Dead is the king.
Our Richard III exercise is over. It was pretty enlightening, and we had some great tutors - namely Alex Mackie and Roger Crittenden. They were totally supportive, whilst pointing out possible weaknesses and parts which just didn’t really flow - right up to the very last moment. Literally. On the morning of the slightly flexible 12 noon deadline, the first part of my section (part two of six) was running ABCDEF. By 12.45 it was exported for joining up to the rest as ACBEDF. Via a few different permutations including the attempted removal of a scene which I was glad stayed in when I saw all the parts together. Slightly nerve-wracking, especially as I was trimming the 5 new scene transitions that the re-organisation created right up to the last possible minute.
Still, the result cleared up a major plot point which had never really come across as well as it could have. The screenplay had already reorganised Will Shakespeare’s scenes (logical in theatre, potentially section-after-section in modern day film terms), so I can’t really feel too bad about my last minute shuffling. My most recent documentary edit utilised the scene rearrangement method from a very early stage, but this is the first time I’ve extensively reshaped in fiction in this style - our short films at the school don't lend themselves open to much of that sort of thing. But having seen how effective it was, my mind feels blown open for future edits in all projects.
You really can read all of the books that you want on the theory of editing - but you just can't learn how to edit from them. Because editing has to be instinctive, it has to be natural, you have to feel it… and even the most poetic instruction manual is still an instruction manual.
Still, the result cleared up a major plot point which had never really come across as well as it could have. The screenplay had already reorganised Will Shakespeare’s scenes (logical in theatre, potentially section-after-section in modern day film terms), so I can’t really feel too bad about my last minute shuffling. My most recent documentary edit utilised the scene rearrangement method from a very early stage, but this is the first time I’ve extensively reshaped in fiction in this style - our short films at the school don't lend themselves open to much of that sort of thing. But having seen how effective it was, my mind feels blown open for future edits in all projects.
You really can read all of the books that you want on the theory of editing - but you just can't learn how to edit from them. Because editing has to be instinctive, it has to be natural, you have to feel it… and even the most poetic instruction manual is still an instruction manual.
Judith
Reader Comments (2)
Just wanted to say, really enjoying your blog.
I wanted to comment on this post first, because it's editing of drama which I'm most interested (and least experienced) in. Like you say, it can't be learned by reading about it, but I do enjoy reading about the challenges (and successes!) of editing fiction. Sometimes those techniques can also be applied to documentaries, as you mentioned.
Don't know if you would ever consider posting examples, eg. "before & after" edits? It could be quite enlightening. Though I know most editors are loath to show unfinished work to anyone but their producer (or instructor)!
Well the advantage of being at film school in an editing class with five others is that we all quite quickly learnt to watch each other's work from the early stages through to the finished product and see the potential/ themes that we were bringing out (often with the same material in the early exercises). Even so, it's still tricky when you know that the sequence you're showing is nowhere near where you want it to be.
But it's more of a distribution issue - exercises are copyrighted by the original filmmakers, and films made at the school are subject to all sorts of restrictions on uploading because of past problems. A few years ago one of the documentaries made here got short-listed for an Oscar, but then it was disqualified because the filmmaker had uploaded it on to youtube to show his friends and family. Since then it's become quite difficult to even get material from a film approved by the school for showreel uploads!
But anyway, thanks for your comment and I hope you keep reading when I have something more to say!