… at least that’s what the certificate says. If you remove certain words.

My time at the NFTS culminated in 3 days of graduation screenings at the British Film Institute on the South Bank in London. Wednesday and Thursday were industry days – where various members of the film and television industry were invited to see the graduation films and some other selected films from the two year course, and then we could discuss them over drinks afterwards.

Of course, this also means that we got to see each other’s films for the first times in many cases – when the films were shorter in the first year with more regular deadlines, we used to all attend reviews and screenings to give feedback and see what everyone else was doing with their brief. But in the second year we all got a bit too busy and had our own films to be concentrating on, and the tradition lapsed – but it was great to see how they’d all turned out after hearing varying amounts during the filming and editing processes.

In addition to the four graduation films, I had two other films which I’d edited in my first year (a fiction – Brixton 85, and a documentary – Davey’s Last Order) screened at the industry days, which gave me a new audience reaction to notice and a chance to evaluate the editing decisions I’d made over a year ago… which was both illuminating and painful in certain respects, as self-examination tends to be!

The graduation films themselves all went extremely well – the animation Cherry on the Cake had laughs and ‘aww’s in all the right places and looked fantastic on a huge screen. The Love Bureau went down extremely well with the right humour – and perhaps in retrospect an overabundance of cats… although it was fairly representative of the rushes! Park Close again went down very well in front of a new audience, although I was double-booked with the screening of  TV or not TV which was unfortunate as the cast and writers were also in attendance and I thought it would be more useful to get the fresh audience reaction there.

Friday was the friends and family day and the actual graduation itself – which may have been more nerve-racking in many respects! Although in true NFTS tradition it was all rather informal… we corrected Nik‘s (the director of the school) speech en masse, got called scruffy by Michael Kuhn, had official photos taken with the stage party, and given sparkly certificates.

So on with the search for further employment! Whilst waiting for the less official ‘wrap’ party…

So here’s my new showreel, updated from the previous to include my graduation films from the NFTS and some of the animations I’ve worked on at the school:

Editing Showreel Jan 2009 from Judith Allen on Vimeo.

… and here are two of my favourite sketches from my most recent editing project, ‘TV or Not TV’:

TV or not TV – ‘Corporate Woman’ from Judith Allen on Vimeo.

TV or not TV – ‘The Facts of Life’ from Judith Allen on Vimeo.

As we were running late, I had to go to pick up one of the actors from reception whilst another was finishing up in the recording booth. I saw him, went over, said his name…. and then realised that there was absolutely no reason in the world why he’d know who I was. I may have been editing material with him in it for the past month, but he’s never seen me before in his life.

I’d read about this aspect of editing before in books, but had always assumed it to be along the lines of seeing a well-known TV or film personality walking down the street. We may watch them weekly on television, but we never think that we know them.

Except from a certain aspect, we do know the people who we’ve edited. We’ve actively studied their physical and facial reactions on several different takes in an attempt to judge one the ‘best’ or ‘most apt’ for the surrounding scene and performances. We’ve berated them (sometimes loudly in the direction of the computer monitor without acknowledgement of the futility of such an action) for an utter lack of consideration to continuity between different slates. We’ve interpreted their intentions and characterisations – and when hard decisions have been made on the subjects we’ve made them with the actor because of what they’ve given us to work with. We’ve made cuts and decisions alongside their performance - to enhance one character trait whilst diminishing another, to engage the audience as if they were there in the room when the scene was being filmed (or even within the mindset and context of the drama they’re watching, as appropriate).

It just seems a little harsh at times, when part of the job description involves getting involved to some extent in the emotional journey of the characters that you’ve been watching on screen for weeks or even months. The lack of acknowledgement can sometimes feel total. They’ll likely never know just how much we study them and feel that we know them and/or their character. But it’s probably for the best. A self-conscious actor is usually the last thing you want when they’re doing their close-ups, and so long as the finished product looks great then everyone’s done their job well.

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.

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.