the ones that I have a feeling aren't going to work. These are the sound bites that include answers that aren't full answers, that don't contain enough information that the answer in itself would be understandable in any way. This can also be an answer that's too detailed and specific towards a person, place, or thing. In this sound bite, we have information that is too specific, which I've had to cut out in this example. That first piece I mentioned, but then again, being part of those self celebrations, like celebrating when [inaudible] got married, and when [inaudible] got married, and [inaudible]. Too many different people's names are being mentioned and in this edit, we simply cannot cover who they are, what they do, why they're important to the story, so the sound bite has become unusable. Tremendous. Then we have in this sound bite where Todd was asked what were the unexpected benefits of living at Co:Here. But unfortunately, we forgot to ask him to answer the question with the question in the answer, and because of that, you have no idea what he means when he's using the word unexpected. Those have been really unexpected. I knew to expect those things here, but now that they've happened and they were really unexpected. Without context, this sound bite is even more confusing and has become unusable. To recap, in the first pass of editing, I like to focus on using colored markers to differentiate questions. I'll use clip markers to summarize answers and point form is totally fine. I'll take note of the sound bites that most fit within the story, theme, and overall purpose. If you find any problematic sound bites or portions that are problematic, make sure to make a note on your marker as well. Also there may be sound bites that you have hunches about. Maybe you're on the fence about it, you don't know if it's going to work, but you have a hunch. Mark that down. All of this preliminary work helps you gain a bird's eye view of your interview to have a deeper understanding of the material you're working with and begin to brainstorm different ideas for how your interview story might play out. [MUSIC] 5. Cutting the Obvious: In this lesson, we will discuss that the second editing pass and how to decide what to cut. This again, helps you manage the content in the controlled step-by-step manner. In the second pass, I will again copy paste the sequence to keep each pass unique to its task, and then rename it to indicate that it is the second pass. In the second pass, I'll focus on cutting out the soundbites that most obviously don't work for the story and just plain don't work. Going back to Todd's interview, well, the most obvious thing we can cut is this whole bit of preamble and chit-chat before the first question is even asked. Absolutely. You make eye contact with people [inaudible]. Only the table that was right down in front of me. Down the line here, we have Todd apologizing for messing up the soundbite. [inaudible]. You're fine. Which is totally unnecessary, but very kind of him and we can cut that out as well. In this pass, you can also go ahead and delete the questions asked by the interviewer. Remember we also have our markers with the questions written down for a reference. It's a lot faster to read the questions on a marker than it is to play back the question on your timeline. I know this might sound a bit silly, but cutting an interview down can be intimidating and cutting of these soundbites that very obviously aren't going to be included in your interview is a great way to boost your confidence and get you comfortable with cutting things down. After hundreds of interviews that I've cut and years of experience, I still find this tip extremely helpful. Now for some of the obvious, but not as obvious soundbites to cut are from the examples that I provided in the previous lesson. Including too many specific details about people, places, or things that don't add anything to the story, you can end up making the story more confusing. You remember this soundbite from the previous lesson? Went and got married and birth. In this summer, we had information that was too specific, the use of different people's names, and it didn't really support the story we're trying to tell. We don't have enough information about these specific people or even enough time to cover that information for this soundbite to make a positive impact on our edit. Not having enough information or contexts to an answer is also a soundbite that you might consider cutting. Again, going back to our previous lesson, where Todd answers the question, what were the unexpected benefits of living at cohere? However, we forgot to ask him to include the question and the answer. That's been really unexpected. I knew to expect those things here, but now that they've happened and really just bad. They were really unexpected. You have no idea why he's saying the word unexpected, which makes the soundbite completely confusing. We can't forget our throughlines. We can't forget our project's purpose. Let's revisit our throughlines and our invisible threads. Throughout the early passes of the edits, I'm focusing on the through line of the plot, the invisible thread that connects the various story details together. Todd story is about the journey of him finding housing that is more than just a physical location. The interviewees individual objectives and in Todd's case, I believe his objective within this interview is to secure his place in community, that sense of belonging that he struggled to find even within his childhood. The different themes which in this edits case, are home being more than a physical location, community, loneliness, finding a sense of belonging. Then finally, we have all of these throughlines contributing