Latest / Indie Film Podcast / Editing an Indie Film: Pacing, Proxies, & Truth Bombs

Transcript

Editing an Indie Film: Pacing, Proxies, & Truth Bombs · Indie Film Podcast

0:00
Editing reveals everything that production lied to you about and
0:06
I love that. I hate it, but I love it, right?
0:09
We've all heard the quote. There's the film that you write,
0:11
the film that you shoot and the film that you edit, which.
0:14
Feels like film makers are making three different movies
0:16
but actually they only ever released the film that they edit
0:19
which. Sure makes it sound like that
0:20
one is the most important one. Welcome to indie film podcast.
0:24
I'm Vic. And I'm Chuck.
0:25
We're breaking down the seven deadly sins of low budget indie
0:28
filmmaking. So far we've talked about dull
0:30
scripts, woeful rehearsals, sparse art department,
0:33
uninspired shot design, and distracting audio.
0:36
So today we're covering what we think is the 6th sin, which I
0:40
assure you I've always pronounced correctly every
0:42
single time I've said that sentence today.
0:44
Lousy editing. Let's talk about editing
0:47
Victoria. We kind of broke things down in
0:50
to technical considerations as well as artistic considerations.
0:54
Do you want to talk about your technical steps when you start?
0:57
To edit, I think I am definitely more the the technical editor
1:00
and you're more the artistic editor.
1:02
So that feels, that feels. Right.
1:03
Well, you do a lot more entity, you do a lot more editing than I
1:06
do. So you have a, you have a
1:07
system. And realistically, a good edit
1:10
should have these technical considerations as well as the
1:14
artistic considerations. You shouldn't choose one or the
1:17
other. Correct, correct.
1:18
OK, so technical considerations just as a quick six point list
1:23
is learn your platform, organize your assets, plan for your final
1:27
specs, assemble your film, get feedback, repeat assembly and
1:31
feedback until a toasty golden brown.
1:34
I like that you just. Because it's now a casserole
1:36
too. Keep it revisiting it until that
1:38
casserole's cooked. Yeah, or you get real sick of
1:40
doing it. Either one.
1:42
I I did, yeah. The, the quote films are never
1:45
finished. They're abandoned.
1:47
And it's in the editing room that you end up abandoning your
1:51
film. You're like, this is the last
1:52
export. And then that's always sitting
1:54
in the back of your mind, like maybe I'll revisit this again
1:57
someday. Maybe I'll clean it up, make
1:59
some changes and then it. Sits on your hard drive for like
2:01
2 years and you just basically you just abandon it.
2:05
And you know what? You did enough.
2:06
You got it through high school. You kept it alive.
2:09
You did plenty. It can handle the rest on its
2:11
own. OK.
2:13
Do you want to go through the artistic consideration?
2:15
Yeah, the the things that I consider for the artistic part
2:19
of an edit are performance, continuity, pacing and story.
2:25
And it's the pacing and the story that always gets me on
2:31
indie films. If if it's if it's we're at a
2:34
Film Festival and I watch a film that feels like it's a little
2:37
bit in the mediocre department. I can usually attribute that to
2:41
mistakes in in pacing and the edit.
2:44
And sometimes it's just length. Honestly, I think there's a lot
2:49
of indie film makers out there and we've been to quite a few
2:52
film festivals. Cut your Cut your film short.
2:57
It's OK to have a shorter film. It is OK to have a shorter film.
3:01
I think maybe all film makers, myself included, need to look
3:06
ourselves in the mirror every morning and add that to our
3:08
affirmations list. It's OK to have a shorter film.
3:12
Actually, I think if any algorithm whatsoever for this
3:16
podcast would let us, I would just call this episode Kill Your
3:20
Darling. Kill Your Darlings.
3:22
But I'm pretty sure that if we call it that, we will
3:24
immediately be flagged and our general will be shut down.
3:27
Yeah, yeah. We can't put that in the title
3:29
for some reason, but so maybe we could talk some about some of
3:33
those darlings that we've killed and and how you've decided to
3:38
get rid of some of that stuff. And when you're editing a film,
3:41
do you have an example of something that you've ended up
3:45
putting on the chopping block and why you made that decision?
3:49
I think I it's actually really funny.
3:52
It was a film I was editing for somebody else and there was a
3:57
whole scene that didn't add too much to the story, but it was
4:02
really comedic and it was funny, but it was a little bit leaning
4:08
into kind of an inside joke. So it's not necessarily 100%
4:11
relatable. It works, it does work, but I
4:15
just wasn't 100% sure that it was really, you know, imperative
4:19
to the story, I guess. So I went through and did
4:22
another cut where I cut and tighten a lot of things.
