1st Day of Editing Evaluation

What went well: 

• On the the first day of editing, all the clips from my first day of filming were easy to access. Although this seems like a simply and customary thing, I had great difficulty finding the clips for weeks, therefore I feared that I had lost the footage and that I would have to film the footage again. However it was a much simply process than I thought, as all I had to to do was plug in the camera via USB wire. 
• Considering the fact that as part of my AS coursework I had to use Final Cut Express, I didn't have an in depth knowledge on how to use it. Because of this, I feared that it would be greatly time consuming to get to grips with how to use it correctly. However, with assistant from my teacher as well as a fellow student, I was capable of using it to a high standard within the second day of filming. This came as an advantage as it saved a reasonable amount of time and allowed me to crack on with the editing process immediately. 
• Although I did not completely finish them, I was able to make a start on the opening scene and the scene that followed later on in the documentary. It proved to be a little difficult due to the fact that I haven't quite developed a clear storyline/ scene plan yet, therefore if you were to watch the documentary so far, it would look a little unorganised. However I was able to collate some shots and audio material to create some scene that will certainly end up looking good in the future. This is a benefit as it cuts out a bit of time in the future and will allow me more time to make further improvements to ensure the overall quality of my documentary is the highest. 

Problems I encountered: 

•  I struggled to locate exactly where the videos were and how to access them. Prior to finding them, I had saved them on a memory stick due to the fact that the MTS files were not compatible with the Mac computers. After realising this, I then tried to open the files on my own personal laptop with iMovie, however I discovered that I had to convert them al to mp4 files in order to be able to upload them onto Final Cut. This worked however it was very time consuming having to keep converting every file one by one. However eventually my teacher advised me to just bring my camera in with the USB cable and it should automatically convert the files so that they were comparable with Final Cut Express. This was extremely inconvenient as it I simply couldn't start the editing process until I had the videos uploaded onto Final Cut. This was very time consuming and frustrating as I one point I thought I had deleted the videos and that I had to film hem again. 
• With Final Cut Express, whenever you put a new piece of footage, sounds, editing transition or anything new that was present before, it requires rendering in order to be able to watch it back and see how it looks in amongst the rest of the documentary. Rendering isn't the quickest of process, and in total this week, waiting for videos to finish rendering occupied approximately half of the editing time. This was a problem as it took so much unnecessary time out of my editing, and I believe that I would have completely a larger amount of editing if i didn't have to render every footage. 
• As briefly mentioned earlier, certain features of my documentary were difficult to edit due to the fact that is was hard to establish where what part of the documentary it was. Distinguishing what should come before and after was hard as half of the footage hasn't been filmed yet, therefore understand how things need to be transitions was difficult. In future editing stages, I hope to have majority/ all of the footage so that it easier to understand what scene is what in correlation to the rest of the documentary. 

Overall I'd say the first stage of editing was promising an that it should become easier and better in the future. I had not developed a specific idea as to how everything should be edited as it frees space for spontaneous ideas. This was my first experience one to one with Final Cut Express, therefore just like anything else, the more editing I do, the better my skills will be and the final result will improve gradually. By the time I next sit down to edit more footage, I hope to have filmed more footage so that the storyline can develop more and the overall feel becomes clearer.