[Juris Eksts]

I don’t see why you’re hassling the editor, just sack the director.

[Juris Eksts]

You’re perfectly capable of doing it in Avid, you’ll just need lots of video and audio tracks to do it.
Use your guide track, but don’t expect any of them to speak in perfect sync with it. Choose one dominant sounding and looking take. Then sync all the others to the middle or most important word of the statement. Some will look slightly out of sync, but I think that will add to the effect.

[Juris Eksts]

Agree with everyone 100 per cent, except Craig – 200 per cent.

[Juris Eksts]

If you have access to a green screen, and chroma-key the shot, it would be a cleaner separation of image than shooting against black or white.

[Juris Eksts]

Sorry I’m very late to this discussion, but Andy, can I quote you from your very first post:
“Obviously I worked for free with the first company for 6 months”
I think there is no difference between that and the newcomers now doing it for a very low price, so who can you blame?

[Juris Eksts]

For Titles,when you’ve added your title on V2, and want to animate it, don’t add an effect (blend or resize or whatever) to that title, but instead click on the title and use the effect editor to resize or move, or promote it to 3D (at the bottom right of the effect editor window) and use the controls in that. That way the layer below is not affected.
For other elements on V2, use 3D (in the Blend group) to move the picture.
For more complex effects you may need to step into the V2 track, add effects to the video of the stepped-in layer, step back out, and again the layer below is not affected.

[Juris Eksts]

Copy the Scale Effect, as you’ve adjusted it, into a bin, select all the clips to be changed with the segment tool (Red arrow) then double click the effect in the bin.
(You could try highlighting one of the clips with the segment tool and hitting delete. That removes the topmost effect on the clip, so it may remove the ‘wrong’effect that’s already on there.)

And by the way, the only ‘ridiculous’ question is the one that should be asked and isn’t.

[Juris Eksts]

That was one of the great things about Lightworks in the old days, you could make a bin of absolutely any combination of key words on their filecard system, very useful in longform docs.
(Sorry that doesn’t help you Jez, just a trip down memory lane)
(that and the shark).

[Juris Eksts]

It sounds like you’ve been left with a mess to sort out!
I think the way I would approach it would be to start a timeline with the earliest rushes time code as the master TC of the timeline. (Assuming all the rushes have accurate Time Of Day time code).
Lay the first few batches of clips on the time line at the appropriate place, Cam A on V1, Cam B on V2 audio on A1+2, and from that you will have a graphic representation of the way it has been shot, which may give you an idea of how to approach sorting it out.
You’ll probably then be able to chose selections of clips to group in a sensible order.
(Or then just use the sync’ed timeline to cut from)

[Juris Eksts]

Of course you can do it yourself, editing can be done by anyone!
It’s just that some may be better than others.
The most difficult thing with a project you’ve been involved with from the beginning, and especially shot yourself, is that your judgment as to what is interesting is clouded.
If you want to make a programme for yourself, a record to remind you of what you went through, then that is one sort of programme, if you want to tell a story to others who have no background knowledge, that is another.
From that amount of material, you have to be completely ruthless.
If you have a load of interviews, string together the best half hour that will tell the story in a verbal form. Eventually you’ll want to see on screen a very small proportion of the people telling that story, but you’ll want to cover most of that with the pictures of action that will illustrate what they’re saying. (Called cut-aways in England, and B-roll in America).
The cut-aways give you two things, – the first is that they tell the story visually, so you don’t have to understand all the dialogue, and the second is that they let you cut down the dialogue to its’ most essential words, without having a jump in the picture of someone talking.
I would approach the whole project with a first long assembly of the dialogue, with short pointers of what the visuals may be, then cut that down to maybe half an hour, then be absolutely ruthless to cut it to ten minutes (and this will probably be the most difficult part for you, it will involve ‘killing your babies’ – the bits you love but have no part in telling the essential story).
After that, refine the pictures, the visual element of the story, – you can probably put in the best visual material as either illustration of the verbal story, or as breakers between chapters of that story.
To tell a complete story you may need narration to fill in gaps that you can’t cover with your interviews, but avoid that if possible, even using captions on screen to give geographical or other essential information.
You may be tempted to put music over some of the programme, but unless you can get permission from the appropriate people, don’t use commercial tracks, they’ll give you a complete nightmare. If during your travels you recorded for instance a band playing local music, use that, it will add to the story.
The hardest part will be deciding what goes out, and what stays in, but I hope you’ll have fun over the whole thing.