4:25
And to be fair, there were a few places where I really did cut it
4:27
a little bit too short and some other conversation scenes, but I
4:30
just cut that scene out completely right on.
4:32
Just tossed it right out the window.
4:34
You get you got to get rid of anything that doesn't add to the
4:37
story when when you're starting out.
4:38
I feel like, yeah, and it might be an interesting scene, but if
4:42
it doesn't add anything to what's going on holistically, I
4:46
feel like it's better to cut it. And if you're going to make
4:50
another film, I mean, it wouldn't be ideal, but to
4:53
include those scenes again later on if they do fit.
4:56
Oh yeah, like you can always reuse stuff.
4:58
If it fell onto your cutting room floor, you can always pick
5:02
it up, dust it off, find the write that into another movie.
5:05
That's totally fine. You're allowed to do that.
5:07
It's your stuff. And you'll be able to shoot it
5:08
better the next time because you already have experience shooting
5:11
that exact. Scene.
5:12
And if there was something specific that went wrong during
5:14
that scene that made it end up on your cutting room floor, then
5:17
hello, Now you know what to not do next time you can fix it.
5:21
Yeah, that's great. But anyway, I did send that
5:23
version off to the director and he said no and he wanted it back
5:27
in. Yeah.
5:28
So we went backwards. It got longer again.
5:31
Well, and that's, that's sometimes that's it's hard for
5:36
people that are just getting started in film, I feel like to
5:39
cut those scenes out of their films.
5:42
Because they love it. They love it.
5:44
It's their darling. Yeah, and there's also.
5:46
And I tried to kill it. Yeah, there's actors to
5:48
consider, it to consider and performances to consider, and
5:51
that's really tricky to to balance that stuff out.
5:56
But one thing that that I like to think about in in making
6:00
those edits is unless the film is the best it can be, those
6:05
actors are not going to get any attention anyway.
6:08
Yeah, and. And so it's better to make the
6:10
film as good as possible, even if it is like a scene that that
6:15
ends up on the cutting room floor, which happened.
6:19
I know a lot of actors who were so excited about a specific
6:23
scene 'cause they had a really cool moment, or maybe it was
6:26
their only moment in the whole movie or series or episode or
6:29
whatever, and they were so excited about it.
6:32
And then it comes out and they're not there.
6:35
Yeah. And it's a little bit
6:37
heartbreaking, but at the same time, you got to hope that you
6:42
just wowed them on set and now that means they can bring you
6:44
back in for something else later.
6:47
Absolutely it'll. Be a better fit for something
6:48
else later I. Actually have a little bit of a
6:50
story about cutting a scene from a film.
6:52
The first feature film that I I helped produce with my brother.
6:56
Oh yeah, we cut our father's scene out of the film.
6:59
You. Cut your own father out of the
7:02
film. We had to because it didn't fit
7:06
the film and that was a hard one to do because.
7:09
Your father didn't disown the both of you.
7:11
Nope, not yet. Not yet.
7:13
But we're we just keep pushing that envelope every single time,
7:16
every single project we'll bring him back on.
7:18
Yeah. So we've cut him like four or
7:19
five Times Now. No, I'm kidding.
7:21
But that that was a it was, it was a scene where one, it didn't
7:26
fit the story right. And it was just kind of this
7:29
this appendix of a scene, this tangential person having this
7:34
conversation that ends up being a joke.
7:36
And so didn't fit what was going on, threw off the pace into the
7:40
film. And then we also had to ADR it
7:44
because we got really bad location audio in downtown
7:47
Boise. And so then the audio, I didn't
7:49
know how to mix ADR very well at all at that point.
7:52
And so it just sounded very janky and off it was, it was, it
7:57
was just, it was just a mistake from start to finish.
8:01
Well, no, I mean, the scene probably wasn't a mistake at the
8:04
very beginning. It was probably, like, witty and
8:05
clever and interesting still. And then obviously, you know,
8:09
got to highlight your dad. That's kind of cool.
8:11
But then, yeah, I guess I can see that at that point,
8:13
everything after that was just a slow downhill tumble.
8:16
Yeah. It's it's just got shoehorned in
8:19
and, and, and it is, it is hard to do those things, but after
8:24
doing it quite a few times, my favorite thing to do now is just
8:28
to chop apart other people's movies.
8:30
Yes, and every time I'm having trouble with a scene or
8:34
something just not quite working right, I always have this
8:38
sneaking suspicion in the back of my head that what I've cut is
8:41
too long. So I send it to you and you cut
8:44
my 62nd intro for dive into a 15 to 22nd intro.
8:48
Yep, Yep, and I shorten it by half.
