Quintessential Studios' Weblog

Five months after my last blog post here, I had a breakthrough.

After working with a mentor (Joaquin at Hollywood Editing Mentor), doing an impromptu coaching call (with Sven Pape of The Go-To Editor/This Guy Edits) and doing a two-week taster class (with Paddy Bird over at Inside The Edit). I was able to get over the hurdle of myself and landed a bunch of interviews and got two job offers.

I decided, ultimately, to go with the one I felt had happier employees and was actually an AE job. In trailers. Which is where I wanted to be.

It’s been almost a year now and it’s been a wild ride of hard work, learning and of emotions. But so far so good. At some point, I’ll go over the roller-coaster of it all but for now, I’m satisfied. I even fulfilled my days and got on the roster.

Recently, while applying for a student membership to an editors organization, I was asked to explain a little more about my studies and path from IT to editorial.

I am posting a part of my reply here: (I have used brackets below to add more explanation as well.)

“Around 2007-2008, something happened that would start the wheels in motion for a major awakening and mind-shift in what was possible [for me], creatively, as a career. It was a random collision of events, really. While dabbling with recording a show off the telly, I ran into a strange problem where audio wasn’t recorded. This sent me down the rabbit hole of learning about codecs and wrappers and time code and on and on. My systems-loving brain couldn’t get enough of this stuff. Coincidentally around this time, I was trying to edit a video [my wedding video, actually]. It was a bit clanky to me [I was using Windows Movie Maker, yikes!] and I asked a coworker, who spent his spare time making advocacy videos, what he thought was a good editing program to learn. At the time, Final Cut was making its advancement in the industry and we talked about the big Avid vs. Final Cut debate [but in music terms of Pro Tools vs Logic] and he concluded that I should go learn Final Cut Pro.

“Excitedly, I looked to my local community colleges for classes on editing with Final Cut. As luck would have it, I found that my local school had a film and TV degree/certificate program and a beginning and an advanced editing class. The advanced class clearly stated that they used Final Cut Pro in the class and the beginning class was a prerequisite. So, I enrolled in the night class for Beginning editing. I can’t tell you how excited I was to eventually learn that in the beginning class, they also used Final Cut Pro! That very first night, when we opened the program and started learning the GUI, I had what I would have to liken to an out-of-body experience. THIS was what I had wanted to do with computers and how I thought they should be and act and perform, from my very first idea of what computers should do!

“Each night, as I continued to do my exercises, I would be lost in time and spend endless hours, going back and forth on where exactly to cut. It was what I would later learn is called being ‘in the zone’. I couldn’t get enough of this either! I did everything I could to learn more. I got on forums, I went to user group meetings, and just kept on taking classes each semester.

“It was through all of this that I eventually made friends with the late Norman Hollyn, ACE. He advised me to go to the A.C.E. Invisible Art, Visible Artist event and while there, look for Allan Holzman, ACE and see if I could help him out in any way. I did and that was how I was able to assist in the creation of the documentary [DVD] of that event, and thus my first AE credit.

“I continued to take classes for many[, many] years. Too complacent with my IT job and too scared to make the leap into trying to work in the industry, I just kept networking and learning and trying to figure out how to transition. Fear guided my life for ten plus years but I still dreamed.

“I did everything I could in my spare time to push myself out of my comfort zone. And, eventually started to listen to things (podcasts and audio books) of a motivational nature. These pushed me to finally seek out [...] internships. While I had enough credits to receive a certificate in Film and TV production for quite some time, I never applied for it, until it was needed for the ACE Internship. So, I applied and got it [my FTV cert].

“Part of my transition was to start a podcast (which is now more of a community for people that want to pursue their dreams, mainly in post, called “This Post Life”). [The plan is to pick the podcast back up soon too.] I continue to try to stay connected to all things that can educate myself and others.

…

“So, while my path has been unorthodox, it has been my underlying passion to transition into film and TV editing. Last year I finally made the leap to fully pursue this full-time and only worked freelance in post, albeit mostly as a media manager, and I am not looking back[!]“

I received this email from Film Editing Pro about a month ago, and have received permission to share it with you.

As you may or may not know, I spent the summer interning for one of the top trailer companies out there.

I spent my time earning how to do assistant editor duties.

