[Angelo Lorenzo]

The real question: can you draw or are you looking for something more drag/drop?

[Angelo Lorenzo]

I would agree with that decision: having longer excerpts under the montage reel. It lets your skills breathe more although you may want to go back and recut older material with the knowledge you’ve gained up until now… it’s rarely a bad idea to once over old material.

In terms of these montage reels, there is this weird disconnect between what is entertaining, and what is a solid example of what gets a job done.

Another piece of advice is maybe you should, along with a broader get-things-done knowledge is to specialize in one function not a lot of people deal with. Maybe, to get more assistant editor work, you advertise your ability to optimize an editing workflow with metadata and asset tracking.

Just some thoughts.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

If After Effects built-in warp stabalizer doesn’t do the job, I like using a plugin by ProDad called Mercalli. What’s nice is that it will, at the expense of zooming into the frame, also smooth the speed and momentum of pan shots.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

70mm lens or 700mm? Your typo makes it difficult for me to understand.

I do have to ask your decision making process for what I would consider an impractical shot. My first instinct, if there are resources near you, would be to pay to rent an RC camera helicopter and pay an operator. There are many small radio controlled helicopters that can handle the weight of a dSLR and afford you very dynamic shots.

I don’t think filming with a 70mm lens would be terribly difficult for very short amounts of time (I’ve done 5-10 second shots hanging out the side of a chase car at 80mph, and I don’t think a plain is much bumpier), what concerns me is that Cessna prop planes need to go about 90mph to stay safely aloft, and a 70mm lens would put you dangerously close to the ground.

If you meant a 700mm lens.. you’re basically using a long lens with a doubler. The image quality goes down considerably, and most people will recommend a gyro head even on a tripod on the ground for lenses over 400-500mm for best performance.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

*Puts on my producer hat*

So I assume the choice of black and white is to immediately identify this part of the film as not happening in modern time.

Is this sequence a true flashback, or something more stylized in the sense that it’s fond memories or someones dream? — Then again, I don’t think that would make any difference in what I’m about to suggest to you.

If this is going to be the fantasy of the protagonist then I assume that we start in a state of perfection, and then slam into reality’s state of imperfection, while the film is the catharsis; the work towards perfection again.

I would suggest shooting the 60’s sequence in color and colorgrading it to Kodachrome. Once we slam back to reality we’re using a cooler pallet both with color correction and set dressing/wardrobe. Then as hints of the journey come in, we can add warm colors; maybe the apartment of the protagonist’s love interest uses warm colors or has a red sofa. As we reach the ending, we can warm up the color grade.

Without knowing the story, I have a feeling a color strategy like that will make the film more cohesive.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

I burn finished programs to Quicktime JPEG2000 with uncompressed audio.

This is where your mindset may differ from mine. I keep all of my original footage, I save my Premiere Pro project file, and I also export an XML, EDL, and AAF of the project; these are all edit decision lists in different formats.

As far as I’m concerned, the master is “locked” and is of high quality to derive other media (different encoding for different tv channels or online services, dvd, so on) without degradation. In other words, I don’t anticipate pristine 10-bit 4:4:4 because I’m not going back to remaster color and so on. Even if I did, it would probably be so close after the time of lock that I’d just pop open the project file and keep going.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

As someone in Los Angeles… I can tell you that it’s a hard road to plow for consistent work. It has probably taken me 5 years and only this year do I feel totally comfortable with my finances.

I will say this, anyone I know who has come to LA and goes back home never returns. No matter what their intention is, it just doesn’t happen.

You have to ask yourself “What kind of editor am I?” Could you only be happy working on the best commercials, tv shows, or films because editing is your whole life? Or can you separate that and say “I’d be ok working for local news or editing wedding videos”.

Editing is strange because it kind of takes place in a vacuum. You’re not really on set, you aren’t really interacting with producers enough to endear yourself (the people who are the key to more work).

I suggest working on set as a kick ass PA, or at the least going to network events like The Editor’s Lounge https://www.editorslounge.com/ They have a get together every month or two.

Also, to be honest, your editor’s reel doesn’t show me anything. It’s all smoke and mirrors. I don’t mean anything rude by that; It’s great if all you did were music videos. If you’re going to have this montage reel, you need to have longer samples of your work in the context of a scene. I want to see how you handle masters and coverage, what your style is with the timing of close ups and inserts, how you use J cuts to pull my attention to one person or the other, I want to see how you handle simple action like a fist fight or argument. As a low budget editor, would you tell me “no” if I asked if you have the knowledge edit sound a bit, how to add foley, or how to assist an ADR session. You’ll get more low end work if you’re broadly specialized… you become a Swiss army knife. In your reel, I just don’t see more than one or two small examples of how you actually edit.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

Get a 1/8″ male-male stereo cable and go from the line out to the line in of your sound card (more expensive motherboards or sound cards should have this ability)

For whatever reason, in Windows 7 you can no longer do loopthrough recording, which is exactly what you described.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

I spoke to my friend who use to do home A/V installations, and he recommends none of them. While he agrees that HDMI->HDMI over wireless is better than USB -> HDMI, he doesn’t feel the quality/price/convenience beats using an HDMI cable.

I’d wait for someone to speak with personal experience before recommending a brand/model.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

Magic Bullet Colorista Free:
https://www.redgiantsoftware.com/products/all/magic-bullet-colorista-free/

Creating a “Summer Blockbuster Look”… this tutorial uses the paid version of Colorista, but should be a good rundown of the basic technique for common warm/cool look.
https://www.redgiantsoftware.com/videos/redgianttv/item/23/