I’ve split my experiences into 2 sections that which I do and that which I’ve seen.

I DO!

I haven’t made a “scripted” video/film. Most of my stuff has been event work. And yes there is a type of script already. There is a beginning a middle and an end . . However, I do end up with a mass of clips. These can range from anything from 10 secs to 20 mins in duration.
1 – If someone is pointing flash over to what they were pointing/looking at. I can flash over using a tranni or better is a fast velo movement in that direction to the object clip.
2 – Meld clips using C/K. This I love to do and use it somewhere to the end of the finished product. Too much is too much. Use sparingly OR even only once.
3 – Don’t reuse a spectacular tranni [ as above in 2 ]
4 – Use trannis for a purpose. I use them for inferring the passage of time. I did a speech of a mayor. He went on for a time. I cut his speech from 7 mins to about 30 secs. Can be done if you keep the real essence of what was being said . . – yeah? Ten I used a Flash thru’ tranni to the next portion of the event that showed the parade he was talking about.
5 – Note the “shape” of a clip. If the object of the clip is long, landscape – crop it so that it is actually landscape, and use it to complement another clip. E.G., I recently used some overhead illuminations/banners ABOVE the actual target motion in a separate PiP.
6 – Take note of the “general” colour changes. Make use of clips, which may have primary or secondary colour theory differences. If a clip is generally reddish, select the next clip being more of a bluish. This has a major effect on the audience.
7 – Mix and Match movements. When I get a movement to the left dissolve this into another clip which maybe totally out of time but is also moving to the left.
8 – Crossing the line problem? If you can get away with it “flip-it” - done this and it works – HAH!

I’ve Seen
1 – Original Thomas Crown Affair. This is about what worked then and now seeing it some 30 years later. When I saw the original I was spell bound. I thought all those PiPs going on truly amazing. Now I looking at it and think, er, it’s a bit passé . . . The TV serial “24” I started watching with something approaching apprehension. For the first 5 mins I thought okay, nice idea but how are they gonna counter my Thomas Crown Affair feelings . .well thy did it. It worked. I watched the whole 24 episodes AND the next series too. Something happened to me. I don’t know what. But probably the story line kicked in . .

2 – Alfred Hithcock. Now there’s a filmmaker. Obviously the stuff was filmed for the edit. Very heavy usage of very clear “takes” being used to create that Hitchy drama and tension. Great stuff!

3 – I just downloaded and viewed 401, the movie. Done by a couple of guys. Used CGs and it it held my attention. Again very carefully worked out. The editing was again worked from the “script”.

4 – Mark, from our Forum here, Christmas Carol, you can see this over on Chienworks site. Superb use of Vegas editing.
. . .

Farss, was this the type of input you were asking for. Sorry if it is a little, well, low brow, but that's what takes my interest . . and it is done in Vegas.

That’s me for the moment,

Grazie

If the director/cameraperson doesn't kill his darlings the editor will (or should).
Tor

Grazie,
glad to see you mention Hitchcock. Certainly a master of the art.
I think what makes the whole thing a bit mudied is these days so much is done by the 'editor' whereas traditionaly much of that was and to some extent still is the province of others. Obvious reasons for this, you want to make it all yourslef simply because there isn't the budget to pay someone else to do the grading or design the graphics.
I guess the thing to remember when (if?) you do land a job with some meat in it is the value of handing some of it over to the specialists.
But yeah, you did kind of touch on what I was getting at, like cutting down a speech. A friend of mine did many years as an editor, sounded like a bloody aweful job really. You get to make no decisions yourself pretty well, the director is always there and at times asking for things that you know will look terrible. His advice to me about editing was much the same as many things, stick to the KISS principle. Straight cuts, maybe dissolves to denote a jump in time, anything else think long and hard about. Personally I'm quite a fan of fades to black although lately I see fades to white becoming popular.
One of my favourite shows is pretty old now, I think it was called The Norman Conquests. Shot in basically one take with many cameras and then edited down to about six 30 minutes episodes to show six different versions of the same events from different viewpoints. Very clever.
But who I'd really like to hear from (and I'm sure you would too) is someone whose worked on say a longform production with a script and the whole bit, to tell what editing decisions were made by the editor and how that enhanced the telling of the story.

