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Best way to edit jump cuts??
Hi. I’m fairly new to fcp(7). Right now I am working on editing some interviews. These interviews are meant to eventually be integrated into an interactive educational health video. So far they have all been filmed with just a floating head.
The problem I’m having is that sometimes an interviewee will say something, then pause or mumble for a while, then continue to speak. I need to edit out the long silence/mumbling and make the two remaining clips sound/look synched. This is more of a problem with fast talkers where I can’t get a clean edit point and the result is an unnatural cut.
I don’t have any B-roll to work with and someone suggested to do snap zooms during the interview where I may see potential jump cut problems. However, that would mean that the entire video would not be filmed with just floating heads like my boss specified he wanted. Any ideas or am I just going to have to do my best and work with what I have? Thanks! -
4 Replies
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If you had only one angle you’re gonna have jump cuts every time you edit some material out. If you decided on having this stylistic approach I see no reason to sweat it. Though, in my opinion, it’s always good to have enough coverage.
BTW, why duplicate posts.
Sony PMW-EX3, Canon Mark II 5D, FCS3 in Moscow
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The snap-zoom shooting suggestion was mine. BTW, I never meant to imply the actual zoom moves should be retained, though that is done sometimes. But it doesn’t help you once the footage is a “fait accompli” as it is.
When you say “floating heads” can you be more specific? Can you post a picture or sketch of the widest shot you have to work with, and the tightest? Or is it truly all one locked-down shot that never varies?
A style I picked up from watching 60 Minutes long ago is that you can zoom in super-tight, as long as the eyes and mouth are still in the frame, you can cut off everything else and the shot still works. Though you would want to reserve such a tight shot for something REALLY emotional and/or important, it wouldn’t be good to use it wall-to-wall.
If your heads are head-and-shoulders shots, you have a little more room to re-frame. Or you could do some 3-d moves. For example, a rotating cube, with one interview playing on each face. As the cube rotates, the view of clip “A” moves naturally out of sight as new clip” B” is coming in on the newly revealed face of that cube. The audio would lead each change, obviously.
This too is something you can’t get away with for too long, but some variations of PIP boxes can be used to physically move scaled-down frames around in the overall composition. How appropriate that is thematically to your needs, only you can say. I know nothing of the context or purpose of your program.
If your boss insists on all tight talking heads, he’s put you into a creative corner. Maybe you should put the burden back on him, as he obiously has some sort of creative vision for how he wants this to look. Give it to him. Then if it turns out he doesn’t like it, try the rotating cube or something, or re-shoot with more variety.
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I always make the first clip 100% scale, then do a hard cut to the next clip and make it 130% scale. Then on the next hard cut make it 100% scale again. It looks like you have a Camera A and Camera B when you do that. Best of luck.
Stephen Smith
Utah Video ProductionsCheck out my Motion Training DVD
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A little detail to consider is to try to keep the eyeline in the same place on screen (same horizontal line) when you do this kind of thing, for a smoother effect.
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