Pacing, Timing and Rhythm

In film, Pacing, Timing and Rhythm is an often overlooked aspect of editing that can make or break a film's interest factor depending on how it's acheived.

Pacing
Pacing is the overall pace of the film, whether it's generally slow or generally quick; it reflects the overall feeling of the film. An Action film, for example, should have a fast pace in order to correlate to the expected onscreen action. Conversely, a Rom-Com should be more slower paced to fit in with the more intimate feeling of the film. Pace is dictated by how long shots last for on average and also how much action is shown within the cuts.

Breaking Bad is known for its slow pace; the first shot

of this clip lasts an entire 35 seconds.

Timing
Timing refers to how often the clips in a film are cut up. A conversational scene will naturally have less cuts to accommodate for its naturally slow paced feeling. A fast paced action scene, however, will include more cuts than your average scene in order to fit the pace of the action onscreen. More cuts means the audience is kept on their toes when watching something.

The rather erratic timing of the multitude of cuts within

this music video means the video isn't as dull as

it would be with longer shots.

Rhythm
The general rhythm is dictated by both of the above factors when editing a scene. Rhythm is where the cuts and pace are timed in a way that the audience can get a good feel for when the editor cuts during a scene. This allows the audience to get a grounded sense of both pacing and timing during a film; a good example of rhythmic editing is editing to the beat in a music video.

The cuts to the beat in this music video give the video

a sense of drive and rhythm throughout.

Colour Grading

In film production, Colour Grading is a post production process which involves enhancing the colour of the images onscreen in some manner. This can range from subtle differences, such as White Balance, to a stark change in colour (blue to red).

Example of Colour Grading, Transporter 2

Often when filming a scene, the shot will not look exactly as we had pictured in our minds. Camera quality itself and lighting can make all the difference during production, but these can be remedied in the editing process. Adobe Premiere Pro is able to support a plug in that delivers colour correction, as shown in the image above.

Another colour grading example.

Even higher end cameras can be enhanced with colour grading. As you can see here the quality of the image is superb, but the lighting is flat and doesn't set the mood of the subject. The colour grader has enhanced the image by heightening the contrast, darkening the overall image and saturating the colours within the shot. This has made for a more dramatic looking, and potentially painting-esque shot that appears far more cinematic than its previous incarnation.

In conclusion, what I have learnt about colour grading is that it can make a drastic difference to the overall mood and appearance of your film project. No matter if you have a low quality camera, or a professional standard one, colour grading is essential for making your images more cinematic and less lo-fi.

Editing Project

During our first week of Film Production Technology, we have been tasked with taking stock footage of a windsurfer flipping his board on the water. The specific criteria for this production was to make it as interesting as possible throughout, and also make the video exactly 30 seconds long.

To start my video, I created my own title to introduce the video's content. I faded the title in and out for a seamless look, rather than making it look choppy with a basic cut.

Title on Timeline with music fading with it.

Title being edited on Title Window.

The final title in its final form.

Adding music was essential. because using just the camera's audio would have made for a messy audio mix in the final video. To remedy this, I edited some music into the timeline, and cut my videos to the beat of the song. This made it more interesting as connecting each beat to a new cut adds variation of shots and makes the video more rhythmic.

This is the audio on my timeline; no camera audio is included.

The cuts in my video are synchronous to the beats of the song.

Fades are included at the beginning and end to save abruptness.

I had to lower the volume on my music as it would have clipped

in its final version.

Adding so many quick cuts to the beat shortened my video to way below 30 seconds. This problem was solved by adding in the flip being performed in just one shot. To make it more interesting, I faded the flip to black and white/monochrome, then rewound the video to the beginning before introducing the slow motion effects that are seen throughout the quick cuts.

I used Calculations, then made its Second Layer

fully opaque to achieve a black and white video.

The black and white result.

Reverse Speed was used to rewind the video.

I sped it up to 250% to cut to the beat.

I slowed my quick-cut footage down to 20% to

make the shots more interesting to observe.

Final Video

https://vimeo.com/184358549

First Production - Taken Spoof

I started university on the 12th, for a welcome week, and we were shown the ropes on how to use a high-end camera, boom pole and Premiere Pro CC 2015.

With these three elements, and my prior experience with Premiere Pro in college, I collaborated with three other students to make a spoof of the famous phone scene from Taken (2008).

https://vimeo.com/182841234

Credits:

• James Dibden - Bryan Mills
• Joseph Peddie - Director
• Harry Barden - Camera Operator
• Kyle Oldfield - Boom Operator
• Written by - James Dibden
• Edited by - James Dibden, Harry Barden, Joseph Peddie, Kyle Oldfield