Yes to the Norman Coquests thing.

Yes to your last apara . .come on you pros!?!?!

Oh yes KISS, abso-bloody-lutley. Fades thru white is I think an advertsing thing. White space sells - that type of thing. It's where marketing is starting to effect the actual content that interests me. People are getting subconciously savvy as to watching something "worthwhile". Whether it is part of the general public's radar or not, they are definitely getting "cute" to the practices of the media, in all its macinations. Interesting...If it "looks" good then it is good . .errrr, no... When/where is the message being massaged by the medium? I suppose this has always been the gig . . . But this is something along the lines I was alluding to when I was speaking of how NLE and its functionality may be "affecting" the actual outcome. Yes the narrative wil be linear, but perhaps with the many many options open to us - graphics, audio, CG etc - it is in itself starting to have a central axis change . .don't know . .

. . anyways, enough from me .. Come on you long work pros? Where's your input??

Grazie

Here's my two cents...

First of all, I don't think the "editing experience" (enhancing the story) is limited to long form productions. Editing can make or break a piece, whether it's a three-hour narrative epic, a thirty-minute documentary, or a thirty-second commercial, it's all the same.

Insofar as "story telling" is concerned, in my opinion, the three most equally important jobs on a motion picture are the writer, director, and the editor. You can step into that circle at any given point and nothing would change.

Speaking in general terms, the screenwriter's art is a "creative" form (similar to a composer). The director's art is a "interpretive" form (similar to an orchestral director). The editor's art is a both "creative" and "interpretive."

Many times, I have likened film (video) editing to sculpting. A sculptor primarily uses one of two methods--subtractive or additive. In subtractive method, the most associated with sculptures, the artist uses a hammer and chisel and chips away at a block of stone. He "subtracts" material from the mass to bring forth the final piece. Using the additive method, the artist uses a material like clay. The pieces of the clay, some large, some small, are "added" to an armature to build up the finished piece. The editing process uses both of these methods. The editor who understands story telling can/may see ways to manipulate these pieces of film (video) that will heighten the telling of the story in a more visual way. He may even help clarify the plot/story through the juxtaposition of the shots/scenes.

In the beginning, the editor will sit down and go through the "block" of material and "subtract" only the shots that lend themselves to the best telling of the story. In the next step, the editor then takes those "pieces" of film (video) and begins, using the script as the armature, to "add" them together to build up the finished piece.

Scores, if not hundreds, of books have been written, that most of us have read, that tell stories of how a talented editor has pulled the fat out of the fire and saved a film (story). So I won't tell any here, except one.

In his book "When the Shooting Stops, the Cutting Begins", editor Ralph Rosenblum tells a wonderful story about how there is only so much an editor can do, no matter how talented (he never mentions any names).

Sometime in the "golden age" of Hollywood the suits sit down to watch the final cut of an unnamed film. It's simply awful. They can't shelve it, too much money has been spent. The writer, the director, the studio, no one can imagine how they are going to pull this one out of the crapper. Someone finally thinks of calling in a very famous, very talented editor from another stuido to see what he can do to salvage the picture.

The studio heads arrange a special screening for the editor. After the lights come up, the editor lights up a cigar, calmly stands up, puts on his coat, turns and begins walking up the aisle without a word. One of the suits nervously jumps up and asks the editor what he thinks can be done to save the picture. The editor turns back to the studio head and flatly states, "From s--- you, get s---," and proceeds on his way.

Ralph's book is still available in paperback. I highly recommend it!

