“Wall” is about Hare’s own experiences with the Middle Eastern conflict between Israel and Palestine, and is being presented as a companion piece to “Berlin”. I think it may be a testament to the fact that I’ll never be a true theatre-type that when people start talking about the walls we build around ourselves, I’m more likely to think about Pink Floyd than the Pyramus and Thisbe reference  that followed last night.

Nonetheless, amongst several astounding pieces of commentary last night from both the subjective and objective viewpoint, I feel compelled to share the following paragraph – a quote from the reading last night:

I don’t entirely understand this. People always ask: how do you choose the subjects you write about? I have a glib answer. Why did Bacon paint popes? Meaning: the artist doesn’t choose the subject, the subject chooses the artist. ‘Go to Rwanda,’ said my American agent, when ten years ago I first proposed a play about Israel/Palestine. ‘Better still, go to Kashmir. Now there’s a dispute nobody understands. Throw some light on Kashmir.’ But unfortunately it doesn’t work like that. Recently, I found myself writing about Berlin because I don’t understand it. Now I want to write about Israel/Palestine because I do. No, hold on, let me rephrase, that’s a preposterous claim, nobody understands the Middle East – but put it this way: I recognise it. It answers to something in me.

I found editing whilst on a degree course which had absolutely nothing to do with media at all. I joined the student television station and tried all sorts of roles – camera, floor managing, sound mixing, vision mixing, co-producing… but when I got my first chance to creatively put something together at my first year – a trailer out of an evening’s recorded event at the university – something was answered in me. From that point on, I knew I never wanted to do anything else. And with each project that I look at – some will inevitably stir more passion than others, and those are the ones which will really work.

Editing can often be seen as a technical vocation by the people who don’t understand it – but it’s truly anything but.

This was probably the last big screening or session that I’ll have attended during my time at the NFTS. But over the last two years, there have been quite a few people who’ve come to the school to share their personal wisdom and experience – and I do view myself as very fortunate to have had the opportunity to encounter so many fantastic people from the global film industry. I’ll try to list the ones who really stick out in my mind here – although most assuredly I’ll forget someone major.
Brian Tufano. It’s easy for me to forget about Brian, since he’s around the cinematography department so much. Idolized by the cinematography students, and justifiably so from the work experience, tutoring and inspiration he gives them.

Walter Murch. Came into school for one day only, complete with handouts and powerpoint presentations to illustrate case studies – in which we saw the view of his edit suite inside and out and his favourite mixing jumper (amongst other things). Just as insistent on the “you should stand up to edit” principle as you’d expect, and gave a really useful insight into sound at the same time illustrated by some truly classic sequences from the films he’s edited.

David Yates. Was deep in the Order of the Phoenix post at the time, but was very happy to talk at length about his previous projects and the importance of TV work. State of Play is an obvious example of this – it’s a fantastic drama, which everyone should see before the Kevin Macdonald film version comes out. He’s an alumnus of the NFTS’s directing course. Absolutely wonderful man, lovely to be around and totally unassuming.  Post-production trivia point – he insisted on taking his usual editor and composer with him if he was going to agree to direct Harry Potter. WB agreed.

Roger Deakins. Another fantastic bloke, another NFTS alumnus. Not suggesting any correlation, but you know….. He had all the time in the world for any questions from anyone, spent another day exclusively with the cinematography students (who temporarily found a new idol). He remembers details and answers questions on every shoot he’s ever done, talked through scenes from Jarhead, Jesse James… and was just incredibly giving with his time and thought processes. The forum on his website deakinsonline.com gives some insight into the type of answer a typical cinematography question would get.