Since that experience, I am hell-bent on becoming an assistant editor for a trailer company.

I also want to edit trailers but know I have to work on my craft a little more. Because of this email, I looked further into Chris’ Film Editing Pro online school because they have a trailer editing class that’s pretty spot on.

Jonny Elwyn did a real great write up on their course here: https://jonnyelwyn.co.uk/film-and-video-editing/how-to-edit-a-film-trailer/

As you can see from the tips below, they really know there stuff!

You can visit their training page here: https://www.filmeditingpro.com/training/

Here’s the email:

Hi there,

Today, we’re going to look at how to avoid some big (and common) trailer editing mistakes — particularly related to story-telling and graphics.
Let’s get started.
3 Common Trailer Editing Mistakes

A trailer is basically two and a half minutes of information. How much information can a person be exposed to in that amount of time and still be expected to retain any of it? 

It’s a delicate balance. If you make it too sparse, the audience might write your movie off as boring or slow. Pack in too much though, and you risk them tuning out entirely.

The key is finding that sweet spot. Good trailers stay interesting but don’t actually ask the audience to remember much. Let’s look at some common mistakes or pitfalls that newer trailer editors can run into:
Common Mistakes

Mistake #1: Using a lot of character names

This might sound crazy. Of course we use character names, right? But if you actually pay attention while watching most trailers, you’ll realize that saying the name of a person in dialogue is actually rare. 
The main character may get a call out (especially in the common scenario where the movie title is a play on their name) and of course franchise movies use lots of names (this is a special case which we’ll discuss below) but aside from that, characters are usually referred to as he, she, my son, my wife, etc. 

Why is this?

The answer is simple. It’s not worth asking the audience to remember. Let’s be honest, the character names probably don’t really matter that much to the story of the trailer. If the audience is thrown a ton of specifics they are likely to forget them anyway. And even if we do use a bunch of character names, how do we know if the audience has retained them? 

Will they know who Sarah is as opposed to Julie or Stephanie? If we assume they do, and they don’t, what sort of confusion might this cause? Keeping it simple, and avoiding names whenever possible, is the much safer course of action.

Mistake #2: Graphic Cards With Too Much Text
A lot of trailers have what’s called a “copy message”. This is often a statement which speaks to the theme of the movie. Here’s an example:

Let’s note a couple of things. 

1. Each card stands alone
You don’t need to connect them together. They work together, but they don’t require holding each one in your head in order to make sense of them all as a whole. 

2. Each phrase is very short
No more than 3 words per “card”. The professionals know that if the graphic has even a few more words then they’ll start running into problems. The more words there are, the longer you have to leave the card on screen. This can easily wreck the rhythm of your trailer. 

But more importantly, if there are too many words on any given graphic, the audience simply won’t read them. They’ve been trained by years of tv commercials and movie promos that the text is only going to be on screen for a very short amount of time. 

As a result, if they see a card that has more than 5 words, they won’t even attempt to decipher it. And even if they do try, it’s often going to be to the detriment of the next thing they see or hear during the trailer. They’ll still be thinking about that long list of text they were just shown. 

This can create a domino effect that leads to confusion as they miss important story beats that contextualize other parts of the narrative later on. Remember, we need to be cautious about giving the audience too much information, thus overstimulating them to the point that they tune out. 
This is one reason why “copy” (this is what we call the message of the text or narrator) is very often a play on words. A slight variation on an existing idiom. The copy writer is attempting to capitalize on knowledge the viewer already has. Effectively piggybacking on mental real estate that already exists. 

Here’s a good analog: 
What’s easier to remember, a random 11 digit code or your own phone number with a “2” added to the end?

One last little insider secret regarding graphics cards such as these: 

Their main function isn’t even always the message they contain. They’re often more important as a tool to break up the story and allow easy transition to different parts of the movie quickly. 

Mistake #3: Lip Flap
This is when the editor makes the decision to use a shot where a character’s mouth is moving but the audience isn’t also given the matching dialogue or sound. 

Besides the fact that it looks sloppy, it also leads to a lot of audience confusion. What happened to the sound for that moment? Was it there and I didn’t hear it? Or was I supposed to not hear it? Even if I’m not meant to hear it, I still can’t help but thinking, what did that person say?