8:50
You did You cut that sucker in half?
8:53
Yeah. Which and it got rid of one of
8:56
my favorite shots and one of my favorite moments.
8:58
But unfortunately it did work better.
9:02
And you just have to admit that you have to accept I loved this
9:05
thing and you can still love that thing, but the audience is
9:09
never going to know about it. And you have to accept that you
9:13
love this thing that nobody will ever know about unless you get
9:16
really, really big. And then you can release it as
9:18
like a special feature on like a bonus content DVD or
9:21
subscription or something. There you go.
9:24
You know, you could do something with it.
9:25
Bonus behind the paywall content.
9:28
Yes, that's everybody's favorite.
9:30
It is. It is fun to chop stuff down and
9:32
and experiment with that. As far as non linear editors,
9:37
there's really no risk at going in and attacking your film.
9:42
And I feel like when I did that intro cut a cut of dive that I,
9:47
that I recut for you, it was how short can I make this until it
9:52
feels way too quick and the, the pacing gets thrown off in in the
9:57
too fast category rather than too slow.
10:01
And I, I feel like countless times we go to indie film
10:05
festivals and there's, I've, I can only count on my hand, like
10:08
the number of films I thought couldn't be cut down, you know?
10:13
Like, no, that one was tight. That one was perfect.
10:16
Yeah, but those are the few and far between.
10:19
Yeah, yeah, 'cause we, we saw what in damn shorts that was
10:22
like literally 60 seconds long. Yeah, I think it was just under
10:25
2 minutes. Yeah, it was super, super.
10:28
Brief, so short. There's no way to cut that one
10:30
any shorter. But wow, it was good.
10:32
That one stuck with me. That one was really, really
10:35
funny and really good and told a whole story in less than two
10:39
minutes. That was so mind blowing.
10:42
Yeah. And, and those are the films
10:44
that end up being very memorable.
10:46
Yeah, because it's it's a lot of density rather than sparseness.
10:51
I kind of want to chat about the the Reddit comment that you ran
10:54
into, which we don't usually talk about online comments on
10:57
this podcast, but you almost got almost entered an argument.
11:03
I did. I resisted the urge to say
11:05
anything because that felt like a losing battle and I did not
11:08
don't want to do that. But I logged in just the film
11:13
makers, I'm pretty sure just our film makers on Reddit and I'm
11:16
just browsing and looking and somebody says help my horror
11:21
films only 60 minutes and then I'm pretty sure it was a horror
11:26
film or I decided to add that in my brain later.
11:28
If you're trying to find this conversation, sorry.
11:31
So I read the details and it's I was working on this film.
11:36
It's like an 80s five page script or something like that or
11:39
an 80 page script or something and it just all cut together and
11:43
shot together a lot faster than we than we expected it to.
11:46
I'm getting the rough cut from my editor tomorrow and and
11:48
they're saying it's around 60 minutes and I need it to be at
11:52
least 75, ideally 80 or 90 for distribution.
11:57
And then I'm getting ready to go in and type my I'm so sorry to
12:02
tell you to Kill Your Darlings. It sounds like, you know,
12:04
obviously review the footage and make sure that if a moment does
12:07
need to breathe, it can. But realistically, a 60 minute
12:11
film that's really, really good is probably going to have a
12:14
better shot at getting distribution.
12:15
Wow, no, I was in the minority. I assumed that's what everybody
12:20
would be doing. That yeah, it's like shorter is
12:22
better. It usually I err on the side of
12:25
making it shorter until it feels like you cut something out
12:28
that's important. I agree, but everyone in the
12:31
comments was absolutely positive that you weren't going to score
12:36
a good distribution deal because theaters don't want to play an
12:39
hour long movie and nobody. As a society we've decided
12:44
movies are 75 to 90 minutes at minimum and yeah, up to three
12:50
hours, which no, is too long. I blame Titanic for starting
12:54
that mess. No, they they just everybody was
12:59
completely on the same page. Yeah.
13:01
And they're trying to tell him to Yeah, they're telling him to
13:04
go and film like a prologue and film an entire other scene, but
13:09
like cut it in periodically throughout the movie so it looks
13:12
like this other woven subplot line.
13:14
And I'm like, why would you add to a if it's already there and
13:18
it's already good and it's interesting.
13:20
I and apparently streaming networks are throwing fits.
13:23
They don't want a movie. If people see it that a movie is
13:25
only 60 minutes, people won't watch it.
13:27
And I'm like I cannot remember ever looking for a movie and
13:31
seeing the runtime and thinking that's too short.
13:34
I don't want to watch that. I have seen a runtime of over 2
13:38
hours and said I will not be doing that.