Darren Aronofsky. Came in the day before we could see The Wrestler in our weekly preview screenings, which he seemed genuinely disapponted about and requested that feedback be sent on to him once we’d seen it. Which was actually pretty mindblowing for a generation of film school students who almost universally hold Requiem for a Dream to the highest possible regard. He opened the session with the fact that he’d applied to the NFTS but hadn’t gotten in – quite the ice breaker! Happy to talk on all subjects even those which seemed slightly uncomfortable – such as recasting and associated budget cuts.
Other inspirational names from my time at the film school – whether it was a short tutorial or full exercise/ short film editing supervision:

Stephen Frears – tutored throughout the first year film project alongside Sean Barton during the editing stage.
Alex Mackie – first year external examiner and tutor on our Richard III exercise. Very open, and has been a great help to me.
Barry Vince – came in very early in our film school careers to provide a structured and solid background in editing processes from which to work.
Roger Crittenden –  quite literally wrote the book on editing (or a book, at any rate), and tutored on several fiction films in my second year.
Mamoun Hassan – we spent a day with Mamoun just analysing the opening few minutes of The Man in the White Suit and learnt more about filmmaking than we ever thought possible.

I suppose one of the benefits of a postgraduate degree is being able to appreciate things like this all the more fully – and whilst you still have access to them. But the next stage is to get out there and start making names for ourselves in some form. Onwards and upwards, as they say….

Student delegate pass for the London Film Festival 2008

I managed to get to four films in total, all press screenings.

Frost/Nixon was screened at the Odeon in Leicester Square (where a large number of UK/ world premieres are held), and drew quite a large crowd. Having recently taken quite an interest in film adaptations of theatrical pieces (since noticing a dialogue scene in a restaurant in David Hare’s My Zinc Bed SCREAM OUT that it was timed for live performance of a certain genre – even though it leant itself well to the discomfort of the on-screen situation), the adaptation of this was superb – notably so since both leads had of course been playing the roles for some time, and would have had to overcome differences within the adaptation. Similarly, the setting didn’t seem too ’sceney’ - the flow of locations and discussions and character encounters were precise and correct. And whilst I know just about nothing about the historical relevancies and accuracies of the story, enough information was given as was necessary for the plot and genre whilst not labouring it out. Fantastic film, brillliantly structured.

One of the criticisms that student films here often get is that the motivation of characters is missing, or their actions are unbelievable. By the time this point is raised to a significant level, we’re usually within the final stages of the edit and the “do we need to reshoot or can we fix it?” question is whispered amongst the significant production crew members.  Of course by that point we’re usually so far into the process that either the budget’s disappeared in its entirety (along with the contingency and any ‘extra funding’ occasionally raised on the sly), or we’re so far into the woods on a crammed schedule that we can’t see the trees for the caterpillars on the leaves. So it’s useful to be able to spot it and other common flaws in the work of others, as a known easy pitfall. And I certainly recognised the signs in 1234, a low budget British first feature. Their press release focusses massively on the looks, cast and music… which for a film about a band are all clearly major points and probably the things that a target box office audience would care most about after all (and the music backing/ references are certainly all in place). And it certainly functions as a story - the first half concerning the build-up of the band is great, and the audience at the screening were all along for the ride. But then during the gradual break-up of the band, the film seemed to come apart too. Things which seemed inevitable were treated as surprises, significant actions came either completely out of the blue or after a massive delay during which the pace of the film seemed to slow…. still, it makes it clear just how much I’ve learnt from making the mistakes that I’ve made whilst cutting myself.

Director/ Editor Antonio Campos on Afterschool:

I made a short film in 2004 called Buy it now, which was about a teenage girl who sells her virginity on eBay [...] But there was so much rapid cutting and too much music on the soundtrack; it took away from the experience because it felt so cluttered. I decided to make a film about teenagers and do everything in the opposite manner. As opposed to a lot of cutting and a heavy score to try to communicate the sense of adolesence, I decided to watch a confused adolescent in a room, watch two kids talk, observe a conversation between a mother and daughter uninterrupted. And I liked it. I liked watching people.

I had read that before watching the film, and it did help to explain a lot of the decisions… which were often well-judged (a section where the principal of the school is leading a service for the two dead girls is framed for him – and remains so when the mostly much shorter school children go up to deliver their tributes), but did sometimes feel like something he was stubbornly trying to do past the usefulness of the shot. The tribute video which the main character co-shoots and edits is a lesson in editing appropriately for the purpose, though!