Jay

"It seems to me that editors are pretty much at the mercy of just about everyone else in the process. I've been asked to "fix" things where not a single cutaway existed or the lighting conditions made decent video impossible."

"Perhaps you could name some movies where the editing made the story or ones where the editing ruined a good story. I'm never certain how much of it was the editor and how much was the director."

==========================================================
farss,
The above two concepts are conflicting. In the commercial movie making process the director/s and the editor/s collaborate on the project. The lighting, the cuts, the whole nine yards are a joint effort.

What we do is far from that. We aren't involved in the entire process and unless you really have a close relationship with the director or are the director yourself you end up having to work creatively with bad video and/or audio.

I shoot stage productions mostly. Many of them are high school musicals or dance recitals where the director doesn't have a clue about what makes a good video. Particularly troublesome is the lighting. Their idea of creative lighting is often darkness (the enemy of video). Many of them refuse to grasp the concept of "the human eye works differently than the video lens".
If I have worked with them for a long time they begin to reluctantly understand that the artsy lighting wont be what is remembered, but rather the permanent record (video). I have found that my relative success in this endeavor has been due to the following when it comes to filming and editing stage productions:
1. A genuine love for the stage through my own performances and that of my children.
2. A resulting understanding of what a stage director is trying to achieve and being able to maintain that (but not easily).
3. Going to most rehearsals before the productions and being able to shoot tight because I know where the actors are going to be.
4. Always having a video monitor and a VTR to "show" the director how awful things like a blue spot on a character will look later or "flaring" a white spot on a person's head until it looks radioactive.
5. Spending weeks on end with Vegas color correcting tools and my Proc Amp to undo the nightmare I'm left with particularly with certain scenes.
6. Using my own audio equipment because many of them put a "kid" at the mixing panel or an incompetent adult who is half deaf.

Dance recitals are often another story. Most choreographers, particularly dance studio owners want their videos to be shot one way only........wide.
They are convinced that the parents of the kids want to see the entire stage just as they did when they sat in the audience. In other words, they want you to zoom to the width of the stage and leave it there for the entire show.
In reality what you are dealing with is that the choreographer/dance studio owner wants to be able to see how the overall dance looked for their own evaluation purposes and the parents just want to see their kid (at least ONE closeup anyway). So what I do is to go to the rehearsals so that I can shoot tight (thereby getting the "whole group") and then at some point do a relatively quick closeup pan so the parents who are paying money for the video can see their kid. Professional productions aren't shot that way of course as there are lots of people left out of each shot and it was shot to please an audience not as an evaluation tool for the choreographer. Of course, someone IS shooting a video like that, but it isn't part of the final production.

In terms of "effects", I feel that cuts only is pretty much the way to go.

John

Nice articles here:

http://www.creativecow.net/articles/allen_timothy/index.html

http://www.greatdv.com/post/transitions.htm

>>>Just what does the editing process contribute to the overall telling of the story.<<<

Ok...my long 8 cents response. :)

Editing can be an "art" but it is also very non-art related in the sense of - I need to move the story from point 1 to point 10. The 'art' comes into play in how you get it there. But in the Corman frame of mind you have the "***k art, we need money!" attitude. I knew an editor who wokred for Cannon films (Hey anyone else remember when Cannon signed up Tobe Hopper to direct "Spiderman"?) and he always said "If there isn't a bloody death and nudity on the first reel the film is no good." Despite what teachers and books say I have found that with everything there is a certian element that "has to be done" - For example to shoot a film with motion picture film the things that "have to be done" are the basic things like - you need film stock, you need to put the film stock into the mag and thread it through the camera, and you need to get some sort of exposure. Oh - and the film running at some sort of frame rate is a must as well. Now everything else, to me, is suggested as "Must be" but really isn't. If you want so shoot out of focus you can. If you want to shoot handheld you can. If you want to shoot with dust on the lens you can. If you want to under expose, or over expose, the shots you can. You get the idea.