13:40
I don't have. Time for that this evening.
13:42
Because. I want to get some sleep.
13:44
Yeah. No, I I I feel you there.
13:46
That's it's it's having not seen the movie right and assuming
13:51
that it's it's decent at 60 minutes, why would you risk
13:55
ruining it by extending it? Let's say that the movie is
13:58
actually bad. Then let's keep it short.
14:01
Either way, I feel like if you're adding length to a movie,
14:04
you're just losing. I don't see a scenario where
14:07
it's a it's it's a win if you already have it diluted or you
14:11
have it concentrated to where it needs to be.
14:14
I yeah, it kind of, I don't know, it blows my mind a little
14:16
bit that that's that that's the route.
14:18
And I don't know, obviously anyone listening here, please
14:21
chime in. Let me know your thoughts, but
14:23
I. Comment if you disagree with us
14:24
that it's better to extend a film and rather than have it be
14:29
too short. Or if you've personally talked
14:31
to any sales agents or distribution companies that have
14:35
told you your movie's too short, we don't want it 'cause that
14:39
would be very unsettling news. I've never personally heard of
14:44
that, but I've also never worked with a sales agent, and I have
14:47
very limited experience with distribution information, so I
14:51
could be so wrong. I would love to be more
14:53
informed, but I think it was just a lot of people trying to
14:56
justify not killing their darlings.
14:58
Yeah, well, I know. Hey, do you want to take a quick
15:01
second to to give some some people out there a tip that you
15:05
have? You have a time saving tip that
15:07
has to deal with editing. They my organizational hack, if
15:12
you will. That's a very, very fun one.
15:16
Actually I duplicate everything. Nice.
15:21
And I know that doesn't actually sound like a time saving hack,
15:25
because it sure sounds like you're just making a lot of
15:26
extra work for yourself, but having redundancies in place is
15:30
the best thing that you can do for to protect yourself,
15:33
especially in the middle of editing a project.
15:34
So not only do I have duplicates of all the footage, specifically
15:40
one stored somewhere on a hard drive like just an old school.
15:46
Mechanical. Yeah, mechanical hard drive.
15:48
External. There we go.
15:49
That's the word I'm looking for. And then all the footage on the
15:53
SSD that I'm actively working on.
15:55
And then all of the project files because I duplicate every
15:58
project file every day that I open it and retitle it with
16:02
today's date. Huge, huge time saver there.
16:05
Especially. If you're using Adobe software,
16:08
oh. Man, and especially if Adobe's
16:10
going to release an update, because they will, yeah, it's
16:13
pretty great. It's pretty great.
16:14
Anyway. So I keep a bunch of those.
16:16
I keep those stored. The one that I'm currently
16:18
working on also gets stored on the SSD, but a copy of it, and
16:21
all the previous ones are stored on my computer itself.
16:24
And then there's a backup copy of all those stored in cloud
16:27
storage somewhere where I can access them from any device,
16:30
anywhere, forever. I like that.
16:32
And it's just. That's super important and to
16:35
me. I started years ago saving a new
16:39
project file every single day that I opened up the the
16:43
project. And I I do want to say just two
16:47
weeks ago I was working on audio on a film and this was audition
16:51
inside of Adobe suite and I saved the files every single
16:56
day. I ended up losing half a day's
16:59
work, but I didn't lose the entire project.
17:02
But not the whole thing. But the actual file ended up
17:05
being corrupted and so I had to go through a combination of like
17:09
auto saves and going back to the previous day.
17:12
I didn't lose everything at least.
17:14
Which is good. So a little heartbreaking.
17:16
Frustrating that files do become corrupted like that, and if
17:19
you're if you only have the one working file then.
17:24
You, if something happens to it, yeah, you're screwed.
17:29
Speaking from experience, yeah, it's.
17:31
Pretty delightful. And it's, it's happened to me on
17:34
several projects. You know, usually when I was
17:37
working for the tech firm where I did videography work, things
17:41
would happen when the Premiere Pro would update or whatever.
17:45
We'd have software updates and then I'd have to go back and
17:49
open up an old project, you know, from years ago and then
17:53
try to edit it in the new one. And all sorts of janky stuff can
17:57
end up happening. It's not pleasant, it's not a
18:00
good time, but keeping your stuff organized.
18:04
Though I'll be honest, I might go a little bit too far with it.
18:06
I even go so far as to like duplicate all the sequences.
18:09
You have so many sequences inside of your your editor.
18:13
And so many bins and sub bins of keeping absolutely everything
18:18
very detailed and very organized.
18:20
I have an individual sequence for just the alignment of all
18:24
the footage for my scenes and which is you know, just DIT all
18:28
audio and video for each shot and take being lined up.
