A bittersweet finish

I’ve felt things to be pretty awkward this week. It’s the final week before final exports are due so stress level s are high in the air! I have found out that Gery is unhappy with the grade so has taken it upon herself to re-grade the entire film at the last minute. Aisling isn’t sure what the problem with our grade was. We did need to finalise it but I was just waiting for Aisling’s call to get straight onto that.

I was more surprised to find that she has graded over our version instead of starting a fresh one which I’m annoyed about because I needed that grade for work reference and screen grabs. We have looked through the saved vault but it only holds a few days’ worth of material and unfortunately my last input is not recoverable.

On the plus side I have been given one last stint of editorial input to the project, which I’m happy about because it went quite well. I had told them a while ago that I have an idea for the film’s title sequence. There is a shot at the start of the film in which the central couple sign a lease in an estate agent’s. The shot is a close up of the page, which I thought made it a nice canvass for titles. Gery has already done the film title so I asked if I could have a go with a pre title of ‘Coláiste Dhúlaigh/Univestiy of Wolverhampton Presents’. They liked the idea and I’ve just finshed it and I think that thankfully works really well. I say thankfully because it was very hard work. The idea was to have the above title scroll across the page in time with the signatures. They only issue is that Final Cut doesn’t have an effects function for this so I had to improvise. I made a separate text box for each letter (24 in total) and then cut them together precisely so that they when they played in the time line they perfectly synchronized with the signatures on the page. It took me hours and it has screen time of about 10 seconds. Now I know how animators feel…

Hyper link:

Animated opening credits in synch with signatures on page (begins at 00-00-12)

https://vimeo.com/128870570

Back online but not in the cut

The files are now back on the correct drive so editing should be a sight easier to get done now and time is getting short for final edits all round. The girls informed me today when I asked about getting stuck into the fine cut that they have finished picture lock which they must have only done within the last couple of days. I have to say I am disappointed that they didn’t let me know. It’s not that I want to insist on any input or anything and what ever cut they want is their choice but I do thing it’s a bit crazy to have an independent editor and not to even ask their opinion on the final cut. I certainly didn’t let my editor’s viewpoint go amiss and I would especially consider fresh eyes essential at this more pressurized stage.

Anyway, Aisling and I have begun the colour grade so that will probably be my last role on the film before it’s handed over for the sound mix. 

Some more stalling!

Trying to get editing done this week has proved to be a little frustrating. It appears the newly shot material has been accidentally saved to one of the Mac hard drives in the edit suites instead of the portable Lacey drive each film has been assigned. As a result all of the new material is offline whenever access is not possible in that particular edit suite.

I hope this problem gets corrected soon as I have lost some good editing periods I had hoped to avail of between phases in my own postproduction schedule. I’ve let Aisling know but the problem is persisting. I’ve tried to reconnect the files myself with the help of Natasha (our resident technical guru) but that proved not possible without knowing exactly where have been saved to. So until this issue is unfortunately solved there is not much editing I can do.

A little stalling

It turns out that Aisling and Gery have planned to shoot some extra footage as they feel it’s necessary to strengthen the story. Looking over the existing rough cut I feel it’s hard to progress it further without this new material, so I feel I need to wait until they come back with the footage in order to put the edit into the next gear. I was in the same boat with my own film only last week, as we also needed to get some necessary pickup shots and our edit also hit a slow patch until we got those scenes/shots filmed.

It just goes to show how important the rhythm and flow of the editing process is when progressing the narrative can slow down so much even just waiting for a few minutes worth of necessary material. 

The next phase

I feel it’s getting a lot tighter all round at the moment schedule wise and a good few of the films are entering the fine cut stage so good organisation is key, especially for those who have a collaborative role within postproduction. As a result I have approached Aisling and Gery to see if they can send me a postproduction plan. I’d be happy with even a loose plan to follow, as it would mean I could best arrange commitments to my own film whilst also ensuring that I can work on Colour Blind as an editor to full effect and not just be turning up to edit at inappropriate times for them.

They will both need to also find their own feet as post-directors/producers at this fine cutting stage anyway, or at least that’s how I like to work myself at this stage of the process.

Operation success

Well I am happy to say that I have managed to pull off a complete rough cut as agreed by last Wednesday evening. Personally I am happy with it and I think Aisling is too. Gery is currently on work experience so I will have to wait for her feedback once she returns.

There is a lot of theatrical surface drama, and even melodrama in Colour Blind so the exchanges between characters really set the baseline for the tone and feel for editing the film. The most crucial factor of all is to ensure that Paul remains the lead character. Aisling and Gery worked particularly hard in the script stages to ensure that Paul’s story arc came to the fore and it’s my job to ensure that it remains so in the edit. I’ll leave them both now to analyze as to what they want next for the film and wait for them to let m now when they are really to move on to fine cutting.

Screenshot example one of my edit sequences:

Preparing for the rough cut

Well the shoot is now wrapped and its time to switch my role on Colour Blind from Director of Photography to editor. I’m really looking forward to editing the film; I already know that the shots we got are nice and the way the story is arranged in the script will be interesting to edit too as there are a few scenes that inter cut with each other.

One thing I was aware of approaching the editing stage was that both Aisling and Gery came to the degree year from the Liberties media course, which uses Adobe’s Premiere Pro editing software. Coláiste Dhúlaigh uses Apple’s Final Cut Pro 7, which is the package I learned to edit on over the last two years during my HND course. The college has installed the Adobe suite this year to suit all students but I am not very familiar with it and would be reluctant to use it for the first time on a major creative project with a deadline without first having time to play around with it on practice material. Fortunately the girls understood this and they are happy to go with Final Cut for their film, especially since they are both keen to advance their postproduction skills anyway. At the end of all this however I would like to be a professional editor so I will endeavor to expand my own skills to include Premiere Pro as well as the ubiquitous AVID as soon as I graduate.