Great Big Minds: Inside the Rocket
VOL 4: POST PRODUCTION
This is the fourth installation of “Great Big Minds: Inside the Rocket.” Ever wondered how a startup digital media company operates? This series covers the different departments comprising Great Big Story and what aspiring pros can learn from them.
Buckle up while our teams of creative minds take you on a journey from inside the Rocket 🚀
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Meet Katia and Jessie — members of the edit team who help bring stories to life!
The Post Production team edits footage collected by the production staff and is responsible for sound editing, coloring, framing and more. Their goal is to ensure the producer’s vision is accurately captured while crafting a visually beautiful narrative for viewers.
What are the steps you take when given a raw footage?
Jessie: I receive the radio edited project from the producers, and my job is to fill in all the audio and visual components to make it a wonderful, amazing Great Big Story. I’d read the script and go through all the footage; the time can vary from an hour to 10 hours, and I have to boil it down to a 2–3 minutes story. To narrow down footage, I’d make my “selects”, which are really great shots that would be useful in telling the story. After that, it’s pretty much filling in the sequence with the best, visually stunning, and most relevant shots to enhance the story’s emotive power.
Katia: From producers’ given footage, I usually break the clips into sequences and make my selects. I like to first have all the footage laid out on the timeline, and the selects would be placed on a level above the timeline to distinguish themselves. We know that the intros are what grabs audiences’ attention, so I always think of what I can do to make the intros more interesting for videos to start strong and pull people in. I color-code clips that are fascinating and perfect for intro shots so I remember those are the ones. After that, for the most part, it’s just building the music and filing in the sequence. I also capture the tone of each piece to best match editing style to the story. For videos that are more touching and personal, I wouldn’t do split screens or ramp speeds; and for videos that are fun and quirky, maybe that style would be more appropriate.
What software do you use to edit a project?
Jessie: We edit in Adobe Premiere, and that’s primarily what we use for almost everything. It’s a good program for audio editing and coloring which we do in-house. Sometimes, we also use program like After Effects but usually the Art Department handles the more complex and stunning animations and graphics there.
Katia: We really just stick to Adobe Premiere, or sometimes After Effects to adjust video lighting. The main functions of Adobe Premiere are color grading and color correcting. When you are color correcting, you are bringing a flattened image to life by adding shadows, light, depth, and contrast. If you want to make your videos more stylized, you can grade the piece to be a certain way. Each video has a style and we really try to pump the saturation and contrast to make it look colorful and stand out.
How do you spice up videos and make them more engaging?
Katia: I love using epic wide shots especially in interviews and put someone focused in the center. I also really like editing studio pieces, where there are a lot of hand movements, and books flying across the table. I like doing fast edits, like flipping through a book. It’s very fun to play with. When you have all the ingredients , it’s fun to edit something in the Great Big Story style.
Jessie: I really enjoy picking music for the videos; we are fortunate to have access to a huge catalog of licensed music, so I get to search and pair clips depending on the tone and pair them with the perfect song. Music really enhances documentary pieces and its emotional effects.
How do you make sure a story is told in a smooth manner?
Jessie: As an editor, I use all of my senses when I edit, which the process becomes more emotionally intuitive. For me, it’s about getting the feel of it. I will try different shots and see what works best, and what makes clips flow the most. It’s one of those things you learn through experiences and practice. I use music to help transition from scene to scene. There are also basic tricks in editing, like if you are going to a new place, you can use an establishing shot. For instance, if you’re going to a school, you’d show the outside of the school as the shot, or a sign that says “school” rather than all of a sudden jumping to inside a school. Using a variety of focal lenses is a good technique too, like close ups, wide shots, zoom, etc. to diversify the viewing experience. My favorite video that I edited was the “Searching for Bigfoot” story.
The piece is very quirky and it’s about these guys who are so obsessed with bigfoot that they’d go out to look for it every year, but at the end of they day it’s really more about their friendship and their connection that they have with nature. I had so much fun playing with the timing and the music to go along with the story.
Katia: It’s very intuitive, and I’ve loved spending a great deal of time looking at the footage. Even if it’s overwhelming at times, you know you have all of the materials to make the best videos possible. When you keep editing, you will know what feels right, like if something isn’t cutting the right way, or when the edits aren’t visually compelling enough. I make sure to output all the possibilities to make videos look the best they can.
How did you get into Video Editing and what do you think about it?
Jessie: When I was in college, I took a documentary production class, and one aspect of it was editing. I would spend sleepless nights at my school editing and really loving it that I didn’t do work for my other classes. That’s when I knew “Oh, maybe I should try this [editing] career!” And throughout my editing career, I have done all aspects of video production from shooting, producing, to directing, etc. but I love editing the most because for nonfiction storytelling and documentary-style videos, editing is where you’re creating and helping write the story. Having editing skills are actually really helpful in other aspects of production. When you are out in the field, if you know how the whole editing process works, you know what you need to shoot and the footage should look like. For instance, if you are filming a conversation and one person is talking, you’d know to also get a cutaway shot of the person listening because in the edit, you will need to show the person listening as well! In general, editing helps to strengthen your overall skills as a storyteller.
Katia: I do think that editing is something you either like or you don’t. You need to have a lot of patience; I can’t stress enough how important that is. Editing to me is like my little space and it started in high school when I was on the news team. My favorite thing was to edit segments in the edit room the whole class. You really do have to commit to editing and like it.
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That’s all for this edition of Great Big Minds. Up next we’ll have a sit down with the PR department to discuss communications, media relations and more.
