Now, this was a rather contentious point. In fact, it still is. The previs reviews bring in a number of changes to the edit, where the editor isn’t even present. As an editor, you become used to people making changes to the shots that you’ve selected – even not being present at the decision and therefore not being able to argue your case is something you have to live with on occasion. But this involves entire sequences being shaped away from the department. And is, understandably, somewhat frustrating.

I’m in a rather unique position on it all. I sympathise entirely with the editor’s wish to be the one in control of these decisions. But from the previs perspective, the sequences need to be viewable at our reviews with the director. It was one of the reasons I was hired in the first place – to be able to tidy up sequences and show the director different possibilities within reviews without the entire thing having to go into the main edit suite and involve about twice as many people. But with the massively hectic schedule we have, the added complications of dialogue selects coming back on a near-daily basis, sequences being updated in edit with incoming shots and newly recorded/approved dialogue whilst they’re being updated in previs to solve issues with sets, models, actions…. well, it’s impossible to request the editor to attend all of our reviews, and impractical for previs notes to be given within edit reviews when there are so many feedback sessions required per sequence before they’re approved.

The upshot of it all is that our approval workflow is changing on a monthly basis, as we sort out what’s working and what isn’t for our relative departments as well as the overall production. The meetings are vastly interesting as we all get to say what would work best for us, and then hear what that would imply for the others further down the line. It’s a masterclass in communication and adaptation. And it’s actually pretty damn enjoyable.

This is one of the later stages, complete with temporary subtitles. The main video (and associated audio) is mostly coloured by character or location, which helped to give a decent at-a-glance indication of how the overall structure was looking without having to go through scene by scene every time we moved something.

Doc edit in AXP

Meanwhile, the animation’s been moving… well, as quickly as these things do, I guess. Most of the significant line drawing’s almost complete (there are assistants to do intermediate steps, as well as colouring once a few frames have been done), and we’ve altered the timing of a few shots now where it seemed right in the animatic, but had to change slightly once motion was added. There’s more still to come, but it makes the most sense to just spend half an hour each day with the director and run through any queries and recent work – less frequently if there’s a lot of other stuff going on, but she’s the fastest WACOM user in the West! Since she’s working with stills for the filmed backgrounds, the best bet’s probably going to be to reimport the final film with the new timings, alter the HDCAM backgrounds to sync with the film, then re-export for the compositing stages.

A still from the NFTS short animation 'Cherry On The Cake'

I’ve also been learning a bit of DVD Studio Pro in my downtime, with a view to producing a proper showreel DVD with complete films within each type of thing that I’ve cut (documentary, animation, fiction, adverts, promos etc). I’d done some really basic stuff with it in the past, and I’m still going the long way around on some things I’m sure, but anything which allows this amount of control is worth it:

Preliminary thoughts on editing showreel layout in DVD Studio Pro

… yes, that IS a picture from Cherry in the background. It’s intentionally blurred, and makes an appearance in the film in a photo frame - the level of detail on that model was fantastic.

Time to clear some of the 50+ hours of documentary rushes from my hard drives to make way for the fiction. After that is a sketch show (post planned for October/November), then it’s just supervising post on the films I’ve done and out into the ‘real’ world. Easy.

Playing around with Wordle, I entered in the text from my ‘about’ sections here and on my website as well as my CV…. and generated the above. It’s interesting to see without the surrounding context – some things are titles or synopses of projects, some things are background information which aren’t so relevant to what I do now, seperate words are broken up… but I suppose it’s fairly similar to how a computer would see the site, and also shows the emphasis (however unintentional) on certain words.

It’s fairly elementary, but the Doctor Who Confidential (BBC iPlayer – I believe only accessible from the UK) from last week has quite a nice insight to sound post-production processes for the uninitiated. Sound is always something I feel I’m lacking in – either I put off laying temp tracks etc for longer than I should within the editing process, or I just play around for ages with controls without any real sense of what I’m doing when I try to achieve a certain technical effect. Foley recording, however, I love. Take that as you will…. it seems fairly counter-intuitive for an editor, but the rhythms and the precise timbres of sounds synched to a video just appeals to a certain side of me which I guess I usually use in dialogue scenes more than anything, but comes from my musical and orchestral past.

Also, I’m considering my next phone. I think I’ll need email and internet, and I’m torn between the iPhone, a Blackberry, or a Nokia (E90) Communicator.It’s a few months away, but I’m currently swaying towards the Nokia, unless anyone has any insights?

I thought I’d share what my workflow so far’s been, and the vague outline of how we’ve gotten from 25 hours of rushes in which I understood very little of the speech to a stage where I feel confident of being able to do some proper editing work whilst there are still some sections of the documentary being filmed.

1. Outline translation from tape of main themes and topics in interview, with loose timecode and tape number. This was done by the director whilst I was still digitising and logging the interview segments as massive chunks with logical breaks, and splitting up the GVs by location.
2. Clip selection from our main interview, in this case the woman who runs the marriage agency that the film’s based around. This went more rapidly than it would have without the outline translation, as some parts were clear repeats in a less useful context – and we’ll still have that outline further down the road. Lots of pausing and asking what came before/after the bit which we’d already selected – but trusting that the director understands the criteria for selection was the biggest factor.
3. Detailed translation of the selects. About two hours’ worth of interview material from our main interviewee, and half an hour or so from the Ukranian section. BITC relating to rushes TC rather than sequence TC because of how it relates to the way the material had been captured and logged.
4. Familiarisation with material. Reading, marking with highlighter pens, taking notes with associated tape/timecode. Anything interesting, anything informative, anything potentially relating to something which will relate to the additional material yet to be shot.
5. Writing down main ‘stories’ and themes from the transcript, with knowledge of the available material. We went in quite close on this part, since many segments of interview relate to multiple themes at once – although we had an idea of what would probably go together.
6. Arranging the stories to give an overall film structure. Whilst we’re aware that a lot of material is yet to be shot, it’s useful to have an idea of the shape of the film before going out and shooting – and invaluable to know that both editor and director are heading in the same direction in each others’ absence.

A long room can be useful. Failing that, a corridor. I like to take my directors out of the edit suite in the early stages where possible, so that it’s less of me being the one operating and doing stuff relating to their film.

The cards next to each other are in no particular order because of the thematic overlaps, it’s where they are in relation to what’s above or below them that we’ve worked on most. The cards all relate to certain timecodes and tapes – some have more than one instance of the same story or content, so both timecode/tape references are there. That’s now on my wall, with additional sticky notes… it’ll be interesting to see how it gets rearranged over the course of the edit, especially once the new material comes in. But for now I’m set… and expecting a few unintentionally humourous cut points when I go over an out point, but great things have been discovered that way before now…

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.

Well today I upgraded. Surprisingly not technologically – I can’t be fussed with all of that PDA stuff – charging it up, spending even more of my life gazing at an LCD screen, being laughed at by the Blackberry brigade… no, I’ve gone for the good old fashioned filofax. Last seen in the 1980s. So it must be coming round again soon, right?

I’ll attribute my excessive joy at looking through it and buying it accessories already as a mix of the girly need for stationery at the start of a new school year, plus sheer utter boredom and a need for life to restart again soon. For now, my NFTS dissertation’s about as close as it gets. And let’s face it – watching endless Red Dwarf reruns on Dave is more interesting than that.