**Trailer Editing** - Two-Person Project - Available Feb 23 - Film due Mar 1 on Glow in 720p MP4 format at 9am - Individual [self evaluation](selfevaluation.md.html) due Mar 1 on paper in class Cut a trailer from footage of a real commercial film. Tell a story and set the tone...which ideally will *not* be that of the original source material. Choose your own title for your imaginary film. As you work on the assignment, keep in mind your [Logic of the Trailer Essay](traileressay.md.html), the [New York Times article](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/02/19/movies/awardsseason/oscar-trailers.html?_r=0), and the recut trailers we've watched. In the credit frame, note the original film and its copyright to satisfy Fair Use and Honor Code provisions. We recommend that you begin by ripping your film from a DVD, watching it, and then making a "paper edit" noting interesting shots and the order to combine them. Then, go into Premiere or your favorite editing program to actually assemble it. You'll have a lot of cuts, often from disparate scenes. Smooth these over with continuity editing...as in "A Movie" (1958), proper editing technique can make even radical splicing understandable. Be sure to cut audio before video to help with temporal continuity, and consider just overlaying fresh audio across multiple shots with some minimal sound effects to anchor them. ------------------------------------------------------- I usually rip DVDs in Handbrake using: * Quality: Constant Quality * RF 19 (lower is better) * Encoder Preset: "very slow" (this is the most important setting! "slower" is better) * Audio: 128 or 160 bit I change the filename to end in ".mp4". Everything else I leave on the defaults unless I'm ripping a non-standard DVD with weird interlacing or resolution issues. When the result is blurry or blocky, I sometimes go back and force higher quality by choosing Quality: Average Bitrate 5000, 2-pass encoding, but usually the "Preset" and "RF" sliders will be sufficient. Most DVDs have both widescreen and 4:3 versions of the film on them...be sure to choose the correct one from the Title dropdown. When it isn't obvious which is which, I just rip one "chapter", look at it, and then go back and re-do the whole thing. In general, I recommend ripping a chapter to examine before committing to the whole film.