Narrative dialog editing/Pop Quiz:Follow Dave


This school is
Narrative Film Production
This course is:
Fundamentals of narrative film editing
This lesson is:
A quick overview of narrative dialog editing
The pages of this lesson are:
Lesson Summary - What is dialog editing?
Lesson Page - "Follow Dave?" Editing Workshop CD
Lesson Page - Analyze the dailies
Pop Quiz - Guess how many takes? - 4 points
Lesson Page - Select an editing program
Lesson Page - Edit the scene


Pop Quiz - How many total film dailies from the scene "Follow Dave?"

What are "Circle Takes"?

Before you can take this pop quiz, you need to learn about circle takes.
Circle takes are the best takes for the scene. These are the takes that the director gives to the film editor. The other takes are ignored.
Procedure
When the director yells "Cut", the director must decide if she likes the take or not. If she likes the take, the director will also yell "Print it".
Then the camera person and the sound person circle the take numbers. This becomes a circle takes. These are the takes which are turned into film dailies. The bad takes are not turned into film dailies.
Look at the scene numbers
Now look at the scene numbers on each of the dailies in the scene called "Follow Dave?". You will see a scene number and a take number.
  • The scene number gets a new alphabet character after the take number for each different camera setup.
  • The take number increases with each filming of the scene (or filming of part of the scene.)
(If this is not clear, email me.)
Look for the missing numbers
Once you understand what the numbers mean, look for missing numbers. Do you see any gaps in the numbers? Those are the takes that the director did not think were good enough. These bad takes were not circle takes.
Now total up all the takes for this scene - the circle takes and the bad takes (the takes which were not circle takes.) This is the answer to the pop quiz!

The Pop Quiz

You get 2 points each for a correct answer to the following questions.

First question

  • How many camera setups were there? - 2 points

Second question

  • How many total takes (individual movie clips) were filmed for this scene? - 2 points

Email me with your answer.


Look here for the answers to the pop quiz!

1. These are the good takes.

2. The missing numbers are the bad takes.

3. Total them up. It's easy!

The next page

The next page looks at the editing programs which can edit the "Follow Dave?" Editing Workshop CD.

Contact your instructor

Your instructor for this film editing class is Robert Elliott. You can email me by clicking here.