[Mark Suszko]

To even start a meaningful collaboration, between client and editor, the client has to see the editor as a creative partner and not just a human remote control interface. I feel that I’m there to apply my skills to enhance what the client wants, not just execute rote commands.

Some clients in my past felt challenged by this, like it was being argumentative. It made the early part of the work tougher, until they finally saw that what we were doing was learning to dance together in the same rhythm. While the client has to learn the right ways to suggest changes, using appropriate language to avoid talking down to the editor, the editor has to also use nuance and diplomacy to convey their reactions and suggestions, so that they don’t read as being oppositional or contemptuous. Once the rapport is established, the deference can slowly drop away into a shorthand over time…

Day One:
“I’m still not really happy with this sequence. The change in location seems too abrupt, somehow.”
“We can try different transition rates, but Your shot doesn’t have enough “handles” to stretch the dissolve much more… I’d suggest leading into the next clip with an audio J-cut. The new audio cues the audience to expect the change.”
“Okay, let’s try that and see if it helps.”

Day Five:
Still not feeling this sequence. It’s too confusing. The smash cut to the new location isn’t working.”
“The smash is fine, and it compresses the run time; I think your incoming shot sucks. You need a wider one in there, or a much, much tighter one, focusing on one little representative detail. THEN we can go to this shot you have.”
” Sounds too artsy. Try it with the tight shot, but if that doesn’t work, we’re going to try something else entirely.”
“Okay…”

[Mark Suszko]

“Affordable” is a relative term, depending on the budget and level of desperation involved…

I’ll keep the Digital Rebellion stuff under advisory, but anybody got anything a little… cheaper to try first?

[Mark Suszko]

When it’s page after page of full-screen text with voiceover, reading the text to you, it’s no longer really a video, and it doesn’t effectively communicate. I call this “radio, with pictures”. People do this because it’s fast and easy, not because it’s effective instructional design. I can tell when the users are just getting something in the can, cheaply, to check off a requirement, versus when they are making something to effectively communicate what they think is important. A PowerPoint deck should never be considered as a “script”.

One thing I’ve developed over the years is a technique my clients seem to like, where I make a diptych image. that is, The text is generally in a panel on the right half of the screen, the speaker, in a panel on the left. These are not flat, but rotated to roughly 45-degree angles, so overall it looks a little like an opened book. I make the presenter’s side one -third, and the text box two thirds, especially if it has way too much type on it. You don’t need a template to make this happen; set it up once and then you can copy/paste attributes at any time along the timeline where you think you need that combo shot.

That shot is alternated with full- frame shots of the presenter and full-frame shots of the text pages. I alternate which is up, depending on what I’m trying to emphasize. Generally the text starts out full, then we go to the diptych when the presenter is making comments about what you just saw in full-frame. To punctuate an idea or convey an anecdote that reinforces the idea, that’s the close up head shot full frame.

Something I used to do a lot of when making videos about filling out forms, was to blow the form up as big as a house using green screen, and literally have the presenter “walk you thru it”.

What’s nice about both ways of presenting is, your eye has the choice of where to go at any one moment: to the face, or to the text. This is just way less boring than making a viewer sit thru full screens of text with voiceover, because inevitably, you have read it faster than they have said it, and you have to sit around waiting for the next thing.

[Mark Suszko]

Lavs are generally omnidirectional, but I’ve found you can narrow them and make them a -little- more directional by rolling a tube of tape or paper around the head of the lavaliere, then aiming that tube towards their mouth when you mount it on the person. Even better if you can muffle it a bit under some hard clothing to bounce away the extraneous sounds. Throat mics are a thing for high noise areas, but they don’t have great fidelity. It’s a tossup IMO between the modified “lav” and a unidirectional “stick” mic or mini shotgun. Much depends on how hard you need t hide it, and if you ca have a second person in the crowd who does nothing but point the mini shotgun at the subject from semi-concealment in the crowd.

One last thing; I have been constantly surprised by what an iPhone mic can capture, just sitting in a shirt pocket.

[Mark Suszko]

That, and finish it off in the grading step. It’s important to show some motivator for the notional light source in most cases of “day for night” or “night for night”. Blue is the mainstay, but it’s nice to have some little fan or shaft of yellowy tungsten crash across a scene from a motivated source like a lamp, a nightlight, the crack of a door or a sliver of window shade, or lights off instruments or appliances or a TV.

[Mark Suszko]

Add the Weyland-Utani Close fire support smartgun package, market it to cosplayers that love the film: “Aliens”. Try the “re-branding” on an eBay posting aimed at that community pitching it as the basis of that movie prop, and I will bet you a donut you get some bids. I think the market for tiny gimbals and drones and sliders and the other camera support tech toys has captured the buying public’s imagination over their common sense sometimes.

[Mark Suszko]

Copy/paste it then? Well, the “duplicate” command, anyway? Not elegant, but could get it done?

[Mark Suszko]

The line I used to use was: Premiere was a dongle people bought so they could use AfterEffects.

[Mark Suszko]

The first dose is always free…

I might do it at some point, but wanted to save some time first and just get a general answer.

[Mark Suszko]

Andrew, do you go back far enough to remember the feel of real machine controlled, tape-based edit bays? I do. Maybe it’s only nostalgia. But I swear I was faster than a speeding bullet, using the EECO EMME edit controller with jog shuttle wheel, and later, the Grass 141. The EMME’s jog shuttle “ballistics” were unmatched in it’s day. It was my scalpel, and it made me a speedy, precise surgeon on my edits. It also had a build quality like fine furniture; lovely wooden enclosure. The 141 was chunkier and less elegant, but the fat buttons, grouped by function, made it easy to use without looking away from the screen.

No doubt that effective editing can be the case with a cheaper, more typical all-purpose computer keyboard too, in the hands of a well- practiced user. But I’m partial to custom interfaces with some haptics. I’m like those purists that love the IBM keyboards or a nice Yamaha weighted keyboard piano.

Some of the cost of the Resolve keyboard, I can understand, comes from less common components like the electronic clutch on the jog wheel. To make that work right and be “bulletproof”, under heavy daily operations, it’s going to add cost. Also, the high end Cherry or whatever brand keyboard switches come at a premium, as they are harder to buy in bulk. I’m sure BM are making a good profit margin on the keyboards, but it may not be as high as people suspect, due to sourcing the higher-end components.