Editing is the same. Some films 'edit themselves' and other times the editor is really the director because the film, as shot, is crap. Some directors 'edit on the set' as they shoot and they do it for many resons. I do that, but I always look at things in a edited form in my head...but if I am directing it is my vision after all. ;) One of my favorite stories is how, I believe, John Houston was out shooting the final shot of a western. He wanted to convey the lonliness of the main character and he also new the studio had 'final cut' and that the studio would want the 'expected, must do' shot at the end. He did the shot, a close up of the star, but he made sure it was screwed up - out of focus, off center, whatever. Than he did his shot - a massive long shot with the main character nothing more than a tiny spec on the screen in the middle of a vast desert. He did his cut and the studio freaked out and went to recut the end - but they found they didn't have the footage, so they had to leave it the way it was. Clever.

On the other hand you always here about films like "The Man Who Fell to Earth" where the studio has cut the film so much that the story suffers. You have to wonder what the "Lord of the Rings" films would be if they were made 20 years ago and had to come it at 90 minutes. So now we have the idea of editing for story, as opposed to run time. For me I have always cut for story first. I go in and cut for pacing and time later. They call it a first rough cut for a reason. Several years ago I had a film that needed to be reworked and it came in at about 80 minutes. I thought it worked as good as it could. Almost 8 months later I get a frantic call from the producer who is at the AFM and he says "You need to go out and shoot 10 minutes and cut it into the film. Just shoot 3 workout scenes, they have to be 3 minutes each." Why? Because every single buyer who had come in to look at it said "We can not buy an 80 minute film. We need 90." Pacing and story be damned. The film I am editing right now is almost the oppisite. Current cut is about 2 hours. I still have to edit in about 5 more fight scenes. At that point I need to start taking out things because the film needs to be tighter...a lot tighter.

I remember when I first saw "The Stuntman" - I was blown away. "Now that is a real film!" I remember saying. It just flowed. The opening shot is great. I have a feeling that was a film that edited itself because it was shot to have that flow. Another film I love is "Slaughterhouse 5" because it just jumps all around editing wise - something they tell you you can not do when you edit. The editing style matched the story. "Eraserhead" is another masterpiece, but not only because of the editing, but because of the sound design. And Hitchcock has already been talked about...but I will add on that he loved to tell the audience things the characters didn't know. That is one of the main ways he created suspense. It doesn't mean it is the *only* way to create suspense. The shower scene from "Psycho" has been analized so many times it is just...just like "Who cares about the rest of the movie". It works because it works, and because of what is implied. From everything I have ever heard that scene was cut and recut a number of times, so it isn't somehting that was 'cut in camera' so to speak. To draw a little comparision - one of the things I love about "Friday the 13th" is you never see the murder happen 'on camera' other than one murder. And by happen 'on camera' I mean you don't see the actual (Insert death here) on camera. It is implied for sure - you see before and you see after but you don't see during. I love arguing with people about this because their minds tell them they saw more than they did. These scenes were more or less 'edited in camera' - they had to be thought out and storyboarded for them to work. Look at the throat cutting gag - it is more or less one take and very well planned out. You see the victim, you see the knife, you see the killer walk in front of the camera and you see the victim lean back with a cut throat....brillant. Or the ole axe in the head - very nice use of shadows, editing and sound. But do we see the axe enter the head? no. But I have had 'fights' with people who insist it was there.

To me this is what the ideal film experience would be: everyone works together. I fully believe the editor should be on set if needed. They see the dailies and log them and can ceritanly come to the director and say "Hey the stuff you shot yesterday won't cut well unles you also shoot..." I can't tell you the number of times I, as the editor, have put together a crew of 3 - or less, and gone out and shot little insert shots just to make a scene work a bit better. (by request of the Producer I might add - not just because I felt like these things needed to be shot) It is an editors job to do this? Not really, but that is my point.