And right there they’ve missed the next 10-15 seconds of your trailer. And now they’re confused for the rest of the time because they’ve missed information and there’s no way for them to catch back up. Sometimes it’s painful, the shot may be beautifully lit or framed, but if you have lip flap you simply cannot use it.

Watching a trailer is kind of like being a hurdler. Each piece of information is something the audience has to jump over (understand/digest). If they trip on even one thing, it can start a chain reaction where they never complete the race. 

Keep those hurdles as simple and easy to clear as possible.

Thanks for reading! Have a wonderful week, all.

- Chris

P.S. As always, please let me know your requests and suggestions for additional content. Are there any editing topics you’d like us to discuss? Any specific problems you could use help with? Let me know!

On July 25th, I attended the ‘Masters of Sound’ presented by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, California. It was a great panel where I learned more about the jobs in the post industry, in the sound department. The nine panelists, experts in their field, talked about their roles and showed videos related to their work. After that, there was a short Q&A period. One of the questions was quite apropos to my #ThisPostLife subject matter. “How did you get your start in film sound?”

Below are their answers:

Alan Meyerson — I was in the record business for many years and the record industry had changed a lot. I didn’t fit quite as well. And, just one of those strange happenstances. I ran into someone who worked with Hans and they stopped by and they asked me to stop by and visit and I ended up covering a session for someone else and did a little session with Hans and he asked me what am I doing for the next couple of months and here I am 24 years later!

I think that stuff just happens. I think sometimes opportunities make themselves available. And then it’s up to you whether or not you take advantage of that opportunity. And that’s sort of the magic of being successful. And I think in any profession but certainly this one.

Dan O’Connell — I agree. I was actually a projectionist on a Foley stage. The Foley artists asked me to help them on a project. Because in those days, it was an automated projector. So there was nothing for me to do, other than hang around. So, I said, “Sure, I’ll help you guys on a project, even though I don’t know what I’m doing…” It was a film called Skatetown, U.S.A. Peter Bogdanovich was in it and Dorothy Stratten was in it. It was Patrick Swayze’s first movie. And it all took place on skates, roller skates. And I used to be a roller skater at the time, strangely enough.

So, I helped them for about two days and then they quit and disappeared. And the owner of the studio came to me and said, “Well, you’ve been on the film, you do it!” And literally from that point, I ended up doing that project and then went on to continue to do Foley. And so, opportunities, you know.

Teri Dorman – I think though anybody up here is going to say that they really love movies. That love of movies or being involved in theater or being involved in drama, they want to be a part of something where you’re a team. We’re all part of something. And in sound, I feel part of the team. I could sit in a room for days, weeks, months, up to a year, working with the dialogue with headphones on and yet, I’m a part of something that makes the whole. I think that’s really important to remember.

John Paul Fasal – Oh me?! You know, a lot of people here I think got in through music. I moved to LA to be a rock star. And so I am… But I had a girlfriend who had gone to high school with a guy who had a post-production house. And so, as a starving musician, I got a job doing sound transfer, when I wasn’t in my studio trying to write a hit song with my song writing partner. And one thing sort of led to another. They said, “Well, do you have a synthesizer?”

I go “Yeah.”

“Well, can you make us sounds for a rocket-ship?”

And I go, “Yeah. I can do that.” And then they’d bring me sounds to process with the outboard gear that I had, and the sounds were terrible.

“Well, let’s record some better sounds.” So, I started doing that too and it just sort of took off from there.

Mark P. Stoeckinger – Yeah, I mean I was always fascinated with film. So, I think I have that in common with all you folks and probably all you folks too (talking to the audience). But ultimately, I really got impressed with how sound as I can be… [[Frankenstein?] the scientist brings something to life. I just want to be a part of that. Take something from nothing and make it into something.

Ai-Ling Lee – Yeah, pretty similar to Mark. Same thing that Teri said, grew up watching…

“You sought it out?

Yes. Kind of. Yeah. Maybe I’m the odd person… I sought it out. Yeah.

Lee Orloff – I did a film in film school that I got very involved in recording sound effects. It was a movie without any dialogue. One of my instructors who saw me through the mix, offered me a job. I think it was my first offer. He was an IA mixer in New York. So it was a fabulous opportunity I went off and I spent some time with him and I realized, this is not for me.

