Under Appreciated Art Form

November 10th, 2008



Today was a nice day to have off. In the 6 previous days to this I logged more than 100 hours of work...way too much I know. I don't really want to do that again. I don't think anyone should have to work that much! It's just not healthy...but in this case I didn't have much of a choice.




I was cutting our latest documentary "Airplane Journals", which documents Greg's adventures in the world of coaching. He has been coached since he started the company by a guy named Dave Veale. (www.visioncoachinginc.com). As Greg has travelled the world he has interviewed countless numbers of coaches. Everything from executive coaches, surf coaches, acting coaches, hockey coaches, wrestling coaches, vocal coaches...you name it. Getting all of their different philosophies on coaching. All the while his coaching sessions with Dave tell the story of how our business has grown with the help of Dave's coaching.

On top of that I was finishing up a pretty big corporate project that turned out awsome! And I was also doing a bit more directing for our Jessica Rhaye DVD. Both of which were very time consuming.

But back to the doc....

I had basically started editing this doc on Wednesday and it was due Sunday morning at 6 a.m.
Not a lot of time, especially seen as the goal of this film is to be a television hour: 45-52 minute range. Greg had roughed out how he wanted the story to go, but there was a tonne of work to do on it. I didn't think it would be possible to cut it in such a short amount of time...but I dug in!


It had to be done. Greg and Dave were heading to the International Coaches Federation Annual conference in Montreal. A perfect place to screen it for the first time. Especially seen as the world best executive coaches were in the film and would be there.

I worked 17 hours per day on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday on it and made good progress. I had 17 minutes locked by then, with 24 hours left...A long way to go to get to that hour! But the first third of the doc was really thin on images to tell the story. You have to have coverage for what is being talked about. So I had to be creative in ways to tell this story. That meant adding a lot of old photos, newspaper clippings, and documents. It was extremely time consuming, not to mention the animated maps I made in after effects that illustrate Greg's globetrotting. It was successful though at creating the proper visuals for the audio.

If you look below and above at the screen shots from my editing suite, you can kind of see how it works. The blue and yellow blocks are the video tracks, and the green are for the audio. Then the computer reads what is always on the top line. That is what you end up seeing on screen! It also plays the all the audio tracks.




The reason I feel like editing is such an under appreciated art is that no one has no idea how much influence an editor as on a film. Unless you have actually done it, or watch someone do it, it would be hard for you to understand how much time it takes to cut 50 hours of footage down to 50 minutes, or how an editor can take a film in so many directions, depending on the vision of the director. I really feel like the edit suite is where the film is truly made.

Im lucky cause Greg gives me a lot of creative control when i'm editing his pieces. We're really on the same page. So he gives me a lot of room and trust to cut as I see fit. Something as simple as choice of music and when you bring it in, when you fade it out can completely change the feel or meaning of a scene. It's perhaps my favorite part.

Its such a puzzle. You take someones interview and rip it to pieces. You mix and match their dialogue so much. Take a piece here, put it there,. Take a couple words and add them somewhere else. Take out all the umm's and ah's. (people do that a lot). Basically you have to get their point across as quickly as possible. So, a point that may take a minute to say in the raw footage of an interview might be mixed, mashed, and slashed so it lasts 10 seconds. That's why coverage is so crucial. If you put images over top of their interview, no one will ever know it was manipulated. Without it, all interviews you see would be filled with jump cuts.

So Saturday morning I woke up bright and early and got to work on cutting the remaining 30 minutes. It took me 24 hours! Straight! Not the first time I sat in an editing suite that long and won't be the last. It got a little lonely at about midnight. So I went to Steve's for some grub. Then back to work! I ended up finishing it on time, then proceeded to sleep the rest of day, naturally.

I really love editing though. I love the challenge of telling a story, and evoking emotion from the viewer. It's an amazing feeling. Especially when your scene really works. It moves he story forward, looks great and more importantly sounds great. In my opinion editing is about %80 audio, %20 visual. You can not fool people with bad audio. You have to be able to watch it with your eyes closed...then if that works, then you make the visuals fit.

When it all comes together though, its a beautiful thing! It really is a piece of art, a creation. Kinda like painting a picture and writing a novel all in one. It feels so good to sit and watch something you know is great. I tend to watch scenes I've cut over and over and over. Then when the film is finished and ready for people to enjoy, I don't really want to look at it again! A nice dose of irony don't ya think?

Cheers,
Andrew