Last up was Slumdog Millionaire – Danny Boyle’s latest film, set in India and investigating the life of a child from the slums in India who is one question away from winning the top prize in Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? And it was fantastic. Gritty, emotional, harrowing, beautiful, funny, human. The overall effect was outstanding. It’s not out til next year, and does mark a massive change of pace and scene for its director, but I’d recommend it even above Frost/Nixon for the simultaneous complexity and simplicity of the story.

This week, for example. It’s the first week of the 5 week (scheduled) documentary graduation film. The animation grad film that I’ve been working on the storyboard/ animatic for has started shooting the live backgrounds with another shoot scheduled for next month, and there are treatments for the fiction (shooting July/August) flying around. To top it all off, in a certain amount of style admittedly, this week we’ve had Roger Deakins and Mike Leigh come in to the school to show us some of their work and answer questions on their work and techniques. I may be an editor rather than a cinematographer or director, but both of them were so inspiring and with enough to say about how they collaborated with the other departments that both sessions were truly unmissable.

So my intended post on my efforts and attempted/ intended workflow on working in a foreign language or two which I don’t speak will have to wait a while. But it’s an experience I knew I’d appreciate. And I’m picking up a bit of the language as I go too!

So here’s the new blog, which I can also update from school – which may be slightly dangerous. In any case, I’m currently officially half-way through my winter fiction edit (last fiction before the graduation films) – though only just past the first cut stage because of spending the first week waiting for the year above’s grad films to play out on the HDCAM deck I needed,  then sorting through the rushes once I’d digitised them. But it’s now resembling a film, however lumpy.

I’ve now teamed up for my graduation animation film. I’m working with Hye Bin Lee, who I’m really happy to be working with again after an excercise last year, and Michelle ‘BAFTA nominated‘ Eastwood. As some called her at the time. We’re getting our documentary pitches later this week, then fiction after our Easter break. Presumably once we’ve finished editing the current project and the directors have had time to properly think about their films.

Oh, and Walter Murch visited the school for a day. Weird guy, but great. Covered a lot of the stuff that’s in In the Blink of an Eye, but also had some very entertaining images and techniques. And my fellow editors at school no longer see me as hyper-organised, relatively speaking (though they still mock my colour scheming). But he’s very careful to stress that these things are what works for him - different people may find different styles. Just because he likes to wear the same jumper when sound-mixing, and take photos of the buildings where he’s edited (with his window circled) he’s not suggesting that we all do!

Except you should always stand up – he’s quite clear on that. Good old Walter.

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.

I have to say, it’s rather nice to be able to really work with something which has been professionally made, budgeted, acted… all of that. Nothing against the school productions – the production designers always do a magnificent job with the briefs they’re given, and it’s very possible to get a great short film out of the projects we do – but the fact is that we’re all still learning, and not having massive amounts of money to spend on crew, cast, facilities etc does show when you compare it to an actual feature film. And of course, it’s a completely different way of telling a story to what we’ve done so far – not just longer overall, but with entire scenes relating to each other (many to a scene which is being cut by someone else) instead of mere moments of fore-shadowing within scenes which have to have a greater overall and necessary function. That we don’t really have to worry about the structure of the story either is also quite useful – not necessarily relevant unless we plan to cut films based on the writings of major authors for the rest of our careers, but certainly helpful in being able to focus on refining our skills in scene cutting.

To distract myself from all of the scheming, treachery, murder, and other things that go into a decent Shakespeare story (I’m not a huge fan of the comedies, I have to admit), I’m also cutting a commercial for an advertising competition which has been performed by some dancers from the London International School of Performing Arts. It’s for Whiskas cat food, and the cast are all dressed as cats. The director’s made all of the costumes herself and done an absolutely amazing job with them. So a typical day at the moment involves selecting takes of Nigel Hawthorne getting rained on/ executed in a bathtub/ generally going with the whole watery theme, and then cutting together some people dressed and moving as cats generally gyrating around things and fighting. Can’t really complain about a lack of variety. Although if I don’t get to watch the first episode of Ashes to Ashes soon, I may have to rethink the ‘no complaints’ thing.