18:32
I only rename the footage inside of Premiere now, and I leave
18:39
whatever identifying marker of the last couple of digits of the
18:42
actual footage name on there so that if something weird happens
18:48
and I've got to relink all these files, it's really easy to do
18:51
so, but I can still read it at a glance inside of Premiere.
18:55
And then, yeah, I go through and duplicate all my sequences and I
18:57
just start with a number 001 and that's the raw alignment for
19:01
scene 1 and then the raw alignment for scene 2.
19:04
And I just go through that so that every single time I create
19:08
a new version of any scene or full film compilation, then if
19:14
the director comes back to me and says, actually I really
19:18
liked this scene from this version, I know exactly where it
19:22
is, I can just go straight back to it, grab it, copy paste,
19:26
done. It's so important to be able to
19:28
unwind changes that you make because you never know if you're
19:31
editing for another director, you never know when they're
19:33
going to say, oh, actually I like that thing that you did
19:35
like 3 drafts ago. Yeah, you had a different shot
19:38
than like 3 drafts ago. And I think I just really want
19:41
to have that shot back. Yeah.
19:42
And you're not going to know what shot that is.
19:45
Dude, look at the sequence again.
19:46
And then? That's it.
19:48
Merge them. Merge those shots.
19:50
So what do you do to get through the difficult part of editing
19:54
first to just get that rough cut done as quickly as possible?
19:58
I don't know if I do this the right way.
20:01
This strikes me as one of those things where like those
20:04
technical considerations that we laid out at the very beginning.
20:08
I feel like that is a recipe. And then every editor is their
20:11
own Little Chef, and they go in and make tweaks and adjustments
20:16
and changes that fit their skill set, their kitchen, their
20:18
whatever, right? Like, because of course I'm
20:21
going to relate this back to baking.
20:22
I like it because I like cake. I like to think about food.
20:26
It's a good thing. OK, so the the way that I like
20:31
to do this is I still work in Adobe and I know that's not
20:35
ideal, but I got to tell you, I've worked on Avios, I have
20:39
worked in Final Cut and I've worked in Adobe.
20:43
And you know what? At this particular juncture in
20:45
life, I'm too old to learn a new system.
20:48
I will not do it. I am old dog.
20:50
New tricks are not for me. I refuse.
20:53
Take my monthly payment Adobe. They will just steal my soul
20:56
slowly. In perpetuity until I die, Yes,
21:00
getting however much they charge a month.
21:02
Unfortunately, or until I have enough free time to actually
21:04
want to sit down and learn Davinci Resolve, which I
21:06
probably should find a way to do, but whatever.
21:08
OK, so my process for doing this is I go through and I create
21:13
those alignment sequences right where I've got all the footage
21:16
and audio and every single channel, even the camera audio,
21:19
everything is synchronized. So I've got all the takes of
21:24
each individual shots, and then I go through and find my
21:28
favorites and I take all of those and I create just a giant
21:35
monstrosity sandwich is what I think it looks like.
21:40
So multiple video layers. It's got so many video layers
21:43
from different takes and all the audio from every single audio
21:49
input from every single take of this particular and different
21:54
shots. But it's just for this one
21:56
scene. And I lay all of that out so
21:58
that I know what all my options are.
22:00
And then I kind of treat it like a multicam sequence where I just
22:03
play through. And when I'm starting to feel
22:05
bored or I want to like my brain is telling me that I don't quite
22:08
like this or something feels off or what can I do?
22:11
Then I start switching through all the other different camera
22:13
angles and all the different performances so I can see where
22:18
my options are as far as really solid performance and actually
22:22
like getting the story told and continuity.
22:25
I worry about pacing last my rough cut.
22:27
I don't care about pacing. I intentionally cut everything
22:31
with a lot of extra breath and your rough cuts going to look
22:34
bad. Going to look bad.
22:35
It's going to feel off. It's going to feel so weird and
22:38
there's going to be audio from other tracks playing and it's
22:40
going to be a little off putting and you're going to have to sort
22:43
through that at some point. But just to get something on the
22:47
page so to speak for sure. I like to just have that set and
22:52
it lets me just view everything all at a glance.
22:55
Unless you have a really impressive computer or you're
22:58
only shooting 1080 Pi, would suggest using proxies.
23:02
Oh yeah. Because otherwise you will not
23:04
be able to switch between all those very quickly.
23:06
If you got Danny rolling with his Red and you got a lot of
23:09
footage going a. Lot a lot of red 6K footage does
23:14
slow my laptop down immensely. It does.
23:17
It's not. It's hard to do.
