PRODUCTION: PAPER EDIT RESEARCH

A paper edit is something I've heard of but never actually created as I've not edited together a documentary before. However, after speaking to me Documentary Tutor Helen, she explained that the entire point of doing the transcripts (which Jemma and Victoria are writing up) is to use them to create a paper edit which helps build the edit quicker and also helps to refer back to if later on you need to add in something from the interview and rather than going through all the interviews you can refer back to the paper edit.

Looking online I couldn't find a simple walk through that explains a paper edit, however I did find a 4 part guide on YouTube, although quite outdated, does explain what a paper edit is and how it'll help the edit and also how to make one.

The first video of this tutorial simply explains the importance of the transcribes and helps more for people who are paying the Editor as this can cost hundreds of pounds per hour. The video explains that the Editor will use the time codes on the transcribes and paper edit to quickly find sound bites which can take the longest time. For me, although I'm not being paid this will definitely help save time, so rather than searching through all the interviews to find the right sound bite I can easily just look at the paper edit, find the relevant sound bites and then focus on putting together the edit with the footage and working on the story of the film, which needs to be my main focus. 

A cut sheet is something I've never heard of before finding this tutorial but from the sounds of it, it'll be a gift for this edit. Going through the interviews and highlighting relevant sections and organising them into topics is similar to what I did for the footage in Prelude, organising and putting them into folders so I can easily find it, for the interviews, I'll then be able to find the relevant topics and sound bites that I'll need to match the script. 

This is probably the easiest step in the paper edit. Making the cut sheet for our paper edit will be nice and easy as all of our transcripts are going to be on our shared google drive. I'll likely print off all the transcripts and highlight them as the video suggested but then put together the cut sheet via google docs so Jemma and Victoria also have access to the document. 

I think the hardest part of this edit will be deciding on the topics to put it all under as every person was asked different questions and each did different events but that'll be a job for when I'm creating the paper edit.

When this video talks about choosing the sound bites, I feel this is more of a job for Jemma to do as she wants to decide on certain bites used in the documentary. However, she has already said she'll be going through the transcripts and choosing sections she likes so I'll be able to add those into my edit later on. 

Likely once I've put together the cut sheet I'll use the script to decide which sound bites I need and add those into a new document which I'll then use to assemble my first edit of the interviews.