Ukraine Project: Salt & Light

As many of you know I went to Ukraine this summer for three weeks, interviewing pastors and documenting their stories about growing up under the Soviet Union up through their current ministry. For more information about the trip you can read my earlier blog post here and here is a link to see pictures of the trip.

The past few months I've been busy editing and putting the stories together. This is the process I've been using:
1) Match the translation to the correct interview clips. Often I had the translator do two takes for each interview clip (and there are 5-7 clips that are 3-5min each) so I have to decide which parts are better and match it sound like all one clip.
2) Cut the translation down and down to around 13 minutes for each pastor, so that the story doesn't drag but still includes needed information.
3) Cut out all the "ums" and stammers and stutters from the translation and still make it sound natural and smooth
4) Make sure the actual visual part of the interview (handmotion, face expressions) matches what is being said by the translation
5) Start adding b-roll, and pictures that enhance and/or demonstrate what the pastor is talking about. I have footage I shot with each pastor of them at their church, Bible studies and just following them around for the day (approx. 30-45min), and then I also have over 3 hours of what I call "Ukraine B-roll" of misc. life, society and culture that I captured while traveling around.
6) Next I start adding music.
7) After a video is approved, I work on finalizing the audio and do the color correction.
Here's a screen shot I took the other day, you can click it to view a larger version.
The little sliver of a window in the very top left has the full list of video clips, music and other elements that I am using for the project. Next to it is the video window where I can add filters and customize the length of clips I want to use. (Each timeline is where I drag the clips I want to use and arrange them, fix audio, and actually do the editing.) The other three video windows are showing me clips from each of the three timelines down below. The beer bottle correlates with the top timeline of "Ukraine B-Roll," the church clip is from the middle timeline of "Pastor's B-Roll," and the clip of the interview is from the very bottom timeline where I am putting it all together!

I don't usually have that many windows open when I am editing, but for this project it helps save time from clicking back and forth when I'm trying to look through that much footage.
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