Tim Ritter's Production Corner

Production Corner #7
by Tim Ritter

POSTPRODUCTION
Your movie has finished shooting! One of the most difficult phases is over---you have actually wrapped production. All the hassles, phone calls, juggling schedules, and everything else you've had to worry about have finally come to a glorious end. Using film lingo, your flick is "in the can."
What's the next step, you might ask. Well, here's my advice: take some time off. A couple of weeks or even a couple of months if you have to. After all, the production stage of the movie is the most grueling and time consuming of them all. Whether you've shot twelve consecutive days in a row or over a period of weekends, your mind is fried---whether you realize it or not. Unless you're on some hectic schedule or you have to deliver your program to a distributor on a deadline, it's time to relax. Especially if you're going to edit the finished product yourself.
Why, you might ask? Because you're too close to the project. You need time to think about what you've shot without being pressured by it, and you also need time not to think about it. Making movies is way beyond just a "hobby" for most of us who take it seriously. It becomes almost an "obsessive compulsive" addiction and when you're so completely immersed in a project, you end up giving up a lot of your life. So spend some time with your family and friends, enjoy life, read a book or two, or just go lay on the beach somewhere. Distance yourself from everything production.
This is all for the benefit of your movie. If you rush right into editing after working so hard to get everything shot, it's going to be that much harder to assemble, and assemble well. You need to get some perspective on the project and the only way to get that is to just step away from it for a while. You'll come back with a whole new view and a whole new attitude about what you shot. You should also feel a whole new level of enthusiasm about your project after taking a hiatus from working on it.
This really applies to the director who plans to edit his or her own work. If you also shot and lit the movie, chances are you're going to be quite fond of virtually everything you taped. It's going to be real hard to let go of certain shots, angles, and dialogue (moreso if you're the one-man show who also wrote the thing!). It's very difficult for the creative jack-of-all-trades to step back and be able to view their work almost neutrally, from afar, and be able to honestly cut things out that really don't need to be there. It's a hard mindset to get into and you have to keep something in mind at all times: you're making this movie for an audience to view, a group of people other than yourself, who you don't even know. Why are they going to want to spend time with your movie if it's way too long, self-indulgent, and boring? Keep these questions in mind at all times when you edit your flick: 1.) Is the story unfolding in a clear and understandable way? 2.) What's going to stop the viewers from reaching for that fast-forward button or doing something else all together? In other words, it's a competitive world out there, especially when it comes to entertainment. You want to edit your movie as fast-paced and interesting as possible.
Let's start from the very beginning of the postproduction process. You've had your little break and now you're coming back to your raw footage to prepare it for editing. The first thing you should do is always make backup copies of your original footage so you're not using the camera originals until you're actually ready to edit. No matter what format you're using, the less you play the original footage, the better. Make backup copies on the highest quality format you can, as well as dubbing off VHS or dvd copies for yourself so you can see the footage and log it. If your original footage it timecoded, you'll want to transfer the timecode onto your copies, especially if you're planning to use those numbers to connect your scenes together in editing. (For the uninitiated, timecode is essentially numbers at the bottom of your videotapes that can be pulled up and read in a compatible editing system. Usually the timecode shows hours, minutes, seconds, and frames, enabling you to go through a project, pause the exact frame where you want to make a cut and write the exact time code number down that is on the screen at that time. You do this on an EDIT WORK SHEET, basically writing down how each and every shot connects to the next shot until the entire movie is pretty much "edited on paper." And yes, this is very time consuming. It can take a few months or more if you're using regular consumer equipment to make your selections. Later, you feed the raw footage and the timecode numbers into a computer and it cuts the movie together for you. It used to be that only really expensive equipment had these types of features, but now that digital editing is here, timecode is pretty much a standard feature for everyone. You can even "off-line" edit timecoded VHS "window dubs" of your footage using basic editing equipment and have the timecoded numbers transferred from your VHS "master" into a digital editing system, but that's getting pretty fancy.)
Generally, a feature-length movie (defined as 72 minutes or more) should have at least four to six hours of raw footage to be molded from. I've had movies where there were thirty plus hours of raw footage or more---this depends on what kind of shoot you had and what format you were shooting on (film or video). If your shooting ratio was 3:1, you shouldn't have that much excess footage to go through. (Shooting ratio refers to how many takes it took you to finally get the one you plan to use in the finished project. If you shot a particular scene twelve times, your shooting ratio is 11: 1). It doesn't matter how much footage you have because the goal is always the same: cut it down so it moves like lightning. If you don't know anything about editing, this might be the time to find some outside assistance. Heading to the Yellow Pages and looking under "Video Production" once again, you might find a company that specializes in commercials or weddings that is willing to get involved for a very low rate or even just for credit, if you can get someone excited about your movie. (I can't tell you how many wedding videographers and editors that I've met who would love the opportunity to work on something more creative---even a crazy little slasher movie!)
