Clip it!

       Hello readers, welcome to this week’s blog on our current progress on the editing of Offsides! Much work has been put into this film so far, from preparations, story, and the actors as well. However, what a film comes down to is not only your shots and angles, but how you can edit the film to weave the story as you please. Editing has such a vital role in making a successful movie. The transitions provide a specific flow of the story that is needed to perfectly express what type of tone and mood you want for your story during those scenes. Would you prefer slow or perhaps fast-paced, which is a question we directors ask ourselves during editing to exemplify the shots and story we had just filmed prior. My co-director, Davin, is in charge of accomplishing our vision on what the flow of the film should be like.

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Here we have three shots we had taken during filming, which involves a scene in which the two coaches interact on screen for the first time. Much of the transitions consist of simple cuts to the next shot to have a fairly neutral flow of passage during the movie. However, I do want to point out around use of smash cuts to change the pacing and intensity of a few scenes, such as when Ricky is staring into a mirror, then suddenly the shot changes with the slam of a bathroom door closing which he had just exited from. This interrupts the sound of the heartbeat and pure silence we get from the first scene in the bathroom and quickly throws the viewer into the situation he is faced with. 

Going back to that bathroom scene, we also implemented the use of fading from black to begin the film off, which instantly sets the quiet and slow-paced tone we want to achieve. It is effective and allows us to slowly provide the audience clips of Ricky feeling anxious and reflecting on his past failure with the football, which is occurring before his scrimmage football game today. 

The last transition I want to include in this blog is a pretty simple, but effective one where we have our actor come up close to the camera with his shirt completely taking up the frame. This allows us to clip in another shot where the actor begins to walk away from the camera , opposite to what they did in the previous clip. It allows a smooth transition from the bathroom straight to the field that allows for a proper jump in time to appear. 

To conclude, we intend to include as much thought into the editing as we have done for planning the film and its various shots. That’s all for this week, tune in next time to read about the supporting characters appearing in our film, Offsides, releasing next month at a theater near you!