I can’t be in that room with the headphones on all the time. I need to be with people out in open air and to be on the set and so I said, “Hmm… Well, he liked my sound effects, maybe I’ll try doing voice. And so I started doing documentaries. And documentaries led me to other opportunities. I was kind of a subtractive. I found the thing that I didn’t want to do and it led me to the thing that I loved.

Mark(?) — Can I add to that one because actually I started doing production sound and I felt like “all this sitting and waiting around, I want to be doing something.

Scott Millan – I thought, my parents, before I was born, and my sister was a little bit older, they were performers, they acted, and that was the last thing in the world I had wanted to do but I liked the creative spirit. And I think what really motivated me to do was listening …sound was really something important, the production value. It was “how’d they do it?” …emotionally how they move… The first thing I did was local television and then .. to get into post production I did television I went to work for CBS for a while, had a chance to do a lot of production and a lot of pre-record some music as well. And then moved into what was a three-person recording line, which I didn’t even know existed. I though most of the time, you sit there and you had to do it all yourself. And it was great. I just loved it. I was in town for ten years before I knew how films were mixed.

Brian Slack — I was a projectionist, I ran a carbon arc changer when I was 15 years old.
15-16, I was working in the theater and I was also working at a little local radio station. And I remember thinking to myself, “My god, my god, I really like doing film… but I like doing the sound… If there was only some way…” I gotta tell you, I had no clue that there was actually an industry that did this. And then like at some point I decided, I’m going to be a brilliant cinematographer and somehow I ended up doing this.

Although, oddly enough, when you mentioned Terminator 2, we were on completely opposite ends of that film. That was the first kind of real film that I ever worked on. I worked for a company called cinema digital sound and I watched every digital print of Terminator 2. So, I sat down for like two weeks and watched that film like 52 times. But not the fun way, it was like, sit down and watch 70 reel 5’s….

So, as you can see there are many, many ways into the business, as we keep finding out!

I’ll keep you updated, if they release the video of the whole event.

On March 3rd, 2018, I attended my 10th ACE Invisible Art Visible Artist event. Each year the line to get in seems longer and longer. I think has a lot to do with the fact that ACE is steadfast in their efforts to help our craft in being recognized in the world of film.

IAVA (Invisible Art/Visible Artist) is the panel where all of the year’s Oscar nominated editors come together and speak about how they got into the craft and what it was like to work on their particular film that has been nominated. Some years not all of the editors can make it but this year we were lucky in that all of the nominees were present. Although, Tatiana Riegel had to leave early because she had to attend the Independent Spirit Awards*, where her film I, Tonya was nominated in three categories, including Film Editing, which she won.

The editors and movies nominated for an Academy award in Best Achievement in Film Editing were Tatiana S. Riegel, ACE for I, Tonya; Jonathan Amos, ACE for Baby Driver; Paul Machliss, ACE for Baby Driver; Lee Smith, ACE for Dunkirk; Sidney Wolinsky, ACE for The Shape of Water; and Jon Gregory, ACE for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

The MC of the event was perennial Alan Heim, 1980 winner of the Best Film Editing Oscar for the 1979 film, All That Jazz, and Vice-President of the American Cinema Editors and President of the Motion Picture Editors Guild.

There are a myriad of ways that people get to editing as a career. Each year we hear a sample of how the best of the best came to arrive at their positions.

Ms. Riegel’s story was “edited” down. After graduating college with a political science degree, Howard Smith gave her, her first job on the film River’s Edge. She credited him with teaching her a lot. “And I’ve been working ever since.”

Jonathan Amos’s story wasn’t quite so short however. He taught himself the Avid and eventually traveled the world making documentaries, determined to edit any possible way he could. During that time, he was offered an assistant job at Ealing Studios on a TV show where Edgar Wright happened to be shooting Shaun of the Dead. Jonathan got to meet Chris Dickens, whom would go on to win the Oscar for editing Slumdog Millionare. Chris and Edgar reached out to Jonathan to help on Hot Fuzz and then Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, where he reached his dream of becoming a film editor.