I worked on one film where the screenwriter sat down with the director, who was an effects guy, and came up with all these gags based on what the director was saying. This was before shooting ever started. When we actually shot the director was, on the set, cutting out almost every effects/action scene saying things like "I can't do that on this budget!" One day we were shooting a fight scene and the director was lost as to how to shoot it. I would walk over to him and whisper something like "You could get a close up of him spinning around". If I had not been there - well...read on...

The end result of that film was this - I cut the first version, based on the script and based on what the driector had shot. The "directors" cut was about 40 minutes long, mostly dialog. This wasn't "My dinner with Andre", it was an action film. So we called a meeting, a screening if you will, with the director, producer, screenwriter, cameraperson, prop master and myself. We all sat there and watched the film and than tried to have a round table discussion about how to make it better. The director sat quietly through the entire process saying very little. He would mumble about having too little money and time and there really wasn't anything wrong with this little 40 minute film. A few days later he quit. He did the principle and did the minature effects but quit before the pick ups were done. In this case we had to shoot about 50 minutes of pick ups. I tell you this because this is where 'the editing process contributes to the overall telling of the story.' I had to come up with shots that would go with what we already had *and* make a more complete film. We also sat down and re-structured the film, all but tossing out the script. So how did the film come out? It is considered to be one of the worst films ever made by many pople. It's apperance on MST3K helped that 'legand' a bit. I don't mind hearing that overall but what really pisses me off is when I read comments like "It was an amauter film, anyone could make a better film. The editing is so bad. The crew must have been grade school students...." I have personally challeged some of these people to come and make a film for the same money, under the same circumstances...not one of these loud mouths has ever stepped forward. Point is that none of these people ever saw the 40 minute, dialog driven "directors cut" of this 'action film'. None of these people relize that many of the crew are professionals that work on films such as "Lord of the Rings", "Titanic" and "The Mask". One of the crew went straight from this film to "Mortal Kombat" and I would get weekly reports on how messed up that production was, and that film had a hell of a lot more money that we did. Even MST3K has added to a lot of the misinformation - they are joking but the viewers think it is 'reality'. For example one scene we shot in South Central LA, as real gang members looked on, has one of the robots saying something like "Another beautiful day in downtown Burbank" so now I will read these comments about how fake the film is because it was shot in Burbank. Another effects shot has one of the robots saying something like "Look! Look! A Wire!" when in reality is was dripping 'slime', but now I always read how the effects are so bad you see the wires. So - editing aside - people, as a whole, judge films overall, not on how reality may have played on the making of the film.

What could make this all smoother? Pre planning. Getting the right locations, not just based on their look, but on how they sound - go scouting with the location audio recordist, or the post production audio spuervisor/sound deisgner if you can. (One film I worked on found us shooting in a hotel room - right under the flight path outside of LAX. They didn't think of the dialog in the scene or shooting right next to LAX when they got the hotel manager to donate the room for the shoot) Have the editor be on the set every now and then. Some love to have video assist on the set which is ok, but if you don't have a lot of time I highly recomend *not* having a way to 'play back' that video on the set. Why? Because everyones a critic - the actors want to see it and than complain about the way they look and/or their acting. The DP complains and wants to redo it, the make up person complains and wants to redo it...everyone wants to look at it...it just wastes valuble time. Trust your DP as far as the shot goes and trust the director as far as acting instinct goes. I think "Project Greenlight" is a pretty good show to watch to see how to *not* do things on the set. I said this before somewhere but why they wanted the screenwriter to come to the set is beyond me. And editing by committee is never ever a good idea. Best thing I can say all around is try very hard to work with a *positive* crew. Nothing is really worse than showing up each day to find the DP and Director complaining about the days shots because "need more light" "need more money" "need a better location" etc etc. Same can be said for editing - nothing worse than having clients show up ahd hear the editor complain about bad acting, bad camera work, bad locations, bad set design etc etc. Everyone's "job" is to make it look the best it can look within the working conditions allowed. We all complain - that is human nature - but complaining to the point where the overall production suffers because of the complaining is too much.

