Edit Suite: Editing Video Events

Jim Stinson
July 2000

Ballets, ball games, concerts, rodeos, auctions, circuses, lectures, weddings. We all attend spectator events and often we want to shoot them. That's great, except that our ticket is for row 118, seat 33. And that's usually where we're stuck from beginning to end of the whole exciting event.
Why is this a problem? Can you think of any self-respecting movie that was shot entirely from one single setup? When you're confined to a spectator seat, that's (almost) your only option. Too often, the resulting video consists mainly of boring long shots enlivened only by clanking jump cuts.
But don't leave your camcorder at home the next time you attend an event, because as an editor you have a whole bag of cheap tricks, workarounds and sneaky secrets to spruce up the footage you shot from one viewpoint. Of course, these ingenuities depend on having the right footage to work with, so let's see how you can shoot everything from row 118 and still deliver great footage to the edit suite.

Typically, you want to present just the highlights of an event, cutting the rest and concealing those cuts with smooth edits. (Performances such as concerts are obvious exceptions.)
As you know, making an invisible cut usually means changing the angle enough so that viewers can't closely compare the action between the two shots. Camera setups are described by vertical angle (like high angle, low angle), horizontal angle (three-quarter shot, profile) and image size (wide shot, closeup). An ideal cut involves changing two out of three elements, typically image size, plus one of the other two.
Stuck in a grandstand seat, you can't change horizontal or vertical angles; you can only zoom to adjust image size. Fortunately, an edit that changes only the subject size is the most acceptable form of jump cut, especially if the change is dramatic. So when you zoom in, don't just magnify the image somewhat. Punch in as tight and as much as your lens permits. If you can go from a long shot to a three-quarter shot you'll probably have enough image change for a good-looking edit.
If you're lucky (and if your dad-blasted, motorized zoom works fast enough) you'll be able to edit out the zoom and match the action between the two angles. But if that's not possible, try to avoid action matching entirely by hiding the edit from the audience.
It works like this: Let's say you're taping bronco riders at a rodeo. The explosion out of the gate's exciting and so is getting thrown (or staying on); but in between it's just one buck after another. To set up room to cut the repetition:

• Pan with the start of the ride, then hold the camera still so that horse and rider exit out of the frame.
  
• Immediately find and frame them again and tape the rest of the ride.

By letting the action move out of frame, you create an edit point that allows you to cut from the empty screen and then cut back to the conclusion at any point in time you wish. The viewer won't miss the omitted footage.
Of course, you could also reverse the process, swinging the camera off the action and then allowing the subject to re-enter the frame. However, this is much harder in unrehearsed shooting because you can't be certain that you'll be able to frame your subject perfectly when he re-enters the frame.

As always, the editor's most powerful weapon is the cutaway, defined as any shot that doesn't include the main action. By distracting the viewer's attention, a cutaway between shots A and C conceals the fact that C does not match (or maybe even follow) A. You can use cutaways to:

• Shorten a shot by dropping the middle part of it.
• Lengthen a shot by repeating some of the middle part (say, to make a particularly bone-jarring bronco ride last longer).
• Buffer two shots whose action doesn't match.
• Fake together two shots whose content is entirely different.

For example, suppose shot A has a truly awesome surge of horse and rider out of the gate and shot C has an equally spectacular fall off a bronco (see Figure 1.) There's one trifling problem, however, because shots A and C show completely different mounts and riders! By separating A and C with cutaway B, you may be able to hide the fact that the two shots show different things.
The skill lies in getting useful cutaways. Yes, you can get generic footage like balloons rising up above the stands or team pennants flapping in the breeze. The trouble is, they don't work in every cutaway situation. For instance, in a ball game, this is okay:
A: The umpire calls strike two.
B: Peanut vendor working the bleachers.
C: Pitcher throws the next pitch.
But this is not:
A: The batter connects solidly and heads for first base.
B: Peanut vendor working the bleachers.
C: Batter now standing with one toe on first.
You're covering the fact that you missed the throw to first. Okay, it happens; but that generic cutaway is so irrelevant to the action that it only puzzles or even irritates the viewer. "Cut to the birds! Cut to the clouds!" is an old Hollywood gag satirizing that kind of desperate cutaway.

• Digg This!
• del.icio.us
• Technorati
• StumbleUpon
• Reddit