Major Project - Edit Reviews and Progress

Edit Reviews and Progress

The role as editor was split between myself, Josh and Troy as the sound editor, sequence editor and the colour/grading editor respectively. Seeing as Josh and Troy live together, they were able to sit through the editing progress together while I would arrive during the week and work on the sound for a day or two.

As a producer, my role was to ensure that the edit is coming along as it should while keeping track of the progress of the edit. In the days I was not available to edit myself, I contacted Josh and Troy frequently to ask where they were at with the edit. As producer I must also organise screenings so that we can view the edit on a larger screen. I opted to leave this until we had a sufficient edit to look at and review. This did not include reviews and tutorials with Simon who we would see most weeks with our edit up until the deadline.

Early rough cuts

It had been 2 weeks since we had finished our shoot and after a short break, our first rough cut was ready to be viewed by Simon. Admittedly it was not a great start, even for a rough cut. The sequence was roughly chopped and the sound from the tascam had not been inserted by this stage. A more positive comment however was that the scenes were nicely shot and that we got a good sense of location. Without the appropriate sound however, it is difficult to give more insightful feedback.

With the next session, we showed up with a more finely chopped version of the film with the sounds in place. I had informed Simon that a music composer had been organised and that music would be added within the coming weeks. The colour grade would also be looked into in the latter stages of the editing process. This was understood. The edit itself was still fairly rough and though the sounds were in place, there were frequent moments where the characters were out of sync. Simon did offer a lot of tips on how we can cut the scenes so that they flow a lot nicer, asking us if we had certain shots that would work well. In regards to the actors performances, he was particularly impressed with Nick and Stephens characters, they were very believable and were good choices for this film. Simon was not too pleased with some of the performances offered by the main character David. Basil's overacting proved to be one of the major issues with the film as a whole and Simon advised to be particularly picky with what shots we used in order to cover up the over acting to get the most out of the actors performance.

Screening and meeting with our music composer

The first time we had the opportunity to view our film on a bigger screen was with our meeting with our music composer, Tony Hepworth. At this stage the edit was still fairly rough and was not graded, but it did give us a different perspective on how the film would eventually look. The clips seemed to present a more sombre tone than we had anticipated. While sombre would be a word I'd like to describe the intended finish, the film moved along far too slowly and it was difficult to gage a real sense of tone. We were hoping that the music would help pull this through.

This would act as our final screening before the rescheduled shoot with Basil the following week.

Complete Rough Cuts

Having met with our music composer and shot the last of our scenes over the 2 week break, we were able to present Simon with a rough cut that included all of the shots. The only things missing were the music (which was soon to arrive) and the colour grading. Having explained that I would not be including the music until I myself was satisfied with the result, Simon suggested that I use temporary music for the film; music that would help give the film its sense of tone. Again, it was explained that without the music, it is difficult to gage on the tone of the film in a more specific way. Music makes a huge difference. The sequencing around the newly shot scenes was still rough round the edges and there were still pieces out of sync. Not that it was noticed in the tutorial by anyone else, but I could here some rattling coming from the boom pole in the park scene. Thankfully these were easy enough to fix as it did not overlap any of the dialogue.

A couple weeks later, we had a rough cut viewing with Andrea Kapos of Dark Energy Films. By this point the rough cut was in a much better state, the sequencing was clean, the temporary music was in place and the sound, for the most part, was where it should be. There were still some syncing issues as noted by Andrea. The viewing was met with mostly positive comments, she understood the tone of the film, the pacing was never dreary and the shots were of a high standard. Rather interestingly, she actually loved Davids character.

There were still some things to work on in the film, however. Andrea suggested that there was some fat to be trimmed from the film and even suggested the idea of scrapping a whole scene as it didn't add anything to the story. Later that day, Simon also viewed the film and echoed many of the points raised by Andrea. It was just a matter of getting it done.

2nd Screening with music composer

It had been advised to watch our films on a larger screen in order to get a sense of where the film is really at. This was met with some difficulty however. We had exported a copy of the film for the composer to work from and decided to show him this film at the Studios before handing it to him. Unfortunately the film was exported in full 4K, something the laptop, which was nearly full of memory, could not handle.

With some help from Ferg, we had eventually got the film playing, albeit a bit choppy. This was frustrating as it left us with uncertainty as to whether the composer would be able to work from this film if has the same problems. Thankfully this was not to be the case.

It was difficult to actually spot any issues with the film itself visually as it was too choppy. I did, however, spot one mistake in this screening concerning the sound. In places the audio was only playing through one speaker. Between this screening and the final viewing, I would not have the time to correct these issues and instead decided on focussing on the music aspect of the film while Troy adjusted the grading. This meant that Simon could finally get to see the film with music and with grading.

Final viewing with the Class

At the beginning of deadline week, Simon organised a class viewing where everyone would have the chance to watch and comment on one another's films. While I was nervous about having the whole class watch our film, it was interesting to see what everyone had to say. It was also a chance for Simon to have his say on our music selection and the grading.

I knew going into the viewing that the sound would come out of the left speaker only in a couple of scenes so I was not phased by the criticism in that aspect. Simon was very happy with some of the grading, (though it was incomplete in some areas) and felt that the pacing and the tone of the film worked really well. He did pick out a couple of moments where the grading in the film was off and there were some slight inconsistencies. Simon also noted that there were still points towards the end of the film where the audio was out of sync.

Final Edit (for deadline)

With just days to go until the final deadline, it was decided that the majority of the focus would go on what Simon wanted to improve. Our own criticisms of the film would take a back seat for now.

The final changes I would make to the sound would be as follows:

• I went through the film analysing all of the dialogue in the film to check for any moments that were out of sync. There was one moment in the park that was not initially spotted that I had corrected and just the one moment in the final few scenes.
• What was particularly strange was the fact that while the dialogue was matched up to the correct clips, they still appeared to be out of sync on first watch. When deeply analysing the footage and the audio, it turned out that this was in fact not the case, particularly the coughing before the line "you got all that from me being a firefighter".
• I inserted and raised certain sounds that could not be heard in the previous edit such as the pot noodle pot hitting the surface.
• The phone call in that same scene was also edited to sound like it was coming from the phone.
• I made some very minor adjustments to the music but decided not to make this a focus as it was not raised in the viewing.