Visual Look
The editing in the film was very choppy and rough. Now, editing is an art form unto itself; it can change the feel of an entire film. It is incredibly hard to tell someone “how” to edit, because really, the best way to learn is to do it over and over and over. Sometimes just by switching the placement of two shots, you can make it more powerful or more funny. That’s hard to learn from a book or tutorial program. (However, there is an awesome training set on Cinematography that demonstrates what sorts of shots can be edited together which we’ve reviewed at MFM and highly recommend called, Hollywood Camerawork.)
Because the editing was so jerky, it was very distracting to watch. Sometimes, a scene of a person talking would be comprised of 3-4 shots from the same angle spliced together with very quick cross-fades, trying to make it look as though it was all done in one take. (The problem with this is that it is very apparent that it’s not one take, because the takes are all slightly different.) In other scenes, people or objects would move between cuts. (For example, Boy #1 is sitting on the ground; the camera cuts to Boy #2, who is standing; the camera cuts back to Boy #1, who is now kneeling with one knee on the ground.)
There are several basic things you want when editing: 1.) logical cuts (e.g. don’t cut from the main character to a random shot of a dog [unless it’s necessary to the story], and then back to the actor), and 2.) show the audience what’s important and 3.) have a smooth, well-presented story. You don’t have to have expensive video equipment or top-of-the-line editing software to do this. If all you have is Windows video editor, you can still put together a good-looking film (granted, you might not be able to do as much as you could with pro software, but it IS possible). But it takes practice. People are always making their own music videos on YouTube by editing together footage from other films, music videos, etc. That’s one way to get practice. Or you can get some of your friends together and make some 3-minute short films and practice putting those together. The way you get better is by doing it more!
Also, check out our articles on editing for more information about the more technical software aspects.
Audio Quality
The dialogue was pretty decent for the most part. Duenas used a $50 AudioTechnica shotgun mic on the film, which –while perhaps not giving the optimal sound quality—is definitely better than using the camera mic! (This IS microfilmmaking after all!) However, one of the big problems with the dialogue was that it was painfully obvious that several of the actors had their lines re-dubbed after the fact. There were two big giveaways: 1.) the sound quality changed (usually got louder) and 2.) the dub didn’t match up with the lips. While it can be hard to get good audio when working with very basic equipment, it is possible. If you don’t have access to a good quality shotgun mic or good sound editing software/equipment, here are a few ways to avoid these problems or fix them after the fact:
Change of sound quality: This happens because –in the case of “El Caniquero”—the dubbed dialogue was recorded in a different environment than the rest of the scene. Different environments have different sounds: room tone, reverberation, background sound, etc. If the scene takes place outside (such as the scenes with the kids), but the dub sounds as though it was done indoors, close to the microphone, it will be very obvious. The old way of doing this would be to put the voice actor in a similar environment (e.g. outside), and put the microphone at approximately the same distance away that it was in the original shot; then record the dub. In such a setup, the sound quality will match up much better, because the settings are similar. However, as it’s very difficult to record audio outside of some sort of studio setup and get it to sync up (which I go into next), most modern filmmakers dub in the studio in a silent environment. Then they apply post effects to make the audio sound like the rest of the outdoor sound. (For much more on this concept, check our article on setting up a low-budget ADR studio.)
