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.