Beginning

[Dan_Pemberton]

Hi guys,

I'm starting work on my first short video project, which is a short 3 minute DVD celebrating the 50th anniversary of Wellington Airport. I've done the hard yards regarding sourcing historical footage, and have collected a great array of both stills and moving images covering 50 years.

I'm posting this because it would be great to have a springboard to the next step – the actual editing and compilation of this footage. For instance, we haven't decided if we use narration or captions to tell the story, and how the whole thing is linked together (cuts, fades, other techniques). Can anyone point me towards some examples of something similar to get me started? My training is mainly in graphic design and creative work, so time-based stuff is currently a bit unusual... but exciting.

Any advice or tips would be very much appreciated.

 

[indietalk]

 

[Uranium City]

Welcome! You might want to check out the documentaries of Ken Burns as a stylebook source...he mixes archival footage, still images, live narration and voice-overs. Granted, his films are typically 30 hours long and not 3 minutes, but it might spark something. In 3 minutes you probably don't want to eat up any time with on-camera interviews, so I would concentrate on marrying narration with your archival footage and stills.

Another idea might be to create a 3x5 index card for each one of your assets (film clip, still image, etc) and start laying the cards out to tell the story...visualize what will go well next to what to tell the story of the history of the airport. Once you've decided how to tell the story visually you can write the narration. I'd love to see the finished product, by the way...good luck!