However, if you're determined to do the editing yourself, it might be a good idea to get some practice. No matter what system you end up editing on, whether it's deck-to-deck with an edit controller or nonlinear, you need to have the basics down. If you wrote the script yourself, obviously you have in your mind how you think things should flow. But if you've never physically cut anything before, now's the time to learn. Watch some TV shows with the sound down, especially stuff like afternoon soap operas. Notice how the scenes are put together, the use of close-up shots, the cutting back and forth between characters, how an insert shot is placed to help tell the story. Then watch some of your favorite movies, the ones that inspired you to begin with, and also watch them with the sound down. Concentrate on how the images are cut together, studying things with your PAUSE button if you have to. Notice how things are paced, how quick things move, and how much is understood without sound…if a picture is worth a thousand words, how much do you think 30 moving pictures per second is worth?
Next up, take a few days, even if it's just with two VCRs or from camcorder to video recorder, and play around with putting a scene from your movie together. Even if there's rainbows and glitches, the idea is to get a feel for how you physically put a scene together and make it work. I have edited entire movies (mainly documentaries) from camcorder to video recorder, and it is possible for it to come out pretty decent if you're editing something that has longer takes and doesn't require a lot of fast cuts. Be sure you have a higher-end VCR (at least Super-VHS) and that it has a jog shuttle wheel and flying erase heads. Use your Y/C connectors to make the master copy (also known as the "super" cords, they plug into the Super VHS jacks, or if you're going digital, use your firewire to maintain quality).
Again, editing from camera to VCR is very time-consuming and iffy. It's only going to work with a project that has extremely long takes that just need to be tagged together, and cutting dialogue with exact frame accuracy is nearly impossible. The best way I've found to make documentary material cut well using this manner is to find the exact frame you want to make a cut at, hit PAUSE (freezing the picture), then go ahead five frames (you have to count each one out individually) and hit the RECORD/PAUSE button. Then let your raw footage roll, unpausing the record deck when you see the point where you want your new cut to start. Doing things by eye like this can be extremely frustrating and you never get things exactly the way you want them. I would recommend this method only for practicing and for projects that don't need anything fancy like fades, wipes, dissolves, and music and effects on the second audio track. Theoretically, with a good eye and a lot of patience, you could edit a movie like The Blair Witch Project using this crude method. And believe it or not, a lot of us have.
The next step up is using an edit "controller" that you put between your decks (or the camcorder and your record deck). This will give you nearly frame accurate cuts, but these things are still hard to deal with and don't give you total pro results. You can even throw in sound mixers (to dub music and effects onto your tape), but you'll still be pulling your hair out trying to get things perfect.
The most professional way to edit a project these days is to either rent out an editing suite or buy the equipment yourself. These days, nonlinear editing (on a computer of some sort, sometimes your home computer) has almost entirely replaced buying expensive professional editing decks because it's affordable and the end results are as good as or much better than editing deck to deck. If you don't feel like buying and maintaining video equipment or computer programs (or a more expensive computer with a large memory---video eats up a lot of hard drive space fast), again, check your Yellow Pages and try to team up with someone who has the equipment and knowledge. There are also DIY edit suites that can be rented out by the hour in most cities, so you can always go that route. Generally, they charge anywhere from $25-$75 an hour, or you can work out a package deal with them if you're a shrewd negotiator. (They usually don't go for the "credits in exchange for endless use of their suites, but it doesn't hurt to try!) The key is being prepared with your footage, no matter where you go or how you do it.
I've been editing movies for over twenty years now, and it generally takes me about 6-8 weeks to edit a feature-length movie and master it out onto a fully mixed "master tape" that is ready to have copies made from it. The longest part of the process is the first phase, which we'll discuss now. No matter what format you choose to edit your movie on, the process of assembling things and putting them together into a "final cut" is pretty much the same.
The first thing to do is log all of your footage and select the best takes. You might want to do this by yourself or you might want to have someone involved with the production help you with these selections, it's strictly up to you. Make notations on anything that seems important so you don't forget about them when you actually begin cutting. Also watch for mistakes, screw-ups, and even scenes that might need to be reshot. This is the time to look for boom mikes, movie lights that somehow accidentally got in the frame when you didn't realize it, and any other mistake that you might have made. Sometimes you realize that you forgot to shoot a sequence, even a small thread that leads up to something else, that is an absolute necessity. This is when you want to notice something like that, at this early stage. Write down the problem, see if there's any way to fix it, and if not, schedule what's called "pick up shots" or "additional shooting." If it's something that's really bothering you, by all means, get the additional footage you need. Some of my early projects really could have used just one additional shooting day before editing commenced, and I really regret not being able to do that. If you're using video, it more than likely won't break the bank to do this.
