- What do you want from this studio? What do you think this studio is?
The Power of Cut prompt immediately caught my attention when I first saw the overview of this year’s studio structure. Personally, this studio not only centers around how to enhance my technological skills of editing software and gears but also analyzes and visions the purist art of editing. It seems to most outsiders that editing is simply cutting and matching the footage together to finalize a product. The editing role is critically underplayed in the digital century as everyone can easily have the essential tools to learn basic editing skills. However, my personal knowledge of preproduction states the opposite facts. A standard creative final product is the sweat and tears effort of multi personnel crew and there will never be a successful case of one man show. I am not downplaying the work of solo creative freelancers on different media platforms. I just want to show that process is more intricate than mastering any editing program or technique. The fact that editing is already at the forefront discussion of any preliminary discussion blows my mind. I can not imagine before how plotting or shot list can relate to editing. This studio comprehensively leads me through every essential stage of preparation, thus allowing me to grow from a fundamental basis. Mentioning the preliminary foundation, I enticingly thrive from the lessons of different styles and processes engraved in various media contents. To sum up, this studio breaks through my narrow understanding of the editor’s role by showcasing how the editor is vital in storytelling. I hope that my experience in class can help me understand the complex mechanisms that media experts are following to create media products from beginning to end. On the other side, I am excited to learn more about my identity as a media practitioner through a series of self-reflection and peer feedback. The most sought-after desire is not about trying to be different from everybody but rather about understanding inner talents.
- Write a reflective post on each of the workshop activities:
Before the introduction of the shot lists in class, I never thought of preparing improvised shot lists in advance of the official shootings. This weak preparation may begin with me being obnoxious with the complex preproduction process. Even worse, I did not have a stable foundation of production. When I started filming the first few projects, there was no manual of camera direction, sizes, angles or even any description of the shot. Every gesture and text in the final footage was out of my unscripted thoughts at that definite moment. I made the same precarious mistakes as every beginner has gone through. The ubiquity of self-paced programs and short courses on the internet used to get my insecure belief that I could master any skill without having paid thousands for university (which turned out to be a hoax). Basically, I was trapped in the paradox of choices. Believe me or not, I have learnt two hard lessons: first of all, there is absolutely no overnight success, keep grinding, and the result will come, and secondly, focus on your goal, and do not let any distraction delude you with sparkling glitters. I have spent countless hours trying to comprehend why the outcome does not match what I originally thought in my head.
(Below is one of the examples when I am picking up the camera and taking random shots)
And then, I was introduced to the magic of shot lists. Frankly, my first reaction when I saw the standard shot list was “Why do we even mess up with this?” (I believe the long time of dwindling in the same old mistakes led me astray). That epiphany moment always came with a surprise: I and my friends finished shooting three versions of Lenny scripts in the span of one and a half hours.
(My magical Shot List)
If I have to compare the before and after workflow when I know this practice, it will be between you riding on a naive horse versus riding on a Lamborghini. The process is now to create the script first, and transform it into practical words of production (shot descriptions, angles, movement). As a result, I do not need to wait for a genius moment and mess up later in the post-production (moment of happiness, kudos for giving me a Lambo, Mr. Sebastian!). The detailed description also helps me prioritize the shot, avoid time waste and achieve the best workflow. One important thing to note is that during the editing phase, it comes as peace of mind because I know what the director/producer wants to achieve out of the shots. Good communication will follow since we grasped the basic idea of how we create the final products.
Also, one of the interesting lessons I learned from the class is the process of preparing footage for later editing.
