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Utilizing an assistant for feature film
Hello:
I’m about to start cutting a feature, and I’m wondering if other editors with experience in low-budget feature film can give me some advice about working with an assistant. Beyond ingesting, synching rushes and tracking the Cinema Tools database as the rushes pour in, how do you make use of your assistant? Do you find there is a certain period that you need them, and then once you’re in the thick of cutting you don’t? I’m used to doing most things on my own. I’ve cut one feature prior to this, and only used assistants for the production phase.
Any real-world experiences/stories/advice welcome.
Best, JIM.
OSX.4.10
Dual 2.7 G5
3.5 GB RAM
Radeon X800 XT
Kona 2 / K-Box
Seritek 1.5 TB RAID
AVID XPRESS PRO/MOJO -
3 Replies
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Some of the work during cutting can be:
babysitting visitors by showing them footage, exporting and encoding to make DVDs, building all the temp mixes for showing those polished rough cuts, coordinating VFX if you have any, finding temp sound fx, creating various approaches to trailers, splitting dialog as sound edit prep, coordinating FTP transfers from composers, backups, checking script super notes when issues arise over coverage, creating sophisticated DVD templates from exported stills with photoshop, testing sound conformation to sound edit system, warning when producers have been spotted lurking, potentially cutting or assembling scenes, etc.
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To summarize what Steven said, you focus on the storytelling and the AE does everything else. 😉
You can also put the AE in charge of any daily back-ups that need to be made (one for on location and one off location such as a remote FTP) and daily preventive maintenance on the computers. Cocktail, for example, is a handy little app to have.
https://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/cocktail_maintain.html
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Hi Steven & Andrew:
Thanks so much for your thoughtful responses. I’ve decided to hire an assistant and I look forward to sharing the workload with them — it will be a great learning experience all round!
Best, JIM.
OSX.4.10
Dual 2.7 G5
3.5 GB RAM
Radeon X800 XT
Kona 2 / K-Box
Seritek 1.5 TB RAID
AVID XPRESS PRO/MOJO
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