Chloe Lashley

Editors Journal
The role of an editor is as vital as the role of the cinematographer and director; they
all share equal importance. The editor is responsible for collecting the raw footage in
order to create a narrative for the audience to follow. As the editor, I had to ensure
that I encapsulated the vision of the director as well as refer back to the script to
ensure that the clips are in the correct order of appearance.
Why did I choose to adopt the role of an editor?
I chose to be the editor because I held this role throughout AS Level and therefore
have gained experience from using complex editing software such as Final Cut Pro
X. Last year, I found the role of an editor challenging and I was enthusiastic to face
them again; this is simply because I was able to successfully work through these
challenges. I am creative person which allows me to see and interpret things
differently to others, therefore I knew that I could add originality to our production. To
add, I value spending large amounts of time on work if it helps to receive a more
desired outcome; this is an important part of the role as editing requires patience and
determination editing can be a long process to endure.
What did I do as the editor?
As the editor, I looked at the short films of previous students that decided to execute
the same genre as us. This proved to be useful as I was able to gain inspiration and
observe how the editor manipulated the colour within the scenes as well as used
other editing techniques. I took notes on a particular production that I watched
because they captured the continuity correctly despite the fact that the narrative was
not linear. This interested me because it related to our production. After watching this
short film, it became clear that I would need to incorporate time stamps within our
film in order to ensure and reinforce the audiences understanding.
Due to my previous experience, I was aware that the editing process can be
stressful. Using this knowledge, I decided to make the workload easier for myself by
starting to create the credits before my group began to film. In order to do this, I
collated the names of our actors as well as the names of the characters that they
played. Deciding to start on the credits before I received any footage proved to be
easier, it also worked in my favour as it gave me more time to explore different styles
before making my final decision. For example, I initially decided on a particular font
but after more consideration, I chose another style that was better suited to our
production because I had the time to do so.
After this stage, I began to review the footage before roughly placing them on the
timeline in order. I did this for two reasons in particular: to establish whether certain
scenes needed to be filmed again and to distinguish between outtakes and genuine
footage to be incorporated in our production. It transpired that a few scenes needed
to be filmed again and more footage needed to be collected from the scenes that
had previously been filmed. I suggested for my group to film the scenes again at this
stage as opposed to coming back to it as capturing a substantial amount of footage
for a five minute film may mean that they run out of time and are unable to do so.

Chloe Lashley
What changes did I make?
As the role of the editor occurs during the post-production process, I made many
changes that impacted the final outcome.
The first thing that I had to adjust was the speed at
which our protagonist walks. Originally, the speed of
Eves walk varied between each clip; this was an issue
because her walk through the park was supposed to
show continuity and show the audience how she got
from one place to the next. To solve this problem, I
either slowed the clip down by 10% or sped it up to
110%. This helped the action on screen to look more
continuous and avoid confusion for any viewers.
As our production is a dramatic thriller, the colouring of
the scenes needed to be changed in order to implement the thriller side of the genre.
To create a dull atmosphere throughout the film, I was able to manipulate the
colouring of one scene and apply the same to all; I created this colour through
dropping the opacity and brightness. For the flashback scenes, a specific colour
needed to be placed over the scenes to support the audiences understanding.
Therefore, I used a combination of strife and combat together to create the correct
colour.
In the bathroom scene containing the disturbed character Damion, I thought that it
would be more effective to externalise his deranged mindset. In order to this I
created an overlay of the footage. This created a blurred effect and gave the
impression that his character appeared multiple times on screen. To further
emphasise the erratic nature of his character, I sped up the parts when he was
pulling down his face to make it look more frantic.
As our production contains multiple different locations, the lighting levels varied in
each. For example, the final scene that displays the abusive character besides his
girlfriend had low levels of lighting in comparison to the scene of the protagonist in
her bedroom. Both of the scenes take place indoors but had different lighting levels,
this meant that I had to firstly balance the colours across the clips before matching
the colours of scenes. In relation to adjusting the colours, I had to change the opacity
of some of the clips as changing the colour of the whole clip often adjusted the
colour of the character within that scene; this was necessary to in restore the original
colour of the characters.
Before the first flashback begins, there is a shot of Myles gripping onto his girlfriends
hair. This was originally a long shot but the Director wanted it to be changed into a
medium shot or a close up. In order to do this, I selected the clip and cropped it to
the desired size where the character could be seen from the torso upwards. Doing it
this way allowed me to zoom into the clip.
For the narrative to flow better, I added transitions in particular areas. As the
narrative was entering or leaving a flashback, I made the action fade to white. To do
this, I dragged the colour white onto the timeline and added a cross dissolve on

Chloe Lashley
either side to allow a fade to occur. In other areas, a fade to black was more
appropriate. For example, in the final scene before the credits are seen.
Also, I detached and disabled audio to allow for non-diegetic background music to be
added as well as the voiceover. All of the audio from the clips throughout was
removed apart from the scene when the protagonist is in her bedroom so the
audience can hear her breathing rapidly.
What problems did I encounter and how did I overcome them?
When the footage was originally given to me, many of the clips contained
overexposed lighting as the lighting levels of the locations was low. It became difficult
to edit around the overexposed light, especially when it came to changing the colour
of the scenes. For example, it was clear that the character Emel had a bright light in
her face whilst the camera was filming her. As she has a pale skin tone, many of her
facial features seemed to disappear in the light. It became a challenge as when I
adjusted the opacity on her face, the background appeared to be too bright. I found a
solution to this problem by matching the colour of this shot in particular to a darker
scene, which brought back her characters original complexion.
Another issue that I faced was getting the colour of the scenes correct. I attempted to
create my own effect to go over the top of the flashback scenes. I used a
combination of strife and combat with the vignette effect around the corners.
However, as all of the flashbacks needed to have the same effect to support the
audiences understanding, it transpired that the effect was not fitting to all; it made
some of the scenes appear too dark. I overcame this issue by simply using strife and
combat together.
Lastly, there were times when the footage appeared to be missing from the timeline,
which proved to be frustrating. Also, this was time consuming as it required me to
research how to fix the issue as well as actually fix it.
Did I enjoy being an editor and would I fulfil this role in the future?
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the role of the editor because it allowed me to act upon
my creativity as well as challenge myself to overcome problems. It is nice to know
that I made a contribution to the end product of Replica and I would fulfil such a role
in future productions.