This is also the time to see what stock footage you might need and to get additional exterior coverage of establishing shots if you didn't get enough during principal photography. If you have shots that need to be altered by computers (like CGI, for instance), now's the time to select the take you want to use and get a digital copy of it to whomever is doing that work for you.
It's also a good time to be thinking about the music score. Bring the composer in at the earliest stage possible, even letting him view the dailies if possible. That way he'll be thinking about the images he saw and what type of themes you'll need. Discuss what type of music and score you think fits the project best, and always be open to suggestions and ideas composers might have. They are very talented and creative people and making the right decisions with the score is going to do nothing but enhance your project.
If you plan to use music by artists who already have work out and available (like rock musicians), well, this would be a good time for you (or one of the producers) to approach their agents or record labels to see if they're willing to participate. Some of the medium label artists are accessible for ventures like this, especially if they're really into the style of the movie you've made. They see it as a good opportunity for their work to perhaps reach a broader audience, so here's where you can play up the "credit and exposure" benefits in exchange for using their music for no charge. Some groups are really cool with this, especially if they're regional and looking for a big break. If you're hoping to get an established artist from a major record label to let you use their work for free, forget about it. Unless you know the celebrity personally or they really believe in your movie or the charitable cause it represents, chances are they'll want some major bucks for use of their material. You're better off finding bands that sound similar, who were inspired by that particular celebrity you like, and striking a deal with them. At least you really do have something to offer them with the possible exposure your movie might get when it's distributed.
Back to cutting the movie. Once you're satisfied that you have all the material you need to edit, it's time to get started. Even in the old days when I had to rent out a video suite and edit tape to tape, I had a shortcut that applies quite nicely to the nonlinear editing of today. I would select and transfer just the best takes from every scene onto a new set of tapes that I planned to edit from. This would cut down on my time spent in the editing room, which I was paying for by the hour. There would be less material to shuttle through and the choice of which take I planned to use was already made. Yes, I did lose a generation of quality doing this, but it was a sacrifice I had to make for hard economics---never having enough money! When you have a bunch of takes in a row that are virtually the same and you can't even remember why you kept reshooting that scene, it's better to make the selection before you're paying for things by the hour.
This same method applies to digital editing today. Even if you're doing it at home, transferring (or rendering) your digital footage directly into your home computer, only put the best takes into the system. This will save you time and hard drive space. So hopefully you can cut your raw footage in half (or more) during this stage.
If you have a computer with only minimal hard drive space, transfer the movie in the order that it's written from your screenplay and edit the first fifteen or twenty minutes of it. Output this onto a digital video master (or S.VHS tape at the very least) and start the whole process over again with the next chunk of your movie. Again, output what you can onto digital tape and start again. Eventually, you'll finish your entire movie in sections and all you'll have to do is hook it together at an edit place for a very small fee. Yes, this is a crude and trying method, but you work with what you have, right? I've used this method quite a bit because I don't have the money for expensive editing computers that have 6-10 hours worth of video storage space.
As you edit, think of each full sequence as a mini-movie. There should be a climax to each 5-10 minute scene, even if it's a revelation about a character or a little twist in the story. Just like television shows have little "cliffhangers" that occur right before a commercial break, you need to keep the audience "hooked" into your story by keeping things fast and interesting. People are bored easily and have short attention spans these days, so "trim the fat," so to speak. Eliminate unnecessary dialogue---even if you wrote it and think it rings like Shakespeare. If it's repetitive or unnecessary, get rid of it, even if it's a whole scene you spent a lot of time setting up. Sometimes you'll find that a dialogue scene goes on a few minutes too long---that the point of it all (necessary for plot and character development) is over rather quick and it just goes on and on…CUT IT DOWN. See how it works. You might be surprised.
The structure of your movie might change throughout editing. You might realize that a plot point was given away too early and decide to trim that part way down or put it in the movie later. Things like this happen, so whenever possible, first do a "rough cut." A rough cut is where you throw everything in just as the script was written, even long scenes of dialogue that you know you'll trim down. The point is to have an overview of the movie: the beginning, middle, and end. Then you'll see if there are major structure problems or if things might need to be rearranged. You can get opinions from others, even people not involved with the project. (How many times have we read about the big studios having "Advanced Sneak Previews" of a movie, then going back to make changes based on audience reactions? Well, this is the same thing, and can be done during the rough-cut stage.)
As you go back and rethink scenes in the process, all kinds of things might change. The same rule of thumb regarding exposition applies during editing, just as it did when you wrote the script. Show things, don't tell them. Too much dialogue will bog the movie down. If you can show the action in a montage with music, definitely do this when possible. You don't want to overdo this, but fast cutting with a beat gives the illusion of action, and on a low budget production, you need to use tricks like this whenever possible.