Bottom line is every person has their own concept on how things should be and you have to use whatever method works for you. Editing is important and can make or break a story. Good acting only goes so far. Bad acting can only be covered up so much. You can only fix so much in post and have it still look real. MTV helped to toss out a lot of the editing "just do it this way" train of thought but over time it has been proven that not too many people want to sit through a feature length MTV video. I recently saw "Honey" and it was ok, but I was actually expecting more of th "MTV" vibe. It is one of those films that is just there - it doesn't suck, it doesn't rule - it just is. And that isn't a bad thing in the long run.

I have no idea if any of that follows through on what the idea of the post was..but if not feel free to ask. I will say that some editors are now doing frame grabs of the footage and pasting them up in storyboard form, much the same way the directors and screenwriters do in pre production. I always try to read through the script and cut to that for the the first assembly. The film I am cutting right now I have tossed away the script because they didn't really use it - the DP told me the director would be making up the shots each day on the set. Many locations fell through so much of it was just shot in a warehouse - making much of the film look like it takes place in the same spot. Surprise. I can't really edit that fact away...so I need establishing shots to 'tell' viewers they are different locations. The power of those seagull shots - get them, shoot them, *steal them, use them. :)

*"Permits? We don't need no stinking permits!"

I think this is a great thread started by farss and would love to see more people respond. :) It is what the forum is great for - beyond the Vegas help.

threads like this rock!

I was kind of hoping a few more people had something to add but thanks for your input filmy, it was certainly a good read and gave me some things to think about.

Hear! Hear, filmy. - G

But, filmy, now I'm dying to know which film you worked on that was on MST3k! A friend of mine worked with some people who worked on "Manos: Hands of Fate"; they hadn't even known it was on the show!

A couple of important skills I use when editing:

Timing:
There's no formula for this, it's just an instinctive thing - exactly when do you cut to that other shot, and how long do you hold it ..... In the "old days", every time you changed your mind you had to either wait for pre-rolls while you previewed new in/out points, or remove or add a few frames of film, but now it's so easy and fluid to play with options till you're happy.

Lateral thinking.
A large part of editing is being able to cover up shortcomings, either in shooting, performance, sound quality and timing etc. etc. In a perfect world this shouldn't be necessary, but in reality it's one of the most important abilities an editor can have. I'm sure we've all got favourite stories of how we saved someone's - or our own - reputation. I'm often borrowing audio - words or phrases from somewhere else, using a cutaway from a totally different shoot, zooming in a little to hide an unwanted wrist watch, even using horizontal flip to put someone on the right side of the room!

The great thing is that with Vegas we have an incredibly powerful yet extremely fluid and creative tool to achieve what we want, and of course the best resource of all - the Vegas community.

I was lucky enough to attend a lecture by Craig McKay a few months before he won the Oscar for editing Silence of The Lambs.

If you remember that film, it is very face-paced in the beginning, right up to her meeting Lecter. He said actually the movie was very conventionally shot, but he convinced Jonathan Demme that they could cut most of the coverage and edit in a way that would just sweep the audience up. He said they weren't afraid of getting ahead of the audience and letting the audience catch up to them, trusting the intelligence of the audience to make the same leaps they were. Anything that didn't advance the story was ruthlessly cut. I believe that film has interesting use of close-ups too, Closer than a normal close-up and often going from the long shot to the close-up without a medium shot.

I have never shot to a script, and can't imagine what that would be like, or if I'd be any good at it. My stuff so far has been documentary in nature (youth choir tours) with great effort made to make the story interesting to someone who didn't have a kid on the trip. To me, there is a natural "flow" in the telling of a story that you don't want to mess with. I guess because we all watch so much TV and film, we all get calibrated as to what looks and feels right, and what doesn't. Do I hold this shot for a second longer or shorter? Do I do a cut or dissolve? How long should the dissolve be? And so forth. Doing this editing stuff satisfies some deep emotional need inside me somehow. It's kind of neat that, at the same time, I get to satisfy the "techno" side of my personality, too.