Regarding advice for new people striving to become editors, he added, “desire, courage, and luck. That’s what I say to anyone that comes into the cutting room, ‘you’ve got to apply yourself so much’. And I can tell the assistants that are going to make it because they want it, they’re so hungry…. And that was me back then. I see that hunger and yeah, that’s what you gotta do.”

Paul Machliss came from Australia and knew he wanted to be in films from the age of 5 or 6, when he accompanied his father, a producer, to an editing session one day and fell in love. “Whatever is going on in this room, I want to be a part of it!”

He went from an internship to a job at a television station, just prior to going to University and never went back. Although he jokes that Uni’s still on hold, “just in case this doesn’t sort of work out!” A chance job opportunity to demo some Sony gear at IBC, prompted him to extend his trip further to London because he was a big fan of British comedy and wanted to be a part of that world. He literally knocked on doors until he landed an editor job. Eventually, he got on the show Spaced, where he worked with Edgar Wright on-lining the first season. He then wanted to freelance and as Chris Dickens wasn’t able to do the second “series”, Edgar hired him for it. He now had really reached his dream of working in England on British comedy shows. In 2009, at Edgar’s behest, he joined him and his friend Jonathan Amos on Scott Pilgrim.

Lee Smith began working in film in 1976, his family was in the industry and he “just didn’t have a choice!”, he jokes. His father was an optical effects technician at a film lab in Australia and his uncle co-owned a lab and his auntie was a neg matcher and his brother was a camera man.

In an uncertain time for film in Australia, his father helped him find a position. It was hard but he was finally able to get a PA job at Film Production Services in Sidney, where he met Peter Weir. After some time he eventually became the assistant editor on The Year of Living Dangerously. Later. with Master and Commander, Lee was nominated for an Oscar in film editing. After that he got an agent and connected with American Cinema Editors, which lead to working with Christopher Nolan. Working with Nolan, Smith received his second Oscar nomination for editing The Dark Night in 2009. This is where I first saw Smith at my first IAVA attendance and when I was lucky enough to be an assistant editor on the DVD production of that IAVA show.

Sidney Wolinsky, after college, went to film school at San Francisco State, where he got his Masters in film. Moving to Los Angeles, Sidney initially thought he’d be a DP but decided “editing was more about telling the story”. Doing miscellaneous jobs in LA, he even worked on a “That’s Entertainment with animal actors” show out of Burbank, a Fred Weintraub and Paul Heller show. Eventually, he got on with Richard Marx on Oliver Stone’s first picture, The Hand. Sidney did a lot of cutting with “Ritchie” including Pennies from Heaven. He then passed on assistant jobs in pursuit of editing jobs. His first editing job was on Gary Marshall’s first film, Young Doctors in Love. He edited The Sopranos, all of the seasons, then more TV and movies including a series called The Strain, written by Guillermo del Toro. After returning to edit some more for television, Guillermo called him to work on The Shape of Water.

Born in India, Jon Gregory started going to the cinema as a kid. When they moved to England, cinema still held his attention. In fact, his schooling suffered because of it. While people were studying for exams, he was slipping off to watch movies and writing fan mail to the likes of Bridget Bardot and Lana Turner! He wanted nothing else but to help make movies.

Fortunately, he found an ad where the BBC was looking for hands to move set scenery. The BBC in the 60′s was just the training ground that Jon needed to learn more about film.

Studying the studio camera switching, he realized he wanted to become an editor. BBC would allow him the means to move over to assistant editor, then editor. He worked with Les Blair and also met Les’ friend Mike Lee. Jon edited films for both of them outside of the BBC and just continued on from there. “If that’s all you want to do and there’s nothing else, it’s surprising how you, how you keep going. ‘Cause if there’s nothing else, you’ve got to do it, regardless and that’s it!”

Besides the great inspiration one gets from listening to their journeys, each editor brings a clip from their nominated film to watch and talk about.

Tatiana’s clip from I, Tanya was one from the film where the character Tanya Harding is performing a skating routine, then gets less than desirable scores and then cuts to her and her mom eating dinner at home where they get into a fight and then cuts to an interview shot. This sequence covers three different aspects of the editing that were a marvel to watch. Tatiana talked about the subtleties that each section showed and why she loved editing each. “The skating in the film was really fun to work on.” The skating sequences were cut to fit the emotion of the character as she changes throughout the film.