Other things to look for and trim down are "travelogue" scenes that might be drawn out an unnecessary. If the running time is running short and you're trying to pad your movie out to feature length, well…can't help you there, you've gotta do what you've gotta do. But I will say that long driving scenes and scenes that show a character going from point "A" to point "B" are sometimes really monotonous. It might be better if you just threw a dissolve in there or wiped to the next scene to keep things moving. Think pacing, you want to keep your story moving and the audience watching, so find those imaginary beats and start snapping your finger. You'll see what I mean as you make cuts. If you've got a rough cut that runs anywhere from 95-120 minutes, you'll want to cut things down to a radical and pulse-pounding 80-90 minutes. I'd say the best running time for shot-on-video movies is between 75-84 minutes, including your credits. It's real easy to overstay your welcome on this format, so deliver the goods, get in and out, as quick as possible. The audience will appreciate it more. Of course, these are just suggestions from what I've learned over the years, so if you're dead-set on delivering a two hour and ten minute video opus, by all means, don't let me stand in your way. I think it's a mistake and the first thing any commercial distributor is going to tell you is "cut it down to 90 minutes and we'll have another look at it," but what the hey, in the video medium, you can afford trial and error if you're in it for the long haul.
Another thing to watch during editing is special effects, particularly if you're doing a horror movie. If the effects look bad, trim 'em down. I've made this mistake many times, putting in cheap latex effects that look really silly just because someone worked hard on the effect and we shot it. You'll be surprised how cutting away quicker---to someone's reaction or blood splattering on the wall---sometimes works much more effective than showing something cheesy full-on. Throw a good sound effect on there and you might make an impact on the audience as opposed to taking them totally out of your story as they point and laugh at the dorky-looking effect! Think of how impacting the famous "meathook" scene was from Texas Chainsaw Massacre…and you didn't see a thing happen.
Once your entire movie is completely edited together from beginning to end (including all of your effects shots being dropped in), it's time to add the beginning and end credits. (Be sure all your music and postproduction people are signed on so everyone gets in there.) Most nonlinear computer systems have all kinds of programs and character generators that can accomplish this, or you can have it done by an outside production company or television station very affordably. Now you'll have the "official running time" and you can give a copy to the music composer, especially if he or she is going to compose the score exactly to each scene using timecode (again). Here, you'll want to timecode a copy of your almost-finished movie and let the composer work with it in his music studio. A VHS dub is fine for this chore.
Meanwhile, go through and check your sound levels, making sure that all of your dialogue is clear and audible. If not, you might want to ADR some of these scenes, if possible. ADR refers to "additional dialogue recording" and is a fairly complicated endeavor. You "loop" (record over and over) the scene that you want new audio on and have the actors come into the studio, where they repeat their dialogue into a microphone of your choice as they watch the scene on a video monitor. You're taking the original sound out and putting in these newly recorded "takes." The trick is having the new audio stay in synch with the images on the screen. Even with the best equipment, this is strictly trial and error. Also, this is where you'll want to lay down some of those "ambient room" tones that you recorded on location so the finished sequence doesn't sound like it was overdubbed in a studio. Layering that into the mix, it's easier to hide additional dialogue recording.
While you're working with the composer (or waiting for him to complete his music), you can be adjusting the colors and brightness of each and every shot---especially with digital editing. The things you can do are totally amazing, you're almost like a painter. I'm still floored by all this new technology, so have a blast with it.
One thing I'd like to mention (especially for nonlinear editing) is that there are a million different ways that each and every scene can be cut and the technology is very simple to use once you learn it. This can make an editor indecisive and spend far too much time on one scene. I know a lot of people who are unable to finish projects because they just can't seem to decide which way to go. They finish a scene, decide they don't like it, and go back and redo it. Then they second-guess that, and so on. Six months later, they realize they're still on that first scene. Don't fall into this trap---finish a scene according to the script and do it as best as possible, then move on. Don't look back until you're done with the whole movie. It's just like a writer penning a novel---if he stops and reads every chapter, he'll want to change and tinker with every word until he realizes that…he's still on the first chapter…a year later! It's important to have a vision and stick with it from the beginning to the end. If you find yourself falling into this rut in editing, you might be forced to hire an editor or find someone to collaborate with who can show you through the process.
Other than these small points, there's not many ways to "teach" someone editing. You have to just sit down and do it. It's time-consuming, frustrating, and a lot of work, but it can be a great deal of fun. Especially if you have a home set-up and aren't working under the shadow of paying an hourly fee, like in the early 1980's, when I first started out. Being liberated from the pressure of time costing you money, you should be able to come up with a tightly edited production that gives maximum impact in the quickest amount of screen time possible.