Filmmaking Methods & Practices – Editing 101
I love what I do – writing, directing, editing, producing, design, shooting video and photography. All of it is related to how I approach filmmaking, and the methods and practices of my craft that I’ve picked up along the way. I’ve been doing this for years now, so I’ve learned, by observation or experience, what works and what doesn’t.
I’m really good at what I do, but I’m only as good as the people I’m working with. So I’m going to share my methods here, as a guideline to how I work. Perhaps I’ll help someone in their struggle to create, perhaps I’ll find out a better method to one of my Macguyver work-arounds.
Today, I’m going to specifically write about what a good editor expects of their director before starting the editing process. Lots of people out there know how to use the software, (Final Cut Pro, Avid, Pinnacle, Premiere, iMovie, etc), but they don’t know how to structure the process, the workflow or the storymaking aspects of editing. Before software, editing was a pain-staking process, that required a lot of forethought and consideration. Planning was crucial and on-going.
When I meet with a new director, I often have the alarming experience of finding they have no script, no tape logs, no outline, no selects, no music and no images. Basically, they have an idea, a bag full of tapes and, hopefully, a lot of money for extra editing time. If you are a director on a low budget film, let me tell you one way you can save money and time – shot logs, (also known as a camera report), for each camera on set. An intern or production assistant can sit, with a shot log (click here for a downloadable version), can track each shot on each camera for lighting, focus, director’s comments, DP’s comments, documentary subject’s comments. Logging the in and out of the timecode, off the camera or the video assist, is a key way to help your editor find your selects.
Another way to save on a low-budget film – screen the footage and know what you absolutely must use before you start editing. Screening in the edit suite is dangerous, because both editor and director can get overwhelmed and burnt out on a subject before they start the rough cut. Directors, know what your story is, or at least have the spine of it, before starting an edit. Unless you want to pay someone to help you with story development – I do that, and a lot of other editors do it as well. It is an extra and separate step before the edit itself. And it is absolutely necessary for the director to do.
Another reason to screen before you edit – cutting down on capture time. If you have 100 tapes of footage, at 60 minutes each, and you are planning to cut a 90 minute documentary or narrative feature, you have an excess of 98.5 hours of footage you won’t be using, at least not in this film. That’s a lot of hard drive space and editor time capturing. Screening before the edit can quickly eliminate the footage that is not needed and save your editor hours of time, which means savings for you. I guarantee if you screen before you edit, you will cut down your capture time to 20 hours or less.
This post is for the emerging filmmaker, taking their first plunge into filmmaking. I am not sure if film schools or digital training centers cover the philosophy and organization behind editing. Editing is more than a person working software – it is the orgnization and exploration of a story, and how best to tell that visually and with sound. How to make a story flow, when to cut a sentence down to the barest of its meaning, when to cut fast for story effect and when its only applied as style – these questions and more are the path to excellent storytelling. I’m sharing my understanding of the questions that help me find the answers in my editing process.
For that’s where it begins – the story starts with a question. Who is this person? What is this place? Where are we going? What’s happening? How did they do that? Why does it matter? All the questions need to be asked, in regards to the story, but only the most compelling to the topic need to be answered. The mistake a lot of emerging documentary directors make is wanting to cover too much in a 90 minute story. Not everything needs to be told – the story can continue in a second documentary, DVD companion piece or short for outlets like Current.tv or the filmmaker’s own vodcast. Keep to the story that is most dramatic or informative or provoking. Find the core of your topic, find the reason a viewer should care as much about it as you do, and write from that perspective. What does someone who needs to care about your topic must absolutely know? What doesn’t matter as much? Prioritize your story points and see what can drop away. What you are doing in the edit is paring down to the very nerve of your story. What made you passionate about this story and how can you share that passion with an audience?
Who is your audience? It is important to know that, but don’t let that color your storytelling. Especially in documentary filmmaking, keeping to the truth and the story is most important. But aesthetically, know who you are creating visuals for – fast cuts for the MTV and Hip-Hop generations, or slower, more methodical cuts for academia and PBS crowds. Once you know this, throw it out. You don’t need the burden of style, but you must be aware of it. Let the story breathe beyond the contemporary into something classical. Tie it back, if you can, to archetypes and mythology – what elemental stories are being told? How is the story universal to all human experience?
Now, bring it back to the personal – who’s story are you telling? What made that person who they are? What makes the story compelling and relatable? Who is your documentary subject speaking to? What are the voices from the past or present trying, in union under the construction of your story, trying to say? What are each character’s separate part in the conversation?
For you are having a conversation. Filmmaking is a long dialogue, between speakers on-screen and in the rhetorical sense. A long story, told by different devices and people, each moving the tale along like many hands rolling a snowball down a hill. As it builds and becomes complete, the wholeness of each part becomes apparent. How do you illustrate that?
Now back to organization – screening, developing your story, choosing your time coded selects (from shot logs and from the screen), what’s next?
Key elements – collecting your licensed b-roll and images, music, animations and titling materials. Basically, everything you need to make a finished film. Or, if you don’t have these elements, start collecting them as soon as possible. Titling takes time, so add that to your edit schedule. Animations and effects also take time, so plan for that as well. Planning on an audio mix? Exporting the files and working with a sound guy takes a few days, if not a week or two. Image research can take days, or you can hire someone to do that for you. Often, it is aesthetically based, so it should be something you have the editor involved in, or hired for.
Titling – all the lower thirds (text at the bottom of the screen, stating the subject’s name and title), title cards (text on screen, alone or over visuals, stating information, date, location or time), and credits all need prepping before the edit. List all your talent and crew, all your locations, your vendors and any music, copyright and “thank you”s in a document that you can give to your editor. Know who needs a front title card and for how long you want the cards time out. Do you want an animated opening/closing sequence? What aesthetically is important in the font treatment and color scheme?
Most of all, have respect for the editor’s time and process. Editors are there to midwife your film into completion – they are the creative engine that processes your ideas into a complete conversation on screen.
Not all editors are storytellers. Some are simply cutters – technical artists who follow strict timecoded instructions and do the basics, often found in fast-paced news rooms and high end production facilities. But many editors are gifted with the ability to patiently ferret out the story in any footage. We translate the director’s ideas into visual reality.
All editors, however, would welcome an organized director in the edit suite. It impresses and inspires the editor when a director comes ready to work, all elements collected or in process of collection, and the story already developed. Having the shot logs, selects and titling done make the edit go very,very quickly. And most of all, having passion for your film helps us fall in love with it too!
Peace,
Melissa