to the main purpose of the project. In this particular project, the purpose is to encourage viewers to consider taking action on how they can create a sense of home or even physical housing within their own communities. I know this is a bit difficult to understand unless you've seen the entire piece. If you're curious, I've included a link to the cohere mini documentary within the class notes. In this past and all the subsequent passes, I will be focusing on figuring out how to cut down and cut out those moments, those soundbites, that do not support any of these throughlines. It's not as simple as watching and being like, "Oh, yeah, I know what the story is about, I know what the purpose is, I know all of these throughlines instantaneously." This is not something that you're going to understand right away. These throughlines, these themes the purpose, the plot will all reveal itself as you continue to work through the process. Don't be discouraged if you don't know what the story is about or what's going on, trust the process. Here's an example of something I've cut out of Todd's interview. Take a listen to these soundbites. Well, I liked the downtown area. It's very exciting. There's always lots going on. In very non residential down there, it's quite a concrete jungle. Once I moved here, I've found it really charming neighborhood. I love it here. I often go for walks. Probably, well, today, it's beautiful day outside. There's blue houses and greenhouses. There are a number of reasons why I'm considering cutting these soundbites. The reason why is because they covered topics of location and physical objects in a somewhat superficial way. It didn't really add to Todd's story in any way or support his objectives. Going back to home being more than a physical location, this would clash with that theme that I'm trying to achieve. It seemed like a no-brainer just to cut this out. In addition to cutting these soundbites because they didn't support my throughlines, they were also incomplete. Also in some of the moments that I fast forwarded, shared information that was too specific. In this pass, it's very common to feel like every answer needs to be included and it's difficult to know exactly what to cut. Taking things slow and having a chance to review the interview again, can be helpful in getting clearer about your project's goals. Remember, this is why we edit and passes. If you miss something the first time around, you'll get it in the next pass, if you're worried about cutting too much, you can keep it rough around the edges. Sometimes I don't even cut out answers because I'm not sure exactly which ones are going to work or not. Then within a future pass, I'll be able to finally figured out exactly what I want to keep and what to cut. This is non-destructive. You can create multiple passes repeating the same task, and you can always access your previous passes if you need to resurface any soundbites. To recap, in the second pass, I'll cut out any preamble, any soundbite flubs, questions from the interviewer, soundbites that contain information that is too specific, which would need further clarification, don't add to the story, and would ultimately confuse the viewer even more if they were included. Then I'll also cut out soundbites that do not contain enough information or contexts. Finally, I'll cut out any portions of questions that I feel most confidently do not fit within the interviews throughline. I'll continue to focus on these edits in subsequent passes. 6. Summarizing Points: [MUSIC] In the first two passes, we've reviewed the interview using markers to record notes, and we've cut the sound bites that most obviously do not support the story. In this lesson, we're going to discuss how to further edit your interview in the third pass. We will again copy, paste our sequence and name it accordingly. In this pass, the focus is to distill the questions down to their essence. This distillation process doesn't happen all at once, you will most likely find that you will refine and distill each byte as you progress through each pass. You might realize as you're going through this past that it doesn't make any sense to distill your answers down. But of course, if you're working with longer interviews, more complex interviews and you're not exactly sure where the story is going then doing the step first, may be more helpful to manage the amount of content. To distill the answers down to their essence, we want to begin by cutting out the repetition. We've got a new example here from a short interview done for hapa-palooza, which is a festival that celebrates mixed heritage. If an interviewee repeats the same phrase or word or is repetitive in any way, cut it down. A festival like hapa-palooza can really positively impact the community in a very positive way. Jeff uses a variation of the word positive two different times. I'm confident I can cut one of these out. Hapa-palooza can really positively impact the community because of the fact that we are creating that dialogue, that discussion. If they repeat points in various ways, either within the same question or different questions altogether, then you have the task of choosing which option is better. There's still a lot of discussion around race, ethnicity, identity that I think needs to take place because we are growing as a society. We are mixing, we are blending, and it's becoming such a big thing in Canada that we need to have a festival like hapa-palooza to celebrate that and really allowing that discussion and engage people in dialogue. What Jeff is basically saying in this soundbite is that mixed heritage is important. It's important to have conversations about it because more people with differing heritage are getting together