The software that I used to edit together the footage was Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, a program that I was not particularly experienced with, but had gained some knowledge of while working on the edit for our preliminary task. My use of the program was aided significantly through the use of YouTube video tutorials and other online resources, as well as my prior experience with Windows Movie Maker. Granted, though, Premiere is a vast step up from Movie Maker, and therefore I had to adapt to the layout and functionality of the software.
Editing began with the long and arduous process of sifting through the hours of footage shot on the day, and determining what takes were to be kept or discarded. It was then up to me to decide which takes were best for use in the final opening, based on a number of factors, such as actors' performances and the quality of the camerawork and image.
The clips were then imported into Premiere, where I made the annoying discovery that the format of the files meant that it was impossible to play correctly and at the right frame rate. Working on each of the scenes, one by one, I produced a rough edit of the opening, making cuts frame by frame, without much inclination of what it would look like played back. I would then exported the video, slightly longer than our intended run time, at 24fps down from 50fps (as this is industry standard as well as easier to work with) in the format most easily accessible and usable - MP4. This exporting process took several hours due to the low performance of my laptop, however I got on with other stuff.
This resultant video clip was then imported into a new project, where I viewed the footage (without sound - this audio will be done separately and then added) and made any corrections to awkward cuts that were not easily visible during initial editing. I then began colour correcting to ensure all the clips had a similar look to them and followed this with color grading to make them look more cinematic in appearance.
I used video tutorials such as this to help me:
The sound editing will be explored in a later post, and I will be making plenty of further edits to the opening over the coming weeks to ensure it is of the highest standard.