Tatiana then described how she enjoyed cutting the dialogue and the character pieces of the film, they “are equally as challenging if not more so, I think. There are subtleties, there are little eye movements… taking the time and the pause to figure out how to make this work…. The film is always dancing back and forth between this very emotional, sad, tragic story — and just the absurdity of the story — the craziness that brings in this whole comedy element that is fun.”

They showed two clips from Baby Driver. The second clip of Baby Driver shown was a diner scene with a lot of tension and danger building up. The pace of that clip allowed for actors’ performances to breathe and Paul explained how he liked the process of that as well as the fast punctuated pace of chase sequences.

Regarding the chase sequence, Mr. Heim asked about choices and available angles considering the music and animatics were already set. Paul Machliss talked about the rigidity they did face for the sequence but Jonathan Amos positively glowed when recounting, “that was probably the best editing month of my life! I had a big smile on my face, every single day”.

Both Jonathan and Paul discussed how they did work out fitting pieces in. Paul frantically described the thought processes involved,”The track is the track. You just can’t take three frames out of Bellbottoms, ’cause then the music doesn’t…. Cars. Cars really don’t crash when you crash them practically, they don’t know they’ve only got a second and a half to tumble and to sort of finish…. I liken it to one of those 18th century clocks that you just see the hand slowly turn, but you open it up and there’s dozens of little cogs all working within each other. That’s exactly what this sequence was doing. You couldn’t ‘just cut it to music’ you had to think of everything!”

Alan asked, “How do you edit together?”

Paul Machliss, “He marks the in points. I mark the out points!”

Jonathan Amos, “That’s an old joke. He always tells that joke!”

For the Dunkirk clip, it was a sequence of a battle in the water, with planes bearing down on sailors and ships. Nolan uses a lot of practical effects in his shots and Lee explains, Every shot is “in-camera” with very little CGI added. There was so much in-camera that he didn’t have to worry about the special effects.

There wasn’t much dialogue in the film. Lee added, “It was kind of like editing, for me, for the first time, like a silent movie, if you will. So, no one’s narrating it, there’s no back story, you’re basically from the first frames of the film you’re dropped into the action. Chris wanted… you to experience what it was like to be one of those characters.”

Sidney Wolinsky, ACE showed a sequence leading up to and the dialogue scene where the girl who can’t speak is signing and another character speaks the signs, AKA translating the signing for the audience. The writing of the scene does this so that we can have quicker dialogue pace at this point of the movie.

From the audience’s perspective, one of the charming things about Mr. Wolinsky is that he’s so matter of fact and direct in his answers. Sidney deadpans,”Once I get out of the master, the challenge of cutting it is to time his words to her signing and choose the take where he… I think I used all the dialogue from his close-up, over her, because it was the most emotive reading. But apart from that, that was the only challenge. It’s really not that difficult to do that.” The audience laughs along.

“What about the rest of the movie which is so complex…? How did that all come together?”

“…It was, you know… We cut the scenes they scripted and put them all together, basically. I mean, what can I say!” The audience laughs even more.

The last clip of the day from Three Billboards was the scene where the church pastor visits the lead character Mildred at her home and she explains why his opinion doesn’t count because he’s “joined the gang!”

Jon Gregory walked us through the minute details and choices filtered by his long history of film story that were required, for even such a “simple scene”.

The talk turned to whether or not doing dailies on a big screen was a part of their lives. The overall desire was that they’d all like to do them but costs usually prohibit it. These days, with electronic transmission of dailies to individuals, group viewing has come out of favor. Nevertheless, in our new age, technology does provide advances to filmmaking such as editing which can now occur on set.

There was only time for a couple audience questions and this year I finally had one to write down and (part of) it was coincidentally asked today. “With AE’s having to do so much these days, should the Union bring back Apprenticeships in the editing room?”

That question received much applause from the audience and Alan probed the panel, “That’s an excellent idea. How do you guys feel about that? And where would they go? What will you do with an apprentice in the cutting room now with.. we don’t have so much film to deal with… it’s all digital…”

Lee: “I think an apprentice is just a natural progression into assisting, a natural progression into editing. So, yeah. Bring ‘em back. The more the merrier. We call them PA’s now. So why don’t we call them apprentices? That would be better… And they’re in the Union. That would be really good.”

