-
More Bricklayers and Sculptors from Oliver and Simon
-
[Oliver Peters] “In many docs, the editor is the de facto director and even writer. Yes, there may be a director in name, but it’s often the editor who shapes the story and does indeed make the decisions of what to keep and remove. And what to re-arrange to tell a cogent story. So yes, it is your call.”
That’s mainly my experience as well. I take on a producing/writing role as the editor and the director and/or producer expect me to know the footage better than anyone. They’ll of course have their ideas and input, but usually it’s more of a skeleton. They want to go from A to B to C, but exactly how to create a cohesive and compelling narrative path in order to get from A to B to C falls on me. Sometimes A to B to C doesn’t work so I have to know the footage well enough to be able to create a new order and a new narrative path. More than once we’ve been three months into an edit, hit a snag (or an epiphany) and back to the raw we go reanalyzing it in a way that wasn’t conceivable three months prior. This is a big reason why I love transcripts. It’s so quick and easy to go back and skim (or keyword search) though them long after memories of who said exactly what, when and where have faded.
That’s not to say I haven’t worked on projects where I basically walk into a waiting string out (or paper cut) and I never have to have a working knowledge of the raw footage, it’s just not typical for me.
[Walter Soyka] “When I was cutting full-time in FCP Legend, I spent a lot of time in the Browser. Like a hipster burning his mouth on his coffee, I was drinking metadata before it was cool. I subclipped the heck out of my footage. I used color-coding and scene/take columns and the Good Take checkbox. I wore out the Alt key on my keyboard scrubbing picons, then I freely switched to column view and pretended the browser was Excel. I gave myself fake smart collections with constant Find operations.”
I used to work very similar to that too, but I started drifting more towards subtractive editing when tapeless media became more popular. Someone might record 100 different shots to tape on a shoot, but when it got ingested you could do the whole tape at once and those 100 different shots would all be contained w/in a single piece of media. With tapeless you end up with 100 piece of media. When I was trying to figure out how to organize it all (renaming hundreds upon hundreds of clips every day or so wasn’t feasible) I had the idea of putting all the media shot to a card in its own sequence and treating that sequence like a tape (CamA01, CamA02, CamA03 etc.,). For me the switch from mainly additive to mainly subtractive wasn’t some sort of philosophical shift or ‘awakening’ it was just a pragmatic way to adapt to a changing post world. Over the years I just kept experimenting and refining my methods to best suit the work I do (which is almost exclusively doc/unscripted) and the manner in which I like to work.
It wasn’t until this thread that I really thought about how my approached to editing has changed over the last fifteen years.
-
I know you’re swamped. But a tutorial video would be awesome. Thanks!
-
[Richard Herd] “I know you’re swamped. But a tutorial video would be awesome. Thanks!”
A tutorial from both FCPX and Premiere Pro would be nice but an editing contest might be even better. Maybe the folks here https://www.lafcpug.org could do it.
They could provide clips, VOs and images that neither editor has seen and have them edit it on the fly while a few guest speakers talk. It seems like something that should have been done by now. They could output the computer screen of each editor to a projector while the guest speakers are talking. After the guest speakers are done let the two editors explain their techniques and thought process. They may not get a completed edit but it would be interesting to watch. Tutorials are nice but usually edited so that things can seem more fluid than they really are.
-
[Walter Soyka] “There’s a lot of emotion here”
I will try to tone it down Walter. Sorry for the miscommunication.
[Walter Soyka] ” I’m eager to hear more about how other people work so I can learn.”
That’s actually why I’m on here also Walter. That’s why I was asking people about their experience using this method on a
doc as a producer, and why I was getting a little frustrated. I’m not here for performance art.It seemed like people were speaking in theory instead of actual practice and I prefer to learn from the work.
-
[Oliver Peters] “There are about 12 interviews (multicam, double-system sound)”
That’s not the same thing. A multi-cam interview is of course going to be cut in the timeline. I think just about everybody does that.
I’m talking about a single cam interview that is 2 hours long that you only need 8 minutes out of.
-
[Brett Sherman] “But, you essentially have to make decisions twice about whether a clip belongs in the edit. In my editing process I work with what I think belongs in there. Cut what’s not working. When I don’t quite have what I need, I go back to the browser. I just find it faster that way.”
Yes
-
[Andrew Kimery] “So yes, it is your call.”
That’s mainly my experience as well. I take on a producing/writing role as the editor and the director and/or producer expect me to know the footage better than anyone. They’ll of course have their ideas and input, but usually it’s more of a skeleton. “
I thought about this later. I wrote, directed, shot and edited my film. I knew exactly what I was doing, but yeah you might be working with some clueless people that need you to help them tell their own story.
I would make your job easy because I would actually be……………directing.
-
[Jeremy Garchow] “With FCPX, I may keyword or mark the clips of a mini edit, put those clips in the Project and sequence them to my liking. Sometimes, if that mini edit isn’t working, I will snapshot the sequence and keep working, or more often, I will put those clips in a secondary storyline or compound, and disable them, and keep them attached to that place in the edit while I work on a new mini edit for that section. That way, it is nearly always in front of me. “
I think it could be said that what you are doing here is constructing editorial units on the timeline that don’t yet have a definitive home on the timeline.
Would that be a fair description?
In which case what you are doing in this instance is the same thing that I am doing, with the difference that you approach this as just one part of your overall editing strategy, whereas for me and others it’s the entire editing strategy.
You are sometimes editing “in context” but more often not, whereas we are editing in context all the time. I won’t belabour what I mean by this here because I covered it in a lot of specific detail in the article.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki -
[Tony West] “I’m talking about a single cam interview that is 2 hours long that you only need 8 minutes out of.”
I guess I don’t see the difference whether it is single camera or multicam. Assuming it’s not just a single 8 minute piece that requires no editing, I would still put this into a timeline first and cut it down for the 8 minutes I want. This would become an interim sequence to be used as a source for the (potentially) final sequence.
Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “I guess I don’t see the difference whether it is single camera or multicam.”
The difference is a multi-cam interview would have to be cut in a timeline and a single cam doesn’t. More efficient to use your browser.
[Oliver Peters] “I would still put this into a timeline first and cut it down for the 8 minutes I want. This would become an interim sequence to be used as a source for the (potentially) final sequence.”
and I wouldn’t. That’s the debate.
Each one of these people made the cut of my film. There are a few more that I couldn’t fit on screen and this is only half of the folks that were interviewed but you get the idea. You can’t name one of those people. You don’t know who any of them are or what they are talking about, their work history or ANYTHING about them. The only way you would know, is if you sat there “on the clock” and watched all of their interviews. I would never pay you to sit there and watch 45 hours of interviews. I wouldn’t pay you to watch b-roll footage that I shot myself. How would you possibly know more about footage that I shot myself. You would be told what’s going to be used, simple as that. The funny thing is, most editors complain about stuff not being logged because they don’t want to sit there and watch it all. I just don’t believe you are working with that many producer/directors who are that lazy or willing to waste that kind of money to have you log all of their footage for their films. So that’s why I’m giving you the side-eye.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up