Chris Bové
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The reverse is happening too. A fun new pastime is catching CBS’s sponsor paint-ins on the Friday night show “Numb3rs”… Sponsors are getting product placement after the shows are shot. About a month and 1/2 ago, I noticed a yogurt container had been digitally placed (quite poorly) onto the table next to actor Judd Hirsch. The Hummer logo has been digitally placed in all sorts of places on Numb3rs and CSI: Miami.
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\`(=)`/…Pixel Monkey
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What matters is WHY the Producer and Director decided to hire an editor. Lack of technical knowledge, or needed an editorial mind to partner with?
Many Producers and Directors don’t include Editors in their creative conversations. This is not illegal, just a way of working that the Editor needs to weigh. If the paycheck is the primary goal, stay. If a creative editorial outlet is the goal, find new clients. Most of us like the give-and-take of a middle ground. (Low Ego Emissions – hee hee, thanx Volkswagen.)
Editorially, nothing beats working with great scriptwriting, photography and directing. It’s the fire in which we burn. But full nods to an editor’s input just don’t come with every job. Heh, sometimes they come and go within the same job! Often, I’ve found that the hard-to-work-with businessman is the ideal client, not the cultured person. A cultured person knows what he/she wants, where as the businessman knows how to get what a great editor wants to give them. In that sense, the editor becomes a saught-after vender… rather than an implementor.
… and as far as the “how it should be” opinions go, take the mass population of L.A.’s Dentists in stride. …and remember, they hunch over coffee breath and tartar scrapings all day. We have comfy chairs, mood lighting and tech support.
PS – a great way to find creative outlets as the “struggling artist editor” is to do student films. They’re fast, fun and invigorating.
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\`(=)`/…Pixel Monkey
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[Chaz Shukat] “…most people will think you are a “print” editor, like for newspapers, magazines…”
Gave up monster.com and careerbuilder sites ages ago. Kept getting alerts for web editors. To 98% of the modern population, that’s what an editor is.
Hee hee. Love these posts – teetering on the edge of “Good Grazing”. How’s this: instead of the word “Editor”, let’s become another skit in George Carlin’s Euphamisms routine…
Video Editors become “Pixel Media Ammendment Specialists”
Film Editors become “Emulsion Media Emotional Perspective Specialists”
Assistant Editors become “Pixel Media Technical Support Associates”
Negative Cutters become “Positive Cutters”
and Online Editors become “Pixel Media Upconversion and Adaptation Finalizers”.______
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\`(=)`/…Pixel Monkey
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Sony’s new HDR-HC3 !!!!!!! Totally rocks – tested it at circuit city – buying it this week on butterflyphoto.com dirt frigg’n cheap – point & shoot HDV using miniDV tapes – Sony’s HD lenses fit it – DVD technology bad bad – tapes have timecode, thus good good!
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\`(=)`/…Pixel Monkey
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[Chaz Shukat] “alternate between something “interesting” and the “readable” credits to keep people there so that they actually do wind up reading them, I’m all for that. But don’t have them compete!”
Hee hee – I think we’ve found the best cheat. It’s a program centered around architecture. I’ve just sold the producer on white text over black, with dark gray blueprints slowly moving in the background (The moves are done in Stage Tools, yet again. What a great little piece of software).
PBS has to accept it. It’s not “just black” like they hate… although I am in Buffalo. The NHL did change the goal crease rules after Brett Hull won Dallas the cup by breaking them… PBS might follow suit…
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\`(=)`/…Pixel Monkey
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I’ve been re-reading select chapters from Behind the Seen this week. No question in those pages about what the workload is associated with film cutting vs the nonlinear realm. It refers to film as destructive editing (splicing and losing trims in the bin), and nonlinear as nondestructive. Man, I need to break out my old Rivas and go to town!
(Highly HIGHLY recommend if you haven’t yet, to read it – https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735714266/002-0996252-5927228?v=glance&n=283155)
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\`(=)`/…Pixel Monkey
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I can think of 10 people off the top that’d have their spouce file for bankrupcy the day they arrived on the island – for just that purpose!
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\`(=)`/…Pixel Monkey
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[Eric Susch] “using the term “Film Editor” because you think it makes you sound more prestigious”
Actually, that’s probably where a lot of the confusion comes from. The term is often used to by producers of video-based movies to beef-up sales pitches to potential funders. Recently, I’ve been hearing more video editors say “I edit movies” or “I edit shorts” than “I edit films”. Hopefully, it’s an industry-wide trend.
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\`(=)`/…Pixel Monkey
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Interesting thread.
I tend to look at all forms of editing as relatively the same gigantic process throughout, and in conversation often build an analogy to driving a car. The difference between film and video is the medium it’s shot/delivered on, and is analogus to the road the car is driven on. Although most of us can drive a car, we can’t claim ourselves as “racecar drivers” or “tracter-trailer drivers”.
The “film industry” has changed monumentally since the turn of the century, and now (with mixed emotions) includes a great deal more novices than when it first started. Personally, I enjoy the fact that the industry once described by Eisenstein as “the highest form of art and expression” has opened up to the general public. When Lemmy from Motorhead was asked if he minded when bands copy his work. He said he didn’t care – that it just means there’s more bands out there for him to copy off of as well.
During the progression of the industry, the term “a film” has become clouded… not corrupted, just a little more all-inclusive. Students say they shoot “films” on DV, much like they say a small Toyota with an enlarged exhaust pipe and a neon green flamejob is a racecar. In the mindset of that whole heavily-marketed culture, I guess they feel it’s justified. I still try to look at it from a more basic point of view: if you get a paycheck for your skills and your execution as a racecar driver, you can claim the title of one.
In one breath I say nothing beats the Avid interface. The next day, you’ll find me with a hot splicer, three armslengths of 16 draped around my neck, and the grin of a 7-year-old at the carnival. The processes are different, and the titles may base themselves more on the skills in these processes, but I prefer “Editor” as the title in any case. When it’s all done, it’s not a Mac, a PC or a Steenbeck, but an audience and a screen. If they can’t tell, then the job was done right.
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\`(=)`/…Pixel Monkey
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You know when you have an edit with a client, and on the first day of the edit it’s the “Big Guy” accompanied by his assistant… then for the rest of the edit until the 2nd last day your working solely with the assistant? Well, turn that idea against ’em.
Although it can’t really be done at my day job, I’ve learned to have an assistant editor for nearly all my freelance gigs – even if it’s just an intern that knows how to digitize and organize. Recently, the idea of killing my creative hours by staring at the 16th take of the 37th scene as it’s being digitized is only something I’ll do on the really big projects. I’ll coordinate the entire edit and simply include my A.E. in the initial negotiations, and as part of the estimate. It’s stopped me from syncing audio, and that’s what’s important to me right now. As long as the A.E. has my needs jotted down ahead of time, I’m good. (And I make sure that he/she goes through the process of hand-writing my needs. It commits their importance to memory better.)
One client in particular has grown to use me exclusively because I let him pick the A.E. from his pool of upstarts, knowing that I’ll get paid to fix his/her organizational mistakes. I dunno, for some reason he thinks that’s the coolest thing. Whatever. Sorting out poorly organized clips takes much less time than doing the whole process myself.
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\`(=)`/…Pixel Monkey
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