Jon Gregory: “I agree. I agree. I mean, with what the assistant does and the technical process, especially… Well you see, it depends on the kinds of films you work on but budget wise so often we don’t have VFX editors and all the rest of it so the assistant is doing everything. And having to send the lists here and lists… and there’s so much that I wish we could just move on to somebody else. and just concentrate, ’cause I think the assistant… I just love to involve them more into the actual film, their opinions and if you value their judgements, that’s where… obviously the other bits are important as well but sometimes you can’t do that because they gotta do this and they gotta have a list sent to somebody else and they gotta do something else..

Alan: “That was also part of the learning process, how to develop into becoming an editor. And we miss that I think.”

As with every year, this panel was very inspirational. We are privileged to be able to see and hear the artists behind the invisible art of editing.

ACE continues to make editing visible to the world. In that vein, this year the event was streamed live by Avid on their Facebook page. It can be seen here: https://www.facebook.com/Avid/videos/10155399503967525/?t=931

– Eric Francis Harnden

* It is because of the efforts of ACE and MPEG that the Independent Spirit Awards added the category of Editing in 2014.

I am embarking upon a new journey, that of assistant editing.

I’ve decided that the best route for me to take to learn all I can in the post production world, is to become a post PA or an assistant editor first.

I have certain milestones that I am plotting out and hope to make those.

There’s a few things I’m doing this year, 2018, to forward my goals. One is I’m writing stories everyday. The other is I’m studying assistant editor things, every day. I am also reducing things I own. (I bought a book on this called The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter.)

There are obstacles on the road to any goal and I will document those too. So stay tuned and enjoy….

How bad can criticism affect you? It really depends on a lot of factors.

I’m still affected by something someone said to me seven years ago. I really feel that I haven’t gotten over it and in fact, I’m currently trying to work through it.

One of my first ever paid video gigs was a behind the scenes (BTS) shoot for a friend of mine who was shooting a little short for a contest for the Ford Motor Company, dealing with Mustangs. He was a finalist and actually got a budget to shoot this.

It was a great short that he wrote and shot with a great cast and crew.

My job was to shoot BTS for him because he had to add a little “Who’s the director?” thing with his submission. I also stayed on for an additional day to record some BTS for another short he was directing. So, two days, two full days, driving out to OC for each and then again to deliver the footage.

At the time of the shoot, you couldn’t even rent the camera alone for twice what I charged. I’m going to say all of this was for $200. (I’ll verify later)

Things went great, pretty much. I had fun. I was fed pizza. Got to see some shooting. Got to meet some great people.

My friend said that when he got the money from the people, he’d mail me a check. That check took a long time to arrive but after a long, long time, it did arrive.

Sometime after that, I got an email from my friend’s girlfriend / soon to be fiance / eventually to be wife. It went on to say that the reason the check was so late was that SHE didn’t want to pay me. And I was lucky because “Tom” was such a nice guy that he wanted to pay me despite my footage being shitty and too dark to use and that probably cost him the contest. And also I was to NEVER try to speak to them again.

I have to admit that I can be an asshole sometimes and I jump to conclusions and have had my share of pissing people off. But I have to think that there was obviously more to her anger toward me than what she wrote. And I already admitted that I’m not that good at anything, after all. But, I mean, where does that kind of vitriol come from?

Anyway, we all know that when a person has undisclosed crimes, they flame-out on other innocents to make people look the other way. Her email to me was actually in response to an email I had written my friend’s mother, who was asking for advice on running an art group among our mutual friends and community. I had told her the reality of how hard it was to run such a group and in that email I mentioned that not getting paid for so long from her son, actually made me think twice about being involved.

So there! That was it, a reason to hate me. Now my friend’s girl had a reason, from the future to excuse her past crime toward me. See, obviously she knew I was going to be a meany and I didn’t deserve to be paid, because that thing was going to happen in the future and see and yeah that footage was shitty too!

It’s kind of funny to think about now but even so, the criticism still stings. And while it might have some truth in it, it is unwarranted as such. And even if true, should have been given in a much nicer spirit.