By the way, based on the projects I've done so far, I've come to the conclusion that it takes about one month of serious editing for each hour of finished product. I guess if I was doing this for a living, I'd basically starve.

Peter Wright . . . . right-on!

Oh yes! This is getting closer to what I was thinking in another post where I was attempting to get near to what you've said.

How has this DV stuff actually affected how we go about telling a story? As you say in the old days . . . Now having this quick and easy way of "getting" to the material I think allows us to "try-out" stuff. Like a 2-d artist in front of the canvass. Pick up a different tube of colour; sketch in a curve or rub out a section of the canvas. If it doesn't work well, what the hell! Just revert to what was there before. But in that moment of "experience" or realisation or revelation I would have broken through another level of experience - not just for me but, eventually, for the audience too. Subsequently, and I think this is THE thing, I/you/we have had the options to try it out - this I believe goes to the core of telling a story - something that hasn't been so available to us before. Maybe this is such a "different" way of constructing a story, that that in itself IS a new way - at least for film/video - of constructing the way of story telling. More and more times we are able to "bend" reality; stretch an emotion; emphasize a point; "visually" enrich a scene . . . maybe it's a bit like the effect of modernists and the post-modernists movements in the visual arts . . . maybe. The held bullet thing in the Matrix. Has this effected our society - I'm serious here - in the way we appreciate time and space? Are the filmmakers "borrowing" from Einstein? Are they underlining the possibilities of reaching out to lateral thinkers of viewing "another" way? Are the Matrix makers saying something else than just how clever they were? Does the way in which the technologies allow for the makers of that sequence say, "Yer know what? We can do that very easily now with DV and computers!"; Are we experiencing a movement towards a newer appreciation of what film/video can do? Can you think of other examples where the new DV technologies are allowing us to rethink the "narrative" itself? I like the piece written here about the "Silence of the Lambs" - this again is going closer to what I was thinking. I'm not just saying how clever the makers of the Matrix were, I'm not just applauding how clever they've been - I'm trying to underline that they, as other modern/post-modern film makers, may be thinking and have been influenced by the ease of the new process. It's a simple but an elegant appreciation. I haven't completely "worked-out" my theories yet, maybe I never will. But the discussion has begun . . .

If you've got this far, thanks for your patience . .. .

Grazie

Story-telling as described follows some tried and proven methods from the past century with newer techniques being introduced as the technology allows them to be. And so things evolve. With the price barrier(s) being broken, thus allowing more independent artists to dabble, we should hopefully be seeing a continuance of this evoluton at an accelerated pace.
I work with musicians who have visions of what they want their music videos to be. None of them have had video editing experience and yet when they start to see their footage on the timeline for the first time it doesn't take them long to figure it out. Sometimes we're talking teenie-bopper wannabe female pop stars with zero directing experience jumping out of their seats excitedly pointing out which clips should go where, what effects to use, and what needs to be shot over. It typically takes 20'ish hours of work per finished minute of video to complete. You become friends for life by the time it's over. Lots of hugs when they leave with their DVD.

Thanks for the post FP . . smashing story! . . - G

Okay, let me jump in here. As those of you who have read my posts in the past know, I work mostly in cinema-verite style (short and long-form) documentary, primarily on stuff that I have shot myself. In this form of movie-making, I believe editing IS the primary creative enterprise. It is only through editing that the unpredictable documentary footage you have shot acquires any meaning at all. The storyline emerges from the editing process, not from a script and not from a director's vision.

On every piece on which I have worked, when I first sit down to edit a piece, the possible ways the piece could come together are so numerous that it's overwhelming. There might be hundreds of thousands, or millions of potential variations of shot selection, scene construction, cutaways, narrative throughline, etc. Walter Murch in his book "The Blink of an Eye" (great reading, by the way; also check out "The Conversations" with Murch and novelist Michael Ondaatje), actually calculates the possible permutations. I don't recall the exact figure but it is some astronomical number.

