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Back to FCPX From PP (Rant)
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PS Bill Davis — re FCP X “not broken” from the beginning — a blast from the past from Conan O’Brien’s editors who also thought it was “perfect” from the start
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxKYuF9pENQ
Andy Field
FieldVision Productions
N. Bethesda, Maryland 20852Some contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!This happens because the functionality/content marked as “Google Youtube” uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “I find it’s rare that a project, especially longer projects, remain the same as the script. “
I find it surprising that anyone here thinks narrative films are strictly based on the script. That almost never happens. As the saying goes, there are three films: the film as written, the film as shot, and the final product after post. Sometimes these are close and sometimes they are quite different.
I worked on one film where the single most important scene (a small one, but it set up the main character’s motivation) wasn’t filmed. We had to completely re-arrange things and add voice-overs to fix the situation, otherwise it would have never made any sense.
If a final version of a film were totally based on the script, the picture would be locked a week after production wrapped. 🙂 Instead, films often take 9 month or longer in post, including a DGA mandatory 10 week minimum for the director’s cut.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “I find it surprising that anyone here thinks narrative films are strictly based on the script.”
I don’t think anyone is saying that narrative editing is a paint-by-numbers affair where nothing changes after the writer finishes the script.
[Oliver Peters] “I worked on one film where the single most important scene (a small one, but it set up the main character’s motivation) wasn’t filmed. We had to completely re-arrange things and add voice-overs to fix the situation, otherwise it would have never made any sense.”
I think this is more in line with what the sentiment is. If the script is well written and well shot then you minimize the amount of ‘fix it in post’ that has to happen. The editor(s) can spend more time editing and less time rewriting in order to fix plot holes, production short comings, etc.,.
Even for doc/unscripted projects production still has to at least have a premise for what they are doing (who/what am I filming, why am I filming, etc.,) otherwise you’ll just end up with hours and hours of aimlessly record footage and interviews that have nothing to do with each other. And at some point you should still end up with a script/paper edit as a starting point before you dive into editing, IMO. On reality shows story producers will basically be writing the script during production and hand it off to the AE’s who will create a string out for the editors to start working with. Will there be changes once editing starts? Of course (especially if it’s episode 1 of season 1), but the starting point of editing is a script and as the show goes on the scripts will get better and the amount of rewriting in the editing will go down drastically (network notes notwithstanding). No one is going to hand the editors thousands of hours of footage and say, ‘have at it’.
Last year I worked on a historical doc and the script was 95% done before my first day on payroll. The director/producer had a premise of the doc, did the interviews accordingly, had them transcribed, and cut them into a script along with VO. Were some changes made during the edit? Of course, but the edit wouldn’t taken significantly longer if we were trying write and edit the documentary at the same time.
In narrative someone writes a script and actors perform it for the camera and in unscripted people ‘perform’ in front of the camera and then someone writes a script based on that. The more I work on long form unscripted pieces the more I appreciate having a script to work off of if for no other reason than I know that someone has already gone to the effort of looking through the footage and created a first draft as a starting point.
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[Andrew Kimery] “If the script is well written and well shot then you minimize the amount of ‘fix it in post’ that has to happen. The editor(s) can spend more time editing and less time rewriting in order to fix plot holes, production short comings, etc.,.”
I don’t think it’s usually a matter of fixing. Most films need a certain amount of experimentation. Often a written story requires a lot of details spelled out so that the story is clear. In a film one often finds that some of what was written and filmed is no longer needed. Or it reveals too much and tells the audience too much, too early.
A recent example is “Steve Jobs”. I would imagine Sorkin’s script was pretty buttoned up. Yet, in edit, they developed the construct of the interstitial elements between the three events of the film. This was needed to make the story feel like it flowed as a whole, rather than 3 different stories.
Alan Heim tells this story in “The Cutting Edge” documentary about the film “Lenny”. That film is about the comedian Lenny Bruce, which Heim edited. They decided to cut the whole last reel. When Bruce is convicted in court, they cut straight to his suicide, dropping all the in-between material.
It’s these sort of things that elevate a film in editing to be better than what is written in the script.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “I find it surprising that anyone here thinks narrative films are strictly based on the script.”
Come on now. We all know the first cut with a 4 hour running time is what makes it to screen!
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[Oliver Peters] “I don’t think it’s usually a matter of fixing. Most films need a certain amount of experimentation.”
