postproduction

1. Post-Production Diary
BBC Documentary

2. Managing My Shot Footage
• All the footage shot on my iPhone 14 was moved to an SD Card so
that it could edited on a computer. A computer is required to edit
for this documentary as it is 4k footage and need more powerful
hardware to edit effectively.
• Editing on a computer will also allow for more appropriate
transitions and effects added to the documentary. Alongside this, I
can also fine tune the look of the image that I shot with my
iPhone, It can be changed by colour grading the image, this
consists of adjusting the contrast of the image and the balance of
different colours, to make it more accurate to how colours
interact in real life.

3. The Software I Used
• When recording the footage on my iPhone, I used the basic
Camera app on the phone to shoot. This is because I have
prior experience using the app and it was advanced enough
for the footage that I wanted to shoot. It had options to
select the resolution and frame rate of my footage. When
shooting, it also allowed for focus adjustments and
exposure adjustments, these two adjustments are vital to
the quality of my footage.

4. The Software I Used
• The main piece of software that I used to edit my project was Adobe Premiere
Pro 2023 as it was most compatible with my shot footage, I used 2023
specifically as it was the most supported version of Premiere Pro by adobe and
other versions of Premiere Pro had compatibility issues with the 4K footage that
I shot.
• I also used voice memos on the iPhone at some points to record voice overs for
the documentary, the reason I used the iPhone to record voice over is because
the microphone built in to the phone is very high quality and has a lot less
background noise than the Blue microphone I have at home. Using voice memos
also has the benefit of being easy to use.

5. How I Edited My
Documentary
• At the beginning of the edit, I arranged all the footage
in the order that I wanted.
• Using premiere pro, I began to cut up the clips that I
had arranged to make them make more sense and to
flow better throughout watching the documentary.
• When my documentary was further planned out, I
gathered a range of tiktoks to add to the intro to my
documentary, this is to create an impactful introduction
to the documentary.
• In the voiceover parts of my documentary which is
included at the beginning of the documentary as an
introduction, I added many effects to the audio to
improve the quality. This included a denoiser, vocal
enhancer and compression. The mix of these effects
makes my voice sound my clear and allows to have a
more consistent volume so that its easy to understand.

6. How I Edited My Documentary
• To make the transition between the introduction of
the documentary to the first chapter, I added an effect
alongside a beep, this makes it look like a film roll has
ended and a new one is starting.
• In the interview stages of the documentary, I made
sure that the documentary wasn’t boring when
watching this part. To avoid this, I added small
additions to the visuals when there is long points of
dialogue. Most of these additions were taken from
unused takes or extra footage that I have shot when
shooting for these interviews. One addition was me
zooming the camera into one of the students shoes as
a joke, which was taken at the end of one of the takes
that we shot, I took this and added it to the final take
to make it more engaging for the audience to watch.

7. Effects I used in
the Editing
Visual and Audio effects were added to
almost every element of my documentary.

8. Effects I used in the
Editing
• For all footage shown in the documentary, I have
adjusted the colours and contrast. This greatly
improved the image quality of the documentary
compared to the unedited footage. For most of
the footage I only slightly increased the saturation
by about 3-5% for most clips and increased the
contrast by about 50-65%.
• Like the voiceover parts of the documentary, I
added many effects to the audio, especially in the
interview part. Due to the interview being
recorded on an iPhone microphone in a room with
a lot of reverb, the audio quality was quite poor
before adding any effects to it. To reduce the
background noise and sounds of people moving
behind the camera, I added the Denoise filter
which removed these sounds from the recording.

9. Effects I used in the Editing
• Additional effects that I added to the documentary during the editing
process was transitions between select points in the documentary to
make it look and feel less awkward to watch. This is evident in the parts
where the question I am asking appears on the screen, the text slowly
fades off the screen and on to the footage of the student answering the
question, this makes the documentary much smoother and much less
distracting to watch.
• I added other transitions which is done by editing the way in which the
audio reacts with the image on screen. An example of this happening in
my video editing is when one of the students create an awkward
question, I then made the audio for the next student begin while the
image is still displaying the former student looking awkwardly at the
camera. This creates a comedic effect and makes the awkward moment
less awkward; it makes it seem more intentional.

10. Effects I used in the Editing
• In the edit, I also added many sound effects to the documentary.
One noticeable one is at the beginning of the documentary which
adds a suspenseful boom sound effect to the beginning which
backs up the dramatic and chaotic introduction, this helps to
quickly grab the audience’s attention. I’ve also added sound
effects such as beeps to censor profanity or to create the effect of
a new part of the documentary beginning. These sounds help the
documentary to feel more professional by using these sounds
which are prominent in high budget productions.

11. Techniques I used
• One editing technique I used to mask mistakes that I had done during
shooting was layering shots on top of other shots. This covered small
accidental camera movements during shooting, especially during the
interview parts of the documentary. In one shot, the camera had slid
upwards and back down again; during this I layered the shot of something
off screen to cover this mistake. The effect this has is to not distract the
audience watching the documentary.
• Another technique I used in the documentary was cutting it up in to
different segments. I have done this so that the documentary is much
easier to follow for the audience. I have tried to edit the documentary in
a way so that it doesn’t bombard the audience with information, the
result of doing this would make the audience “checked out” of the
documentary, making them uninterested in the documentary.