Epiphany #1 Lenny exercise

I have never worked on other people’s film as an editor before, so far every project, or at least filmmaking project I have ever edited are all written and directed by myself. Editing the Lenny video offered a fresh experience where I had to follow an unfamiliar script while working with footage shot by others.

When I first browsed through the footage, I saw many shots I did not like. For example, in the first scene Lenny walks from screen left to screen right, then in Scene Two Sharon also walk from left to right, but in a different setting. I concerned that the film would not look good once it is edited, because the two characters are supposed to meet up and the chaotic direction might confuse the audience. After Sharon sets off to look for Lenny in Scene Two, the script goes back to describe Lenny finding a place to sit, which is also the way it is in the footage that was shot. I found this arrangement tend to ruin the flow of the film.

What I did and later proved to be appropriate is, I flipped the footage of Scene Two so the two characters would seem to walk towards the same place from different directions. After assembling the footage, I rearranged the orders of the shots, putting the first shot in Scene Three at the end of Scene One, so it appears that after Lenny has settled Sharon sets off to find her.

From this exercise I see that certainly editors should have a fair amount of agency over the film they are working on, maybe they do not have to strictly follow the script, or they can make adjustments as they see fit once the pre-production fails to deliver certain aspects of the film envisioned. However, I think it is important to keep in mind that if editing for another director, it would be crucial to keep communicating with them, making sure that they accept the decisions I make on the editing or ask them if they have any brilliant ideas. Our studio explores filmmaking techniques and processes under constraints, I would consider this agency issue as part of the constraints one must face during filmmaking process.

 

Epiphany #2 Planning before shooting

There was a shooting exercise on Monday in Week 3, we attempted to film part of the third scene of Lenny script over Zoom. So far as I can tell, the filming did not work out too well for us, mainly due to the lack of planning before shooting. Usually I would have done at least a set of storyboards before shooting, even just roughly. Under the pressure of time, and because it was over Zoom, we just started straight away.

When shooting in person, we normally have two people or more in position acting, so it will be clear where that axis exists. We only need to make sure the cameras stay on the same side. However, since that we are now working over Zoom, we can only film one person each time through a webcam. The imaginary line becomes even more invisible, plus the webcam’s low quality and its inability to give us a full perspective of the environment, it is difficult to find a reference mark as well. These issues resulted that when I was conducting the filming without a plan, I became completely unaware of the screen directions and continuity, 180 rule and eyeline, etc. The result is, in one shot the actor is facing left and the next one he is facing right.

I only realized the mistake when we were about to shoot the other character, Sharon, and it frustrated me. We had to film a shot from the actor’s back so the two characters would seem to have come from different directions to meet at a place. Then I initiated a point of view shot from Lenny’s perspective, wishing to give the audience a strong visual impact so they may not notice where the character was facing before. But it still did not work out too well.

I think the lesson, or say, the epiphany here, is to really plan a scene before shooting; and take the 180 degree rule and eyeline seriously. These guidelines may seem basic and obvious, but they are also essential and universal. The Devil is in the details, those guidelines prevent you from letting simple mistakes ruin the film, because sometimes when you pick up the mistakes during post-production stage it will already be too late. ‘Fix it in the post’ does not work everytime.