(I am in the studioooooo)
(if you ever feel useless, just remember I had to figure out the difference between Alt/Opt keys for half an hour)
(darling, he is a 10 but he uses Mac instead of Window)
Honestly, my first session at the edit suite was completely a mess (however, I start to withstand my marriage with Mac, which I will explain in the later part of the post). Nevertheless, the process makes a lot of sense when I actually spend time at home looking at the ‘Prepping your edit’ document. It is really good when the teacher shows us that we need to create the following folders in the computer system before importing: Footage, Audio, Music, and Premiere. I always tend to forget to create files for my footage and audio before I import them into Premier Pro. It turns out that all the files are jammed in the list view and I have to reorganize everything into bins again. While the ‘Prepping your edit’ document mainly takes the assumption that we also have an external audio recorder and secondary audio files (which is not true in real life), I find it fascinating the way Mr. Sebastian syncs the audio in his project. Normally, I do not rename the audio track and it took me quite a bit of time to match the right external audio files to the footage. Furthermore, I notice that he also uses ‘Synchronize’ to sync the footage video, footage audio, and external audio clip. Otherwise, I usually compare the waveform between two audio tracks and try to match them at best (Synchronize can do better but sometimes it is quite quirky and does not work effectively. Please fix the bug, Adobe). Personally, I recommend you to learn by heart these short cuts; Ctrl + K, Q and W, Shift + Del. The descriptions of the shots are highly recommended so you do not need to double check on the Shot List again. I am interested in the colour labelling to indicate the shot quality. I must try to give reminders to me when I am doing editing of which shot works best.
(Come back to the suite again today and try the prepping methods again. The description is hella awesome)
- The initiative post:
I have an opportunity to see the breakdown of one of the Interstellar scenes by the film editor, Sven Pape, who is also the owner of the Youtube channel, This Guy Edits. Honestly, I was not so much a fan of Interstellar when I first watched it with my sister a few years ago. My impression of Christopher Nolan’s films was the Dark Night Series, Dunkirk (also a well-executed and edited film), and Inception. However, after I watched this editing breakdown and analysis, this might be one of the moments that I am indebted an apology to Nolan. The scene shown in the clip is the final third act of the movie when Cooper enters the multi-dimensional tesseract as the black hole engulfs him. It is really interesting to see how the editors can subtly interconnect every element of scenes in different acts to create solid and structured storytelling. My opinion of a ‘genius’ movie is one that does not need to tell the meaning of the story explicitly. You should let the audience have that epiphany moment of “Wow, how could that sh*t happen?” (It was me after rewatching the breakdown the third time). My first watch of Interstellar was a failure because I was caught up in the complex lectures on quantum physics and avoided the instilled meaning of the film. When Sven Pape dissects the third act and categorises each cut into past, present and timeless order (he mentions it at 7:22), I am truly surprised by how scenes can actually support each other perfectly. I know that many filmmakers and editors use the past scene to simply provoke a memory or remind the audience that an event already happened. I used to do the same and it turned out that putting vignette and grain effects did not help me make a better film. Every scene serves a purpose and even minor details can be used to solve the issue later (We can see the ‘ghost’ at the beginning was her dad trying to communicate). The switch between past and present daughter in Murphy’s room is completely not cliche. It leads to the twist in 14:47 when Cooper realizes ‘they’ and the fact that he can contribute to the time is actually the connection between father and daughter. At the first sight, it feels like this type of editing is against the traditional third act evolution – from past to present). It makes sense and doesn’t make sense at the same time. Nolan doesn’t avoid any single detail in the scene, even the smallest one can be a key factor in story development. What he shows us in Interstellar is that the watch, the code, and the toy can explain the exposition act of the story. I love how Sven mentions ‘The Dark Night of Soul’ in Cooper’s desperate effort to tell his daughter persuaded him to stay and he breaks apart. It just fits perfectly with his regret for leaving his daughter and their tension unresolved in the past. He also mentions the ‘Ticket Time Bomb’, which I usually use in my clip to create an intense atmosphere for the video. Last but not least, it shows me that editing is everything in filmmaking and vice versa. With the intricate interwoven network of planning stages, we can see how every process links together. This is truly the art of storytelling.
Here is the reference you guys are asking for:
This Guy Edits. “Interstellar’s Editing Is Out of This World”. This Guy Edits. Sep 20, 2020. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y8BVC5-fuA>