EDITING

We edited for two afternoons a week over a four week period, taking it in turns with JJ being the director and driving force.
The aim was to sell the DJ as a charismatic character of the street with street cred and a brand that will appeal. The other aim was to bring the gang to life as potentially violent and perhaps dangerous.



Because we had a big ratio of shots filmed to shots needed there was a lot of choice in what we used. We tried to use varied shots, moving from long shot, to mid shot, to close up, to big close up as Negus says in his list of conventions. This meant we kept changing the excitment of the story with shots not lasting much longer than two to three seconds and cutting to the beat.
We colour graded using adobe after effects in order to give the whole piece a seedy and gritty feel. Most of the piece used a mixture of continuity and discontinuity editing on final cut pro. One shot that was especially effective was the close up of a match being lit and a cigarette with burning ash, with the main character of the gang in the background signalling the danger that was to follow. We cut a shot of the main character in close up from side angles before and after the ash shot for greatened effect.



Another shot that was effective was the way we cut to a burning car as the music 'drop' ended and then we began again. This emphasized the drama of the burning car along with the sparks and the flames flickering.