Editing, too many cameras, and RED
Monday. What a hive of activity this afternoon as Joe, Becky, Trevor and Jenna & Lillian all arrived to start or continue their rough cuts. The media room was like a furnace. Sleeping bodies in every corner, while Bayla began painting her animation about her theory of the Universe. Sorta like google Mars...
And here we run into an interesting schism, that of the shoot and the edit. Many of us had decided to shoot some or all of the sequence with two or more cameras running simultaneously. Vast overequipping was discouraged, but there seemed to be a desire there, so... taking the Prime Directive to heart... there are certain undeniable advantages, for instance where keeping synch is a necessity (e.g. in one species of the concert movie) or punctually for a 'once only' shot (e.g. blowing up Kingston Mall) or even, as Mr. Bongiorno contended, to preserve the perfect flow in an improv or intimate dialogue. But I feel these cases are rare. What follows from the facility of a two camera shoot, is that you think (inside your head) that you have the scene covered. But you don't. What really happens is you turn off that little voice (inside your head) which thinks about where to put the camera for each shot, and about what is needed and what is superfulous. Or, on the third hand, you have to be super careful and strict about not getting that other camera in shot (or you have to be super experienced as a team, but we are none of the above). So what you get is two (or three, or four...) mitigated versions of the exact same thing. It's not a financial problem, tape being cheap, but it becomes an editing problem, first because you have to watch all the stuff, and second, because the sheer weight of material tends to confuse and muddy the film which risks getting submerged inside the multiple takes.
Two of our films were shot with just one camera. The directors paused and thought between each take, and varied the set-up according to what they'd already filmed, and the ideas which came up there and then. These segments are a) almost finished, and b) have a coherence born from lack of dispersion and repetition during the shoot.
Is there a lesson here? Methinks.
But aside from all of this, i.e. a much harder edit curve, the elements are there inside the mass of material, and will be brought out.
We are trying to arrange a professional colorist to make a final pass in a month or so, which is why two things are being deliberately neglected THIS WEEK. 1) no color correction and 2) no sound mix or music added.
We must get the broad lines of the segments in the next two days, and start detailing the leaves on the trees after the Thursday screening.
At least, that's the way I feel right now, to quote Thelonious Monk. It may change.
It all looks luvverly. And by the by, there's a wealth of funny outtakes in the Tea Party scene, due to the very funny improvs of Mikhail and Simon, as well as a plethora of missed cues, and general confusion between takes, and the so-called producer and professional actors vying with each other in the Nazi accent stakes. I only asked him to ztop rocking ze table!
And yes, we'll all have to sit down and work out the bestest ways of camera placement when you are in a room with a bright window...
I am so glad we chose red and black as the key colors.
And here we run into an interesting schism, that of the shoot and the edit. Many of us had decided to shoot some or all of the sequence with two or more cameras running simultaneously. Vast overequipping was discouraged, but there seemed to be a desire there, so... taking the Prime Directive to heart... there are certain undeniable advantages, for instance where keeping synch is a necessity (e.g. in one species of the concert movie) or punctually for a 'once only' shot (e.g. blowing up Kingston Mall) or even, as Mr. Bongiorno contended, to preserve the perfect flow in an improv or intimate dialogue. But I feel these cases are rare. What follows from the facility of a two camera shoot, is that you think (inside your head) that you have the scene covered. But you don't. What really happens is you turn off that little voice (inside your head) which thinks about where to put the camera for each shot, and about what is needed and what is superfulous. Or, on the third hand, you have to be super careful and strict about not getting that other camera in shot (or you have to be super experienced as a team, but we are none of the above). So what you get is two (or three, or four...) mitigated versions of the exact same thing. It's not a financial problem, tape being cheap, but it becomes an editing problem, first because you have to watch all the stuff, and second, because the sheer weight of material tends to confuse and muddy the film which risks getting submerged inside the multiple takes.
Two of our films were shot with just one camera. The directors paused and thought between each take, and varied the set-up according to what they'd already filmed, and the ideas which came up there and then. These segments are a) almost finished, and b) have a coherence born from lack of dispersion and repetition during the shoot.
Is there a lesson here? Methinks.
But aside from all of this, i.e. a much harder edit curve, the elements are there inside the mass of material, and will be brought out.
We are trying to arrange a professional colorist to make a final pass in a month or so, which is why two things are being deliberately neglected THIS WEEK. 1) no color correction and 2) no sound mix or music added.
We must get the broad lines of the segments in the next two days, and start detailing the leaves on the trees after the Thursday screening.
At least, that's the way I feel right now, to quote Thelonious Monk. It may change.
It all looks luvverly. And by the by, there's a wealth of funny outtakes in the Tea Party scene, due to the very funny improvs of Mikhail and Simon, as well as a plethora of missed cues, and general confusion between takes, and the so-called producer and professional actors vying with each other in the Nazi accent stakes. I only asked him to ztop rocking ze table!
And yes, we'll all have to sit down and work out the bestest ways of camera placement when you are in a room with a bright window...
I am so glad we chose red and black as the key colors.
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