23:19
And if people don't know what proxies are, those are just
23:23
lower resolution files, yeah, that you can play on your
23:27
editing software that links to the original high resolution,
23:32
high gigabytes, high gigabytes of data, which we're all
23:37
struggling with right now as videographers and film makers
23:41
because RAM and SSD space has just become.
23:45
Very expensive. Out of control.
23:48
It's. Very expensive for. 12 years
23:50
doing this, it's just One Direction.
23:52
It always got cheaper. And then all of a sudden the
23:54
last six months has just been painful.
23:57
Painful. I I spend now just more time
24:00
moving everything around. Yeah, it'll salvage.
24:03
It's like, oh, here's a roject that's really old.
24:05
This is a four terabyte drive. Let me just wipe that out and
24:10
then put some of the new stuff on there and be like this.
24:12
This project is being laid to rest finally.
24:15
To your point about abandoning your films earlier, right, I
24:18
have finally finished so many projects lately because I have
24:22
new projects coming up and I need an SSD to shoot on.
24:25
Yes. So I guess I'm done with this.
24:28
I'm not doing any more edits to this project ever again because
24:32
it's going to go on to this really slow drive and it's, you
24:35
know, several terabytes of data, and I'm never going to take it
24:38
out of there. Yeah, never going to do it.
24:40
It's going into the library, into the archive.
24:42
So you you make the rough cut and then from there you you
24:46
smooth it out. Obviously, I'm guessing.
24:48
Yeah, One thing I want to talk about too is sharing your rough
24:53
cuts with people and then taking their feedback and not pushing
24:58
back about feedback. So what is feedback is its own
25:01
skill set. What does that?
25:03
What does that look like for you?
25:04
I try to find somebody who doesn't have skin in the game,
25:08
right? Not somebody who is involved in
25:10
the film, not somebody who's a producer.
25:12
But bonus points if they are in my target audience for this
25:16
film, if I know that this film is geared towards mid 20s to mid
25:22
40s women, I'm going to reach out to my network and be like,
25:25
hey, can I buy you dinner or a coffee in exchange for your time
25:29
in giving me some thoughts on this movie.
25:31
And they're probably not a film expert necessarily because
25:35
that's not really what I need right off the bat.
25:37
What I need right off the bat is does the story make sense?
25:40
Do you follow it and are you interested?
25:42
Oh yeah, good point. That's what I want to hear.
25:44
And if they are, they aren't there or they're like, oh,
25:48
actually I was really into it until X point and then you lost
25:51
me. Yeah, those are great.
25:52
So your movie went on for three more minutes than it should
25:54
have? No.
25:56
Sorry, until your 8 minute short film became a 20 minute slog.
25:59
No, I'm kidding. But but those are sort of the
26:04
things that I look for and that's the most actionable
26:07
feedback at that stage. And then I can send it off to
26:10
somebody like a director or a producer or somebody who has a
26:13
little bit more input and thoughts on it and can give me
26:16
more of that detailed creative specifically direction on it.
26:20
But at least then I'm also coming armed with some
26:23
information in my back pocket about why I made certain
26:26
choices. So if the director tries to push
26:29
back on why something was cut a certain way, I can say, well I
26:33
did some initial. Action wasn't there.
26:35
Yeah, like the continuity wasn't there.
26:38
They stood up in one take and it was the best take we had.
26:41
And then they always sat back down and every other take and
26:46
nobody on set called that for some reason.
26:49
So I had to use the entirety of that one shot because that was
26:53
it. That was the only time they
26:54
stayed standing. Or more realistically, at that
26:57
point, even if it was the best performance, I'd say, sorry, we
26:59
have to cut that best performance and move the next
27:02
move to the next best performance because all the
27:05
other footage doesn't match right.
27:07
Sorry. You've, you've done a lot of
27:09
editing, you've edited basically all of your own projects as well
27:13
as a lot of other people's projects.
27:16
And in the in the realm of other people's projects and we think
27:20
about like Hollywood movies and we give a lot of credit to
27:24
directors and for their creativity, but a lot of times
27:28
they don't actually edit their own films.
27:30
Sometimes they do, for sure they they can't.
27:33
And then, and especially in the indie realm, you're going to see
27:35
a lot of directors edit their own stuff.
27:37
Yeah, yeah. But like big time Hollywood
27:39
directors, yes, a lot of times they just hand it off to
27:42
somebody else. And why do you think, Victoria,
27:44
that that editing is often an overlooked art form in
27:48
Hollywood? I think it's because editing is
27:50
supposed to be kind of invisible and mostly women do it.
27:54
Yes. Kind of fits with the
27:56
invisibility theme there. Right, it's there's a lot of
27:59
women that edit. Yeah.
