Drat, blast, d@mnit, just venting

G

gorillaonabike

D@mnit. So far, I have co-produced (and acted in) a great little short. However, when it came to doing my own short, it was a nightmare.

All my pre was great, the shoot went down with a few hitches but nothing too major and my first 'all my own short' will be OK(ish) provided I can get myself a nice composer. However, what has driven me nuts is people promising to do something and simply not doing it. My nice editor, a talented young guy, simply did not edit. Sure, he is learning and at some point will get moving and do stuff but he does not have a job, earns no money and has all the time in the world to edit.

Now, I am lumbered with this, have to learn to edit on a completely alien package and am sorting it out myself. In addition, if he'd just let me get on with it myself, I'd have had a completed package months ago but he committed to something and simply didn't do it.

And on the second shoot I foolishly left a chunk of pre to someone else meaning the whole thing went pear shaped. It's not a huge issue as it was a learning experience - that I should take care of my own pre.

My next short will be better but I just wanted to vent... AAAARGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!

OK, that feels better... Incidentally, does anyone else have this problem?
 
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Can you edit it yourself and use friends as consultation? That's what I did, I made a few rough cuts of each scene and showed it to as many friends as I could conveniently show, throughout the editing process. I made sure they were friends who had reasonable good taste in movies, as some would have been no help, cause they don't care so much about emotion, and only like to watch things that look 'flashy', but you get what I mean. The video is easy for me to edit, it's the audio I am getting someone for. I can decide on which sentence I should use from which take and build a scene that way, and you can probably too. But apparently I make cuts and fades wrong, and need to learn the right way. But my point is, do the video first and see what happens.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Can you edit it yourself and use friends as consultation?
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Of course. There is no right or wrong way to do it. The right way to do it is the way that works for you.

That being said, if you think that the video edit is easy, then I can't help but think that you're missing some huge oversights. Nothing I've ever edited has been easy, not even a thirty-second short with a total of five shots.
 
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For sure. That's what worked for me I think. I was wondering if that way would work for gorillaonabike though. Can you be more specific as to what oversites? I find the cutting and pasting choices to be easy, not other things like color grading, if that's what you mean?
 
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Plenty of examples of both. Directors who always use an outside editor and ones who always edit themselves. Neither is right or wrong and both have pluses and minuses.

I wanna throw a plug for Speedgrade into this thread as well. Not a steep learning curve at all. I had never touched the software until last night and about 3 hours and a few tutorials later I was blasting through the KF grade. Very easy to save a look as a preset so when you go back to the same or a similar shot later in the edit you can just plop the look on there and slightly tweak if needed.
 
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My nickel's worth on how we did it for www.survivingfamily.us -

The director was also the editor (I wrote and produced, fyi). There were several rough cut screenings for feedback (in NY and NJ, where we mostly shot, and also in Germany, where the director/editor is from). Those all provided input, and I did (separately) as well.

After that, she brought in 2 professional editors who (purely as a favor) consulted on changes that still needed to be made, and gave their advice.

And Cracker Funk did the (terrific) trailer.
 
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harmonica44 said:
For sure. That's what worked for me I think. I was wondering if that way would work for gorillaonabike though. Can you be more specific as to what oversites? I find the cutting and pasting choices to be easy, not other things like color grading, if that's what you mean?
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I don't have the choice!!! I have seen mountains form faster than my editor edits so am an Avid king at the moment.

It is so much more complex than FCP 7.7
 
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NickClapper said:
If you need some help editing, just let me know. I don't have that much to do over the next few weeks and if it's not too long then it might just cure might editing itch ;)
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Do you fancing critiquing a rough cut...?

If I sent you a copy, would you mind having a look? I'd love it if you would cast an eye over it. Note it's only a rough cut and sound, music, colouring and a bit of music needs to come.


* Edit *

Just stuck it on Vimeo and put a rough cut up for everyone to critique. Let's see what happens. It's only my first short and I need as much constructive criticism as possible.
 
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