This week I’m sharing my process for editing, seeing as there are so many different ways
you can go about it.
Editing usually begins with the kind of boring process of matching up the sound with the
footage. Now if we’ve bothered to run a slate on
set, then this part is way less painful. You just match up the numbers on the slate
with the numbers that you can hear in the audio file.
Once the sound is in, I like to make a separate project for each scene.
Then I drag everything we’ve shot into it’s corresponding scene project, only cutting
out the parts that are completely un-useable, like the slate for example.
From there, I’ll choose a shot, and just watch every single take, trying to choose
the best one, which is pretty difficult, so I usually end up using the process of elimination
instead. If there’s a take where an actor forgets
their line, or there's a massive problem with the sound, then those takes are pretty easy
to reject.
But after that, it gets a bit more tricky - looking at the performance, a combination
of dialog, face expressions, and body language. Usually there’s a few I can confidently
say I don’t like, leaving two or three that I’m really struggling to decide between.
Now, even though I am eliminating takes, all that means is moving them to the end of the
project. At this stage I do not want to be committing
to anything, so it needs to be really easy for me to access those alternative takes.
As I find my favourite takes of each shot, I start to assemble a rough cut of the scene,
which gives us an entirely new way to look at the footage: in context with the other
shots. Sometimes there’s a take that I thought
was really good, but watching it as part of the scene, it just doesn’t fit.
So I scroll over to the rejected takes, and do some swaps.
It’s a bit of rubik's cube trying to find the best combinations, but eventually we’ll
have chiseled out a rough cut of the scene, which I then like to copy and paste to a master
project. That gives us a much cleaner timeline, but
still keeps the options completely open to go back to some older takes.
So after we've copied each scene, assembling our entire rough cut, from now on we’re
mostly just refining, which for me is the longest step of the whole process.
For example, with a dialogue scene, we’ve got the rough shape, but then I like to extend
the first shot until I see where the next line of dialogue came in. Then I use that point
as a timing reference for the start of the dialogue in the next shot. Basically we're
recreating the natural flow of the pauses in conversation that the actors gave us in
the moment, and I feel like that is a very good place to start.
From there we can watch the scene again asking ourselves if any pauses need to be extended,
or where the dialog should overlap, cutting off the previous person.
Which sequences should generally play out faster, and which should slow down.
I wish I had some tips for this part, but the truth is every project is different, and
I feel like editing is a lot about your personal intuition, just trying stuff and seeing what
feels right to you. Of course, with practice you start to see
more and more possibilities, and you get a clearer idea of what you're trying to do.
At least that’s what I’m hoping, because I’ve got a lot to learn.
Anyway, at some point during the refining process, there are usually two main problems
that I run into: Firstly, after working on a project for a
while, I get kind of tired of it, already thinking about the next one..
That’s why I think it’s so important to pick a release date every time, and make it
public. Tell the cast and crew, tell your friends,
you could even do a countdown on social media. Because that gives you a tangible deadline,
which for me at least is the only way I finish anything.
On our last short film we also had a deadline for the rough cut - when I would send the
work-in-progress to as many people as possible for their feedback.
And this helps with the second issue that I usually run into: which is that I've watched
this thing so many times, I can't even imagine what it's like for a first time viewer.
That’s where feedback and collaboration is so important.
I shared it through Wipster, so people who lived miles away could easily add their comments.
From that I’d have a list of all their ideas, and I’d usually try out most of them, like
when Johann who wrote the script suggested extending some pauses between certain lines
of dialog. I’d give it a try, and if I preferred it
to the original, then I’d keep it in. If not, just undo the changes, no problem at all.
Doing this, I ended up using some of the ideas that I really didn’t think would work, things
that I would never have tried by myself. It was probably about thirty changes based
off Wipster collaborators alone, everything from Carl pointing out a boom pole in the
frame to Johann saying the timing might be off for some of the action.
They’ve got unlimited storage so I just kept uploading the latest cuts to keep our
producer in the loop, but it also gave mini-deadlines to stay on track.
It doesn’t always feel natural to ask for help, but you know filmmaking has always been
collaborative, and I’m now realising that I’d be crazy to miss out all of these new
and better ideas. I'll put a link to Wipster's site in the description,
in case you want to check them out.
So overall, I’d break down my editing process into four sections:
Collecting the footage and organising it, then Assembling into rough cuts, then Refining & refining
& refining, followed by Feedback & experimentation. My name’s Simon Cade, this has been DSLRguide,
and I’ll see you next week.