Young editor needs advice from seasoned proffesionals

[Jason Jenkins]

[Jacob Kirby] “I’ve agreed to edit his movie for free.”

That’s exactly why he shows little respect for you.

Jason Jenkins
Flowmotion Media
Video production… with style!

[Mark Suszko]

I cut pretty much like Grinner does, in that I throw all the good stuff up on a timeline and then work at it subtractively, carving it down and down more on each pass, and I have to tell you, it hurts, every time, because I tend to love my footage too much, so it is like yanking out nose hairs for me to keep shortening the piece past what I think personally is the best overall arrangement, to fit a set time window. When I get down to that level, I’m fighting for every spare frame at that point. When I’ve worked at it long enough that I think I may be losing objectivity, I will ask anybody walking by the suite to look at it and give me their fresh eyes. You must accept anything they say with good grace because this is not about your self validation at this point, it is about objectively checking if the message you meant is the message they are getting. If they react by saying something you think is stupid, perhaps they ARE stupid, but you don’t say anything but thank-you for that comment because, well, though they may not be the target audience for the piece, maybe you didn’t make the sequence clear enough that anybody can grok it on the first viewing.

As far as your rough cut, part of the problem may be that you and the Director have different notions of what “rough” means. You may be trying too hard to polish every cut as you encounter it on the first pass, and playing with color grading and filters or tweaking audio is not what you should be doing on that first assembly. I have a saying about hooking up gear; “First make it work, THEN make it pretty”. And I kind of approach the first rough timeline the same way.

You are not Coppola on ‘Apocalypse’, spending a whole day to try out five or more versions of one cut. Be Coppola or Scorcese on the final version of the edit. Be Roger Corman on the first rough assembly. Just throw the elements up there in script order, leave slugs or holes for what you have not yet got or built, and keep moving forward, slamming away. If you had good notes on set for the “keeper” shots or paid good attention while logging (which I call the real first edit), you already know the best takes, go with those and work with them first. If the script was good enough to shoot as-is, it deserves a rough assembly that follows it in pretty close form. The alternate jazz riffs and re-sequencing comes later, if it’s not flowing as well on screening as it did on the page.

A running joke/truism I have with clients who sit in with me is “Just give me the number of the last take for that scene”. “Why? Don’t you want to see them all?” “The first take is almost never perfect and the last take is the last one because it was at that point we decided on set we couldn’t get it any better, otherwise we’d still be out there shooting it”. 🙂 Kind of a variation on the old saying that the missing car keys are always in the last place you looked, because you stop looking once you’ve found them. Not to say the best take is *always* the last one, just statistically speaking, for me, it’s the way to bet when you don’t have much time to noodle around. I also have the luxury of usually being the shooter/director for whatever I edit, so I have a better knowledge of what’s good in the raw bin to begin with.

You already got a lot of advice about passive-aggressive tactics with a pushy director. Instead of digging-in your heels this early in the process, remember the joy of NLE is that you can save infinite versions, so when you get to a point your opinions strongly diverge, just save off a new version to make his wanted change, and know you can go back to the older, better sequence if/when he finally comes around. Work with the guy until he splits, later, during a snack break or something, you can show him the alternate version you were toying with in his abscence, and if you stage this right, without putting his back to the wall, he may come around on his own and buy your cut as better. Or suggest: “How about we come back to this in a bit after we skip ahead and work on another segment, might help to judge the overall flow.”

And then again, he may not. At that point you shrug and say: “Its your movie”, and you do what he asks. You made your best case, agree to disagree, and just push ahead and be professional.

Whenever I get into an argument with a client about a particular cut, I make it less personal by arguing from a technical standpoint as to why I think something works or doesn’t; I cite an aesthetic principle or example from a well-known film to justify what I’m doing, then it can’t be about me and my taste, it is about whatever source or craft principle I’m quoting. The third party concept gets the scorn, not me.

This layer of abstraction helps to keep things from getting personal and insulting. Once ego gets in the way, nobody likes to change their mind, even if they are wrong, so you have to de-escalate it.

You don’t say to him: “Your cut there is stupid”, you say: “That cut brings the character in from the wrong side of the line of action we already established; typically that’s not done as a rule, so I would suggest we get to that shot via a transitional shot like…. *this* one… and that should also help sell the timing of his entrance in the shot you like… can I show you what I mean? We can always undo it, just takes a sec.”.

After all that, you still may get a boorish grinder. It happens. Some people have that as their M.O. and it’s just the way they’ve decided works for them. You endure it, you survive it, you keep your own self calm and professional, then after hours, you go work out your aggression and frustration in some legally responsible manner, after the jerk is gone. When my kids complain about something, my wife tells them: “This ain’t heaven”.

Good luck. Let us know how it turns out.

[Rory Brennan]

Make a copy of everything, then give him the footage, without your project. Given he didn’t pay you, you are under no obligation to give away your hard work. (This alone might make him change his mind).

Also, once you’ve got him off your back… keep cutting. You still will have all the footage, and will be able to satisfy you desire to cut a film. Probably don’t tell him though and if you put any of the film on your site, maybe say it was a spec job.

I know that this isn’t the most honest thing to do, but many people build careers from cutting already cut spots, or unlicensed music videos. As long as you then don’t release the film, I don’t feel it’s a big deal.

Rory Brennan
Editor
New York City

[Mark Suszko]

Rory, there may be a problem with that idea in that if you show on your reel or web portfolio that you are willing to go around behind an old client’s back and use something of theirs without permission, well… someone looking to hire you may think twice about someone so blatantly willing to “rip off” a client. They can assume from that, that they might be ripped off the same way. Not a good way to start a new business relationship.

Its a whole different matter if there’s a written memo between parties that you can show excerpts for your portfolio.

Reputation counts for a lot in a business built on personal relationships, and media markets can become very small in this sense that when you burn somebody, the word gets out fast and soon you can’t find anybody willing to use you.

So I think its worth the extra hassle to get the permission even if technically you *might* not need it. There’s what’s legal and there’s what’s moral.