What programs should a student learn to be valuable?

[Tom Sefton]

Everything.

Not just program’s either. Learn everything there is to learn from pitching an idea to writing a script, to switching the camera on and finishing the edit. Then learn how to deal with clients – when times are great, when they won’t pay, and when you don’t have clients.

Good luck!

[Matthew Brotchie]

Thanks for the Reply, here’s my reel. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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[Mark Suszko]

Learning Photoshop and AE are basics now, expected things. The specific NLE in my opinion isn’t as important as knowing how to actually cut stuff. I would say, a well-rounded liberal arts background with some study of humanities, gives you the vocabulary of images and ideas to be able to work in this business effectively. Take some art appreciation/art history. Take some music appreciation, some photography. Take some graphic art and design theory, so your graphics won’t suck, and so you know what’s wrong with other’s work. Take a film history/appreciation class. Take some physics or chemistry.

Then take some business classes: accounting and marketing and business law.

Based on my own observations of our youth today, they could stand to learn to use a word processor first. Horrible, sloppy communication skills, full of errors and unorganized thinking. People today write more than ever, only, the manner in which they do it with texting and facebook and tweets is corrupting and mutating their grammatical and compositional skills.

English, do you SPEAK it?

So much of this job involves client contact and communication. You are the interface betwen what the client wants and what the technology can deliver. You are the intermediary.

Here’s another thing I’m telling the kids that tour my shop.
Kids don’t know what they ultimately want to be, and that’s okay. Used to be society kind of demanded you have that all figured out by senior year of high school. Who’s really smart enough or prescient enough to make that choice at that age? Here’s why maybe it’s not as critical as we used to think:

In the 21st centurey (today) you can expect to have five entire careers by the time you are retirement age. Not five jobs, I mean, five distinct careers, each with it’s own educational requirements and perhaps licensing needs. You never get done with school in this context, if you want to find meaningful and lucrative work. “Editor” may not be the last or only career you have in your life. Think about how the parts all fit together, keep learning new things, be adaptable. Don’t let the job define you or be your only source of identity. Be the best “you” you can be, find what you like to do, then find people that will pay you to do that. The rest kind of falls into place. If you’re still an editor 20 years from now, it might be a rare thing. People may walk up to you to touch you, to see if you’re real.

[Matthew Brotchie]

Thanks for all the advice Mark, I will take it all to heart. Here’s my reel, your feedback would mean a lot to me. Thanks!

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[Mark Suszko]

The “Adult Swim”-inspired opening and closing titles made me smile. Reminds me that I’m yearning for more Veture Bros. They’re up a few beats too long; get on with it.

If it was me, I’d take the time to motion-stablize the handheld camerawork in the piece where the couple is in bed. The shakycam adds nothing and just distracts from the quietude. Your DOP shot the love scene so darn dark, or maybe it’s the encoding, but it makes “The Godfather” look like it was lit with kliegs. Can you play with the grading to bring out a *little* more there? And maybe turn up the tempo of jump cuts in that sequence as it progresses.

A lot of demos like this feature “thin” audio. I would do some work on sweetening that audio overall, and making it fuller, more present, with less ambience coming thru. Some parts of the two guys talking look like they were ADR looped, but the lipsynch seems weird somehow.

It’s very long at 18 minutes; you’re going to make people skim, like I did, ang they will likely miss youe best stuf, or cool details that way. Put your very best stuff up front.

The sections with the bands seem more like cameraman demos than editing ones. They aren’t badly cut, but there’s not a lot calling attention to how the edits reinforce the flow of the songs. I don’t mean you should slavishly cut to the beat, but treat the switcher, whetehr live or virtual, as a musical instrument itself, and “trade licks” when the guitarists trade solos. Anticipate which musician is featured next and come to them a beat *before* they start their solo, in a few places, and see if you like that better.

The coaching thing needs overall tightening up of shots, you don’t need to complete every exercise action, in eevr scene, necessarily. The eye and mind follow thrug on the overall line of action. And you can play with that, by leading the eye to follow a line or pattern and then you shock it by cutting against the subconscious expectation of what should “flow” there next. Like cutting when something has been thrown up, to something different, coming back down. Stabilize the shaky shots in that one as well.

That was a very brief and not at all thorough four-minute first impression. Not bad, you have material there to work with. Keep at it.

[Matthew Brotchie]

Thanks Mark! Your critique is much appreciated.

[Kris Merkel]

Learn what you can in the time and access you have. Mark is spot on about not needing great chops on any specific NLE. The most important aspects in being competitive are knowing how to tell a good story, How to balance your checkbook and P & L sheets. Being able to think outside of the “Edit” box and creatively find ways to stay profitable when there is little work.

It’s not about how fast you can Cut, but rather how well you can communicate.

“Think of everything in terms of building capacity.”

Kris Merkel
twitter: @kris_merkel
Product Specialist, Flanders Scientific Inc.
http://www.shopfsi.com
Co-Founder, Atlanta Cutters Post Production User Group
http://www.atlantacutters.com

2.2Ghz MBP core i7
16Gb RAM
CS 5.5
FCP7 and Studio
Blackmagic Design UltraStudio 3D
AJA IO XT
FSI LM-2340W

[Jeff Breuer]

I will second a couple things mark pointed out. Always learn about design principles. You really have to use both sides of your brain with this stuff. You need to know the sort-of engineering of how to use Photoshop, AE, etc. (how to keyframe, add a layer…) and then you need to know how to design (make a color palette or mood board, use rule of thirds, balanced images…) and you need inspiration to fill the blank page. Plus trends evolve so stay active on blogs and forums or read Communication Arts.

[Mark Suszko] “It’s very long at 18 minutes; you’re going to make people skim, like I did, ang they will likely miss youe best stuf, or cool details that way. Put your very best stuff up front.”
+1

Always keep working at it and be willing to listen to others, like you are doing now. So you are on the right track.

[Bob Zelin]

here are my stupid comments –

#1 – I don’t give a crap about your reel. What are you trying to be – the next great creative director – even if you are, no one cares – not at the beginning.

#2 – call the company that you are dying to work for and try to get an interview. Find out what they want you to know. (it will be basic menial stuff that most of us dread) – and LEARN IT. Then call back and say “I am an expert in logging .r3d files” – or “I am an expert in” – whatever the hell they want. Then you are in. And once you are in, THEN you can show them your reel and show them that you are a creative genius, and that instead of doing rotoscoping, or whatever – you can DIRECT their movies/music videos/commericals, etc – but NO ONE is going to give you that opportunity until you GET IN – and you can’t get in until you can accomplish the task that they want – what is that task ? HOW THE HELL SHOULD I KNOW – do you want me to call them and ask them for you? You call them – you ask them, and then LEARN IT – and then call back and tell them that you can do this horrible task that no one else can – or is willing to do – and then you are in.

And then, you are home free, and you will be the director, when the next schmuck winds up working for Home Depot.

Bob Zelin

[Matthew Brotchie]

Thanks for the no bull-shit advice Bob, much more practical then the “its just all about storytelling” line.