Editing your 60 Second Shakespeare
 You've finished your filming or recording - now you need to put it all together into your final masterpiece.
Here's some tips, hints and advice to help you edit your 60 Second Shakespeare.
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General
Make sure you've got everything you'll need
You're going to need editing software, a computer and possibly a few other bits and pieces. Check the Getting Started section to make sure you're fully kitted out.
Establish your scene and characters
If your audience don't know who they're watching/listening to or where it's all taking place, they'll get confused and then bored.
Be organised
A list of which bits from each take you liked and might use will come in very handy.
Telling the story should be your first priority
Technical wizardry and fancy effects can help tell it, but don't let them sidetrack you.
Consider captions and voice-overs
If you need to quickly get over a lot of information, and can't do it with the shots or audio you have, try using a caption or voice over. This can be particularly useful for explaining jumps between places or times. For example, a caption saying "Twenty years later..." can save a lot of effort!
Try to make each scene more or less the same volume
If some are louder than others, adjust them until their volume until it matches.
Film
Keep it variedCut (i.e. switch between) different types of shots together for a more exciting final film. Try going from a wide shot to a close up , for instance. For more on this, take a look at a guide to different types of shot.
Set the pace
Simply put, lots of cuts = a film with a fast, exciting pace. Fewer cuts = a slower, more thoughtful film. The average TV show has a cut every four seconds or so. Too many cuts, though, can be very confusing, as well as a bit headache-inducing.
About transitions
Transitions, or effects that take you between one shot and another, will be included in most video packages. Common ones include dissolves between pictures, fades from pictures to black, and wipes where one picture slides across another. They're well worth taking a look at, but beware! Fancy dissolves can look good, but if you overdo them, they'll look really cheesy.
About effects
Video packages will usually come complete with various effects you can add onto your film, such as colour changes, slow-motion, blur, motion and so on. It's well worth experimenting with these to see if they'll improve your film, but don't add on effects just for the sake of it.
Audio
Cutting between scenes in audio
To make it clear the scene is changing, fade the first scene down to silence, then fade in the next scene. You will need a little gap, otherwise your audience won't realise what's happened. To make scene changes clearer try adding in different background ambiences to each scene.
Avoiding clicks
Make sure you don't cut the start or end of a word off when editing. It'll cause a click or just sound plain weird.
Fade-in and fade-out each individual clip. They should quickly increase to the volume you want at the start, and do the reverse at the end. You can make the fade so quick you can't actually hear it. Without a fade, edit points may well make a clicking noise.
The sound of silence
If you want a silent moment in a scene, such as between two short clips, take a silent moment from your original recording and edit that in.
If you just leave a gap or turn the volume down to silent, it will sound strange, because that moment won't have the same background ambience as the rest of your piece.
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