As a comparison, I recently decided to try out a new camera by visiting another friend, whose band was playing at a bar. In my somewhat drunken and surely uneducated stupor, I accidentally changed the shutter speed to something that made all the footage go all ghostly blurry. He didn’t ask me to shoot the band and although the footage was screwed up in my opinion, he said the following when I sent it to him, “Thanks man! The footage looks pretty cool! I know shooting that way was unintentional, but whoever is editing has footage from a bunch of different shows and I think he could totally splice some of that in and it might work really well. I really appreciate you coming out and doing that for us.”

How cool is that?

Sometimes getting things out in the open helps one feel better. I actually feel a little better writing this all down, here. I never really mentioned the above attack on my art to anyone publicly, except a few close friends. I’ve held it in for all this time and it’s been like a little devil sneering at my work, in the shadows of my mind. I still have my footage from that job and honestly, I think it’s quite usable. A little color correction to brighten it up surely but I’ve always thought it’s better to underexpose a little than to blow it out. I’m going through the footage now, as an exercise, to “prove to myself” that it surely could have been actually used. But the voice-over narrative will most certainly be changed!

In an effort to define (more like, “find”) myself artistically, I’ve turned to photography. Like most of the arts I’ve been interested in, I’ve been interested in photography for a long time. I keenly recall taking pictures, fairly intently, since the age of ten.

Recently, I saw a post on Facebook by an old-time “opinion leader” of mine (I say opinion leader but more in the vein of “I pay attention to what they say and am willing to think about those thoughts and see how I feel about them”, as there aren’t too many people whom I’ll attest to blindly listen to.) that went something like, “a dabbler’s life is just dabbling.” I’m pretty sure I’m misquoting that but it was something like that. I’ve also recently confessed in one of my notebook notes that I’ve never really been good at anything.

Since I’ve found editing and filmmaking, which has been about ten years now, I learn a lot of things online, whether via videos, classes, blogs, vlogs or podcasts. My favorite podcasts currently are: Artful Camera, Our Week in Video, Here be Monsters. I’ll do a Go Creative Show, if none of the above have anything new but it’s starting to get a little too glitzy for me. I just discovered The wondering DP, so I can’t favorite it yet but I found his approach to learning, as interviewed on the Go Creative Show podcast, to be genius so I hope it will become one.

I like the Artful Camera podcast because Carl Olsen seems to be like me in that he likes a lot of different kinds of art, although assuredly he’s much more advanced than I am. He recently re-invented and re-branded his podcast from the Digital Convergence podcast and I like the direction he’s taking. He covers a wide array of photography and videography, including many analog forms. This is quite refreshing.

I like Our Week in Video because it’s a couple of blokes from the UK who talk about wedding videography and the challenge of it and the tech and craft of it and it challenges me because I’m a “I don’t do weddings” kind of guy. Although listening to them, I think, “ooh that’s challenging. Maybe I will try.” They are guys who push themselves and I appreciate that and want to foster that in myself.

Here be Monsters is a KCRW podcast, one of many I might listen to that has very interesting stories and for storytelling’s sake, they expand my mind and give me ideas. It’s on the dark side and I tend to like the dark side of things, when it comes to movies, news, etc. I wish life wasn’t so dark but I can’t shake my interest in these types of stories.

For this current dabble of mine, I think it’ll improve me cinematography, although I don’t necessarily want to be a DP or a Camera man. I also see it improving my editing, which has kind of been on hold as of late. All together, I think it’ll improve my writing, as well.

None of the above holds a candle to being a father and the joy I get being around my kids but I hope it’ll help me be better at that too. I think it’s important to be an example of “follow your dreams” to them.

Sometimes in great storylines the protagonist must die.

Such was the fate of #IFIE.

After over seven years, with ebb and flow passion towards it in the past and waning interest in it in the present, I had to “kill my baby”. Or maybe it’s better to say, let it go out into the world on its own.

I’ve hit a time in my life where time is precious. I have young kids that I want to spend more time with. I want to travel. I want to do more.

At the same time, I have to spend some time “letting go of the past”, including selling off a bunch of stuff that I really have no business still owning.

I’ve said good-bye on the meetup and facebook pages. The Meetup page will go away, as I’m not going to be paying for it anymore. The FB one will remain, I guess as a place some people can still reach out to one another.

I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up. So, when i figure that out, I’ll move forward with that and post about it here.

Until then, “Until then!”.