and creating families. The second point he's making is that the festival that he runs, hapa-palooza is important because it enables more discussion around mixed heritage and allows people to celebrate that diversity. Now, listen to this sound bite. As a nation, we're really moving towards a blended society. A society where people are going to start identifying as many different, like mix of the ancestries, and so I think that's really great is that a festival like hapa-palooza can really positively impact the community because of the fact that we are creating that dialogue, that discussion, and helping to really enrich people in that thought process. Jeff is repeating a lot of the same points within the sound bite, just with different words. The sound bite that is more concise or hits closer to your story or through lines is the one to choose. This also might mean combining those various options into one point, choosing the best of both bites. As a nation, we're really moving towards a blended society. There's still a lot of discussion around race, ethnicity, identity that I think needs to take place. We need to have a festival like hapa-palooza to celebrate that. We are creating that dialogue, that discussion. Although I'm still not happy with the ending of this bite, it's still the best option. Down the road, I can always cut another sound bite from another question and attach it to this one to make it sound even better. This third option can be time-consuming and might be best to save for later passes as you might end up realizing later in the edit that you don't want to use it at all. What I'd suggest is keeping both options and make a note that you may want to combine the two sound bites together and save it for later. As you summarize each point throughout each pass, consider the options you have for B-roll. This is important because you can get to the point where you can distill down a sentence to its essence. But if you were to stick to the interview footage, the cuts would be too fast and jarring for the audience to follow. Every year we tried to have a mixture of events that celebrate visual arts, music, dance, poetry, film, acting. As a general rule of thumb, if you have a sound bite that's less than two seconds, consider covering it with b-roll. This is even more so, something to consider when you have consecutive cuts that are less than two seconds. Whether you have an abundance of b-roll or no b-roll at all, it will determine whether you can cover a tightened up segment or if you need to keep it a bit rougher around the edges. Keeping your interview rough around the edges or more refined is also an art in itself. Sometimes an overly edited interview can create a sanitized version of a story or drain the character from the interviewee and the emotion overall from the interview. Here's an unedited sound bite from Todd. Just celebrating these joys with people and the struggles with people too, it's had a huge impact on me and I know others here. Now the same sound bite cut shorter. Celebrating these joys with people and the struggles with people too, it's had a huge impact on me and I know others here. I know this sound bite isn't necessarily extremely dramatic or anything like that. But you can even see in this small example that retaining the arms and the pauses helps you see the wheels turning in Todd's head. These moments of where someone's trying to think of what to say next are vulnerable moments. We get to see the vulnerability of the interviewee on screen. We don't always want to cut that because we need the audience to connect to the interviewee emotionally. It's important to consider the character of the interviewee and the subject matter itself. You may decide to keep a more emotion filled interview, rough around the edges to let the audience have time to process the story and those emotions while allowing the audience to emotionally connect to their vulnerability. If you're editing an educational interview or an expert interview, one of the editing goals might be to cut out all the um's and ah's so that the interviewee comes off as professional as possible and they generally sound like the, [LAUGHTER] see what I mean. If you don't cut, this is the point. If I didn't cut all this out, you might not take me as seriously as you would had I cut it all out, all this nonsense out. I'm not always able to get points across the first try with the classes I create, but with editing I can make myself sound so much better. Cutting out the repetition and the um's and the ah's, in this case can help the viewer focus on the learn material and take more seriously the interviewee as a professional in their field. Cutting down the questions to their essence is not always completed on the third pass. This pass can be done roughly at first and then be refined as you move into your next few passes. You'll probably find yourself making cuts and then realizing in future passes that there are better ways to get the same points across. [MUSIC] To recap, in the third pass, the focus is on summarizing and distilling the interview answers down to their essence. This means cutting out repetitive dialogue or combining similar points. When doing this, keep it rough at first as you'll be trimming things down in subsequent passes. Keep in mind how much you can cut based on your options for b-roll. Also, consider the character of the interviewee and the subject matter itself. [MUSIC] 7. Creating Scenes: Creating scenes from your interview sound bites helps you make sense of your interview and its individual pieces, and it gives you a bird's eye view of the interview as a whole, helping you start to brainstorm different connections between each individual scene. Try thinking about each answer