I think most projects need both but the amount of each can be indicative of how well (or poorly) pre-production and/or production were executed. I’ve worked on projects that were well put together and I spent the majority of my time wearing my ‘creative editing hat’. I like wearing that hat a lot. Other projects I’ve worked on were not very well put together and I spent the majority of my time wearing my ‘fix it in post hat’. I don’t like wearing that hat very much.
And how much fixing can be done in post depends on the size and types of the problems being faced. In your example of a scene not being shot it sounds like you were able to fix it in adequately post. On the flip side, Peter Jackson being forced to shoot parts of The Hobbit without a script wasn’t a problem that could be adequately fixed in post. And there’s of course ‘happy accidents’ where victory is snatched out of the jaws of defeat. All projects, and all problems are different as we all well know.
[Oliver Peters] “Alan Heim tells this story in “The Cutting Edge” documentary about the film “Lenny”. “
Interesting that you reference Lenny Bruce as I cut a documentary about him a few years ago (just a niggle but his death was an OD, not a suicide).
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[Oliver Peters] “Most films need a certain amount of experimentation. Often a written story requires a lot of details spelled out so that the story is clear. In a film one often finds that some of what was written and filmed is no longer needed.”
Yes. It is misleading to think that a scripted drama requires little editing, hence software features that facilitate quick rearranging, skimming, etc. are not important. Maybe the “limited editing” thing was more true in the past, esp. on filmed TV dramas which had a 10:1 shooting ratio.
Even during the film days an editor would sometimes totally re-create the film. A notable example was “The Night They Raided Minsky’s”, when editor Ralph Rosenblum worked for a year in post to fundamentally re-make the film. All the work he did was not in the script. This was documented in the book “When The Shooting Stops …The Cutting Begins”. What he would have given back then for our modern tools.
Oliver you have written about post-production on “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. That film had a 200:1 shooting ratio and 443 hours of material. There was a script but I understand a huge amount of experimentation took place during the edit to shape the film. This was not purely technical work about what take looked better but creative brainstorming about what kind of movie they wanted — after it was shot. All those examined permutations were not scripted — it was creatively discovered during the edit. The gigantic shooting ratio essentially allowed re-shaping the tone and feel of the movie. Is that correct?
The point is this same technology is now available for everyone, so it’s no longer accurate to think a script somehow eliminates the need for major experimentation in post. And that is for scripted narratives — with docs it’s even more so — the story is often discovered during the editorial process.
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[Andrew Kimery] “(just a niggle but his death was an OD, not a suicide).”
Correct. My mistake.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Joe Marler] “you have written about post-production on “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. That film had a 200:1 shooting ratio and 443 hours of material. … … The gigantic shooting ratio essentially allowed re-shaping the tone and feel of the movie. Is that correct”
I don’t know the answer. Part of the high shooting ratio might simply boil down to Fincher’s aim for perfection. You can certainly never take the director out of the equation. I don’t know whether this was designed to make more options available in post or not.
Fincher comes from a music video background and I believe that informs his choices as a director. Compare that to Eastwood, who comes from a scripted TV and low-budget (Leone) film background (as an actor) and you’ll find two completely opposite approaches. Both are equally valid and successful.
Part of the equation with ratios is shooting multiple cameras versus single camera. The claim is that shooting a scene with two or more cameras cuts down on shooting because you cover more angles. I actually haven’t found that to be the case. Seems like you only get 25% useful footage out of that second camera angle and take up a lot more time, storage and effort in post. Not to mention, additional time in production staging and blocking for the other angles.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Joe Marler] “es. It is misleading to think that a scripted drama requires little editing, hence software features that facilitate quick rearranging, skimming, etc. are not important. Maybe the “limited editing” thing was more true in the past, esp. on filmed TV dramas which had a 10:1 shooting ratio.”
Precisely.
On top of the scripts which can be shot with multiple plot lines and endings, due to the advent of “cheap” digital cameras that can roll “forever”, shooting ratios and the amount of camera per production have skyrocketed. Therefore, you need a tool that will help you amass, categorize, simultaneously view, and edit all of that footage.
I was just part of a low budget independent movie production and they were shooting on 3 Alexas.
As director, how can you watch three cameras at once and make a valid decision on set? You can’t, so you do a lot of takes and have a lot of options in editing.
There’s no doubt having a well written script can help, but it’s just not that tidy all of the time.
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