Anyway, what I find fasicnating about editing is that it is both an analytical and an intuitive process. I always start by the laborious process of logging ALL my footage (sometimes 30 hours of tape or more) and making comments about themes, subject matter, etc. From that I build a paper diagram that outlines the basic narrative structure of themes I want to hit. Then comes a very methodical process of assembling scenes and sequences based on what (in theory) SHOULD work.

But what's curious is that at some point in the process, after days of very methodically grinding it out, inspiration strikes. Suddenly, I look at the footage, and I just KNOW, without being able to explain why, what has to be done. Scenes I've spent hours tweaking and building now have to be cut entirely. Sequences get re-ordered, sometimes radically, major surgery takes place, sometimes even new footage has to be shot all in what seems like a blur.

When I'm done, I look at the piece, and it becomes impossible for me to imagine how I could have done it any other way. I never get to the inspiration stage unless I invest the time in the methodical stuff at the beginning. It's like the ideas have to compost in my brain before I can realize them in the edit.

Oh, yes, films I like where the editing really tells the story:
- "Gap-Toothed Women" by Les Blank
- "The Conversation," and "Apocalypse Now" by Francis Ford Coppola (both edited by Walter Murch)
- "Salesman" by the Maysles brothers
- Another vote for "The Stuntman," one of my all-time favorites
- "Memento"
- "Harlan County, USA"
- And for something completely different, the most recent movie adaptation of the musical "Chicago," with Richard Gere and Rene Zellweger. Really seamless editing makes this film work where other film versions of stage musicals typically fall flat.

Great thread!

>Perhaps you could name some movies where the editing made the story...

Here's my nomination for all-time-best. One in which the story was caused strictly by the editting:

"Animals are beautiful people", a South African documentary made in the early 1970s. I think it won an Oscar. Basically, they spent 7 yrs filming in the desert, then came home and made a story (many short stories) from the footage. First time you watch it, you laugh your ass off and cry as well. Then you watch the editting and realize the whole thing was completely made up. After the 50th watch, you're not sure what was real and what was faked. Or rather, you think the whole thing was faked.

Plot summary: Animals doing things that make us realize there isn't much difference between them and us. Dry, English humor commentary (hilarious) set to classic classical music. If you don't remember the title, did you ever see a documentary where all the animals ate the fruit off a tree and got absolutely drunk, falling all over the place? That one.

What I like from an editor's pov: When you have footage, one camera, and no story (i.e., us amateurs :-), this movie shows you how good it can still be.

>I never get to the inspiration stage unless I invest the time in the methodical stuff at the beginning. It's like the ideas have to compost in my brain before I can realize them in the edit.

Universally true, I suspect. I've got a PhD in Chemical Engineering with a statistical/programming specialty. Research to me was exactly the same way. You've got to pay your dues with the "raw clippings" and trust that the "flash of inspiration" will occur in time. Without the prior low-level legwork, the inspiration will never occur. (My greatest inspiration happened after 2 straight weeks of total frustration: I went out for a nightcap, opened the door of my local drinking hole, and the entire thesis fell into place before I had stepped inside. I KNEW the answer, although it took another 2 yrs to prove it to anyone else :-)

I'd suggest splitting this thread in two. Keep this one as is, then start another one for people to share their favorite movies and why. The dv-editors yahoo group did this a few months ago and it was the best discussion of the yr, imho.

We might even split up based on some other parameters: Is the footage one camera or many? Is it "planned" or is it a bunch of clippage from the family vacation? For example, I love to read and follow the discussions of the professional job, but I'll probably never experience it personally; my usage is limited to cleaning up my single cam, random this-and-thats. Still interesting to some, but hardly worth making the pros suffer through discussing.