or topic within an answer as its own scene or even a block of story. The story structure or direction may not be completely clear at this time. This is more common in longer interviews or when combining multiple interviews together. For example, in these interviews, I knew this question. What does home mean to you? Worked well with the purpose of the project, and I wanted to include it in our story. We didn't quite know where it was going to go within the story overall. Rather than pulling my hair out trying to figure out the best location right away, I created a bin named Scenes, and then created another bin within that folder and named it. What does home mean to you? Then I simply compiled the answer to this question from all the relevant interviewees into a sequence within this folder. I also created other scenes that were relevant to the story overall. Then, of course, there was the main story of CoHere. How CoHere began, what it is, what it does, why it's important. I've used each relevant plot point in CoHere story and created its own scene. As I said, this is even more helpful when you have multiple interviews because in this case, I know how to organize these multiple interviews. It's now as simple as taking each relevant sound bite from each individual interview and placing it into the corresponding scene. This is also why it's a good idea to break down, a three-hour interview into something more manageable because now, you know what the best clips are from that interview and the scene sequences themselves become more manageable. Now, it's more like a puzzle where you can physically see the pieces of the interview, but you can now also see the bigger picture and where each piece might fit with another. At this point, you might start getting ideas of which sound bites naturally connect, and which sound bites most likely won't end up in the final edit. Again, make notes about which sound bites you have ideas for, cut the sound bites that most obviously do not fit your project's goals. For individual interviews, you won't necessarily need to create multiple bins with different scene sequences. However, you can copy-paste your PASS 3, rename to PASS 4. Pancake your PASS 3 and 4 sequences, delete everything in PASS 4, and then begin reordering all your sound bites into a story structure, and in the next lesson, I'm going to go over some tips on how to create an engaging, interesting, and logical story structure. To recap, creating individual scenes helps you visualize your interview in different chunks, allowing you to more easily manage large amounts of information and see which puzzle pieces might connect best together. 8. Engaging the Audience: In this lesson, we're going to discuss some ways to engage your audience throughout your story. This is important because it will help you determine where to put each sound bite within the overall story structure, and of course engagement is important because you want to hook your audience, you want your audience to be engaged in your story, so it achieves its ultimate purpose. [MUSIC] Past five is all about piecing the puzzle together. The goal is to move these story blocks around until you get a beginning, middle, and end that makes sense, aims to take the audience on an interesting journey, and ultimately creates an emotional connection. But before you start moving everything around on your timeline, let's consider some ways that we can engage the audience. Keep in mind the five Ws when referring to the story: who, what, when, where, why. Who's in the story? Your characters or interviewee. What happened? A sequence of events. When did it happen? Where did it happen? Why did it happen? The five Ws can help paint the picture for the audience and create context. I know I've already used this term in this class already, but to clarify, context is what is needed for something to be fully understood. In the movie Dune, we are introduced to this red dust-like substance referred to as the spice. Without context, you might think of the spice as some sort of seasoning like paprika and then wonder why you should care about it at all. Spice. Why do these characters care about paprika? But in fact, the spice is a psychedelic drug that increases lifespan, heightens consciousness. What is it doing to me? It's vital for space travel. In this case, contexts helps us understand the meaning behind the spice. Now, we understand why the characters care about it so much and, in return, it helps us care more about the story and its characters. In an interview, creating context might mean [OVERLAPPING] including sound bite of the interviewee introducing themselves and what they do. I'm Scott Keddy, President of 3 Dogs Brewing here in White Rock. Sometimes even where they are located, so long as it's relevant to the story. This can also be presented using a lower third or title card. There are many creative ways to contextualize a scene. You can take care of the who, when, where quite quickly using a combination of B-roll, tight sound bites, and graphics. On the other hand, a great way to hook an audience is to provide less information, don't give all the information away at once. Doing this will encourage more questions. In this brewery film, I intentionally introduced the brew pub using the voices of our interviewees, but didn't reveal their faces. [MUSIC] We didn't think that we would sell out of beer in two-and-a-half weeks, we brewed almost 50 kegs. This brings up a number of questions. Basically, within a few weeks we were at where we thought we'd be after a year or two. I also use sound bites to illustrate how successful they were upon grand opening, which is also interesting, how did they do it? What do they do to become so successful? What do they do