28:02
Like famous films? I think we got a A list here.
28:05
Yeah, right. I appreciated that you added
28:07
this list and I appreciated you doing it.
28:09
Verna Fields edited Jaws in American Graffiti.
28:12
Thelma Shoemaker, Raging Bull The Aviator that Departed Marcia
28:16
Lucas edited Star Wars. Kind of a big deal.
28:19
George and there's you can actually see an entire BTS like
28:24
film. I, I think it's on YouTube.
28:25
I'll try to find it and put a link in the description if I
28:27
can. It's called saved in the edit
28:29
cause George Lucas had a really bad movie initially was Star
28:33
Wars and then and then Marcia saved it and then Sally Menke,
28:38
which which is another famous editor that I'm partial to
28:43
because she edited Pulp Fiction, kill Bill and basically most of
28:47
Tarantino's films up until she died.
28:49
So if you've seen like recent Tarantino films, if they feel
28:55
different, it's because it's a different editor potentially.
28:58
I think that's because women are just better at knowing emotional
29:02
beats. No, I'm kidding.
29:05
I have a quote here that that I thought was pretty cool from,
29:07
from Hilda Rasula. And she was, she was editing,
29:12
Boy, my tablet's acting up here. She she edited American fiction,
29:17
and she says her job is about realizing the director's vision.
29:20
Quote. You're kind of the midwife to
29:21
the film. You know, you're helping them
29:23
realize that vision in the best way that you can and seeing it
29:27
through to the very end until it gets boring.
29:29
Aw. That's really nice.
29:33
I like that one a lot. I like that quote.
29:35
I like that she equated it more to like a birth, though.
29:37
And I'm going like the baking route.
29:39
Yeah. You know, hey, we're all on the
29:40
same page. Buns in the oven I guess it's
29:44
all about buns in the. Oven.
29:45
There we go. That's the title of the episode.
29:47
I'm not allowed to say Kill Your Darlings, but I bet I can say
29:50
buns in the oven, and I bet that'll widen our reach.
29:53
There we go. Clicks on this video.
29:55
Bacon out bun. Do you have anything else you
29:58
want to add about editing? I actually on your point about
30:02
the feedback and taking the feedback, I feel like you have a
30:05
really good example from Stockton about that, that I do
30:09
think would be really valuable for people to hear 'cause there
30:11
is this inherent need to be a little bit defensive about your
30:14
work and kind of push back on feedback and, and learning how
30:17
to tone that down and just accept the feedback like
30:22
graciously and, and with compassion and understanding is
30:26
important. So would you?
30:27
Yeah, so Stockton to Table Rock. We had screen this feature film.
30:31
It's it's on Amazon Prime if you want to check it out.
30:34
We had screen this feature film at at a preliminary screening.
30:39
It was like a private screening and we got feedback from from
30:43
people and we're like, something still doesn't quite feel right
30:46
about the pacing on this this film.
30:49
And we sent it off to a friend of ours, and he gave us, like,
30:52
some very solid feedback about a specific scene where the
30:58
character goes to the hospital with her mother and then she
31:03
returns home from the hospital. He's like, that's not
31:05
suspenseful enough. You need to leave the audience
31:08
wondering if her mom is alive or dead.
31:13
And so we didn't shoot the film that way.
31:17
However, we then decided to try to fix all of that in the edit,
31:21
which is it was a nightmare at that point because I'd already
31:24
mastered all the audio. Everything's already.
31:26
Done. So yeah, everything was done.
31:28
So we had to go back, you know, drop in like 80 or 90 audio
31:32
tracks, link it all up to the, the footage.
31:35
And we basically changed the beginning of the movie, the
31:39
entire beginning of the movie. The, the opening scene is
31:42
different than what was screened because we needed to use some of
31:45
those clips later on. So we had to basically to, to
31:49
leave the suspense, leave the audience in suspense.
31:53
We had to do like a flashback scene instead, like in in place
31:57
of in the next scene. It's It's hard to explain this
32:01
way. But basically you had to add
32:04
more timelines, yes, threading out at more points.
32:09
Because we have no new footage, so we just had to reorganize.
32:13
When you take one piece and move it into a different spot, then
32:15
it kills the pacing and so then we had to start reshuffling
32:18
scene. So like, the first 30 minutes is
32:21
completely different than the original, than the original
32:24
Screener. Yeah.
32:25
But it made the movie so much better.
32:27
And I think I've mentioned this on the podcast before.
32:29
When we played it again, like a year later, we went to
32:33
Minneapolis and some of our friends had flown out to Boise
32:36
from there to to see this original Screener.
32:39
They saw it a year later. They're like, oh, I don't know
32:41
what you did, but it just played better this time.