to surpass their own expectations? We know they are in a brew pub, we know that there are people drinking and enjoying themselves, but we don't know all of the information which adds a level of interest and increases the chances of audience engagement. A good story needs some sort of conflict to keep an audience engaged. Creating conflict or problems that need solving does a few things. One, again, the audience is encouraged to ask questions, will this problem be solved by the end of the film? How will it be solved? How did they end up solving this problem? The questions themselves can be their own through line or hook to keep an audience engaged, and this can be in an individual's scene. What did she tell you? Or a question asked throughout a large chunk of the film. That I would find the one. In addition to encouraging questions, the problem presents another engagement advantage, the problem has the ability to connect with the audience on a relatable level and can affect each individual viewer to a different degree depending on their own personal experience. In the Co:Here Project, we chose to start our film presenting facts surrounding the housing issues found in Vancouver, Canada. It's not just facts, we're also hearing individuals talking about these facts and the problems and how those problems manifest. Housing presents a lot of challenges, not only for residents of Vancouver, but all around the world to some degree. We also touch on themes of loneliness and home representing more than just a physical space, finding connection, a sense of home, and a physical place we can all call home are all basic needs that anyone can relate to. The why, the point, the purpose of any story is, in my opinion, the most important thing to consider when making editing choices. I talk about this a lot in all of my classes. So I would encourage you to view those lessons if you want more examples of the why within each class context. If you can clearly identify why you are creating this interview edit in the first place, you will have a much easier time keeping your audience interested. Without a point, people won't have a reason to care and they won't know why they should keep watching either. In the Co:Here Project, every interview and smaller story that makes up the larger story is aimed towards encouraging viewers to consider and take action on how they can create a sense of home or even create physical housing within their own communities. To recap, the five Ws help bring context to the story you are telling, enabling viewers to fully understand what's going on, and giving certain things meaning, giving the audience a reason to even care about these things in the first place. Conflict is also very important in order to keep an audience engaged, it creates more questions and creates an emotional connection to ideas or to an interviewee, and of course keep in mind the main purpose of your edit. The purpose will help you determine every editing decision. 9. Creating Story Structure: In this lesson, we're going to look at some ways to begin to create story structure and we're going to look at some of the ways I like to incorporate story structure in my own work. Start by brainstorming different story structures using the various topics from your interview. There are a number of ways to do this. If you have a manageable amount of interview footage, you can start by shifting the blocks around on your timeline, testing out different ideas. If you prefer a more tangible experience or you're working with many different topics simultaneously, try writing down your story blocks on post notes to get a bird's eye view. If you don't mind staying digital, you can always create different colored graphics with the different scene headings and use those blocks to begin to think of different story structure ideas. These are a few different options, but I'm a fan of just getting into shifting things around on the timeline right away so I can get a sense of how much footage I have within each topic while previewing transitions between topics. Start with the markers that indicate the sound bites that you most strongly are considering including within your edit and determine the purpose that they have. Does the sound bite present the problem or conflict or obstacle? Do they introduce a theme, provide context, or encourage questions? This isn't something you need to write down or anything. Just keep it in mind when you're piecing each scene together. Remember that the goal is to move these story blocks around until you get a beginning, middle, and end, that makes sense, aims to take the audience on an interesting journey and ultimately creates an emotional connection. For me, typical story structure would normally start with some sort of hook by establishing what the story is about. This doesn't necessarily mean the plot or the series of events, but the bigger story, the theme or themes that are easy for anyone to understand but it's not just simply stating the themes. It's also presenting the bigger problems and challenges that come along with the bigger story. In the edit for Cohere, I established what the story was about by using B-roll of the housing crisis in Vancouver, using sound bites describing these problems in detail and the nuance behind these problems, while also providing a possible solution, which is Cohere housing. In the first minute and a half, we understand that the story is about humans need for connection and the importance of finding your place within community. I don't normally do this in a lot of the edits I work on but in this case, we also took the time to establish Todd's story in this small portion right here and that was mostly just to create a more personal connection for the audience to someone that they could relate to and empathize with rather than just the general problem of homelessness. In this short intro, I did my best to connect to the audience by using the engagement tips from our previous lesson; presenting the many problems of Vancouver's housing crisis, creating context for those problems, encouraged questions throughout the intro, including this one where Michael mentions this. It's not an issue of houselessness, it's an issue of homelessness and Cohere is unique in that it does provide the rest of the home. Which isn't totally a complete answer, but definitely poses some questions; different how? What does the rest of the home actually mean and what exactly do they do? Of course, these questions aren't going to be interesting to everyone, but to those who can relate, who face similar challenges or are also trying to solve similar problems, will hopefully be curious enough to stick around and see what happens next. We've established the bigger themes. We understand Todd's story, who he is, his world but we don't understand the rest of our characters in their world. So in the beginning we also establish their story and their setting, what life is currently like for them. The middle of the story, the main more specific problem is presented and in the sound bite by Kathy she states very clearly. That was pretty apparent that stable housing and also to feel part of a community was an issue. The problem catalyzes action, enforces the characters to face different challenges and overcome those challenges until eventually they reach their ultimate goal. Which in this case was completing the vision of Cohere that the physical building itself, and then even more importantly, establishing their vision for true community housing that solves issues of loneliness, isolation, and ensuring all of the things necessary for that sense of belonging in community. In the middle of the stories also important to go deeper into relevant story details, creating contexts so the audience can connect more deeply with the characters or the interviewees and the story. Then finally in the end we see that solution in action. We see what it looks like to live in community and within the end, I personally like to have some sort of call to action for the audience and this is usually done in the final sound bites of the film. In this film's case, it is to encourage the viewer to consider how they can create a sense of home or even physical housing within their own communities and to also take small steps towards that. Each individual scene falls into this general story structure creating a logical beginning, middle, and end and of course, I'm always doing my best to engage the audience, which is not easy. Creating that emotional connection is so challenging, but if you can start with some of those tips from the previous lesson on engaging the audience, I believe you'll have more success keeping an audience watching the stories you tell. Of course, there are so many aspects to story structure and it gets incredibly nuanced and deep, and we just can't cover it all in this class. So to recap, brainstorm ways that you could use each sound bite, identify their purpose so you have a better idea of where they might fit within the bigger picture and of course, you don't need to stick to the story structure but a common story structure for me is to begin by introducing the larger story or the theme, or themes. Go deeper into story details while focusing on the different story points where different challenges were faced and overcome until finally the final goal within the story is achieved. Then what that new reality looks like lived out. In a nice way to round it up is to create a call to action that invites the viewer to be part of the story and to live out that story in the world. 10. Final Thoughts: Great job on completing the lessons. As you can see, interview editing is not always the most straightforward process. That's what's challenging about interviews and storytelling, in general, is that it is so much more nuanced and bigger than you can even imagine. But in this class we've covered pass editing, reviewing the interview, cutting the obvious, summarizing answers, and cutting them down to their essence, along with creating scenes and structuring those scenes in a beginning, middle, and end that is easy to understand and engages the audience. While you're working on all these passes, keeping in mind your through lines and remembering that after the review pass, each pass is iterative in that you're repeating these tasks throughout the entire process until you get the core of your story. We didn't even talk about pass 6, pass 7, pass 8, and that is because this class is about the story edit. Any passes beyond the story edit involve B-roll and music and sound effects and so on, and of course, those things are important. But if you jump the gun and start adding those elements right away, you're going to be missing out on the foundation of your edit, which is story. Once you have the foundation of story, the structure, it's going to be so much easier to decide where you're going to place all of those other storytelling elements. Thank you for taking my class. I hope you learned a lot, and if you have any questions, please ask. I will get back to you as soon as possible. Follow my profile for updates and occasional giveaways. If you found value from this class, I'd really appreciate it if you left a review. Good, bad, critical or not, it all helps and it helps me grow and learn and serve you better. Also, I would encourage you to take some of my other classes. As you'll see, the through line of all of my classes is story. Thanks so much for taking this class, and remember, story is your guide.