32:43
And they can't put their finger on it because they're not.
32:46
They're not going to notice all the individual things.
32:48
They're just going to notice. Oh no, I was really into it like
32:52
this. This flowed in a really
32:54
interesting way. Yeah, and, and when it clicks,
32:57
you're like, Oh my God, this is good.
32:59
And that's one thing I wanted to say too.
33:01
Like, there's an infinite way to edit a film badly, but usually
33:06
there's only a couple of ways to take the footage that you have
33:09
and make it interesting. And the more time you put into
33:12
it, the better it's going to get.
33:14
And then often the more time you put in, the shorter your movie's
33:18
going to get, ironically so. That's very true, because it
33:23
takes a lot more time, effort, energy, and just general skill
33:27
set to make a shorter film. But that that still works and
33:32
it's still good. Yes, yes.
33:34
That's the important note there. Though I will say that I guess
33:36
that's one thing that I do really like about editing too.
33:40
If I can put one final note on the edit thought is that editing
33:46
reveals everything that production lied to you about.
33:51
And I love that. I hate it, but I love it, right?
33:55
Because editing will tell you if your story really was weak.
34:00
It'll tell you if you didn't get enough coverage, whether or not
34:03
people on set were telling you to get more coverage.
34:06
But editing will tell you if it did or not.
34:08
It'll tell you if you should have listened to the sound guy
34:10
when he said, hey, that take was really noisy, you can't use it.
34:13
Maybe you should have listened like.
34:16
Every single mistake comes into full focus at that point.
34:19
It does. It does, and editing is.
34:22
Push. You got to push through and
34:24
maybe just edit something totally different if you end up
34:27
hitting a wall. We've had some featured film
34:29
makers that ended up having to do just that, and they did, and
34:32
they pivoted and they were really happy with the results
34:34
because they were willing to just try to pivot.
34:37
Yeah, it takes 2 seconds to duplicate a sequence and then
34:40
just attack it from a different angle.
34:42
But definitely do duplicate it so you can go back to it if it
34:44
doesn't work out if you. Haven't learned anything in this
34:47
podcast. Just remember to be able to
34:50
retrace all of your steps always.
34:52
And those files are so tiny compared to the size of the
34:56
video that you have on your hard drive.
34:57
Anyway, just keep making more project.
35:00
Files. It's fine.
35:01
That extra what? 20 kilobytes isn't going to end
35:05
your computer. No, no.
35:06
But it might save your save your butt later on.
35:09
It will. Do you want to?
35:10
Do you want to start us out on the Featured Film Maker of the
35:12
Week? Victoria Absolutely.
35:14
We have Daniel Herzog, the director of Beautifully Broken,
35:19
a feature documentary exploring suicide, trauma, and healing
35:22
through lived experience following one family's loss and
35:25
the unconventional path toward purpose, resilience, and
35:28
prevention. And he says I've had a pretty
35:30
unconventional career. Right out of college, I answered
35:33
a Craigslist ad for a touring production looking for a
35:35
photographer and camera operator.
35:38
Truth is, I exaggerated my photography experience to get
35:41
the job and that client turned out to be Moscow Ballet.
35:44
That first tour or launched my career and broke me in a lot of
35:48
ways, but it also forced me to learn fast.
35:50
I developed a deep understanding of photography and video
35:52
production under real pressure in real time.
35:55
Nearly 20 years later, I'm still working for the Moscow Ballet
35:58
and I'm now directing their national TV spots.
36:01
And I think that's a really cool story to just, I'm one of the
36:05
people that if, if you submit a resume to something, I'm usually
36:10
totally fine encouraging people to exaggerate their experience
36:13
because, you know, ultimately, like all they're testing is your
36:16
interview skills. That's it.
36:17
And if you have enough gumption and enough grit, you can
36:22
probably get into a lot of situations and still be able to
36:24
work your way out of it. You can figure it out, you'll be
36:26
fine. YouTube Academy is great, you'll
36:28
figure it out. Yeah, it'll.
36:30
Be wonderful. Just check out a couple of
36:33
podcasts and see what they're telling you to do.
36:37
That that yeah, that reminds me of a time I I did I did take on
36:41
a job and I did have to specifically Google or search in
36:45
YouTube how to learn after effects in one afternoon.
36:48
And you know what? I found a video and you know
36:50
what? I got the project done you.
36:52
Know that's all it takes. That's it.
36:55
That's enough. That's enough.
36:57
Well, if you want to submit to be Featured Film Maker of the
37:00
Week, go to indiefilmpodcast.com/submit and
37:05
shall we succinctly say farewell.
37:07
I think so. Bye.
37:08
Bye.