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Is this the editor's job?

H

harmonica44

For my short, I need to hire someone who can make all my shots match. Some of my shots the lighting doesn't match, so I will have to hire someone who can photoshop and rotoscope all the lighting to match continuously. I need to make my footage look and sound good on all systems. Even though it sounds great on my speakers, for example on my friends, it sounds not so good. A lot of the shots look good on my friends TV but on mine, some of them look blurry when blown up. I will need someone who can make the audio and video not only match, but look and sound good on all systems.

Would this be an editor's job, or what job title should I advertise for? Thanks.
 
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Most likely, you're looking for someone who can do color correction. It is generally an editor who specializes in color correction. There is a definite skill/art to it. A great job of color timing can give a film a seriously unique look. A poor job can ruin the watchability. Advertize for a finishing editor or editor with color correction experience who can give you a uniform look on your project.

But, if shots are blown up or fuzzy in your sequence, there's no guarantee that someone working on color/light can correct that. You can sharpen some images, but, depending on how things were shot, there are some things that can, and some things that can't, be fixed in post.


gelder
 
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The editor simply decides (with the director) the order and the pacing of the shots used in the scene. Color correction is as said above, and sound is done by a sound mixer/editor, foley artist, sound effects artist, etc...

But these are ALL things that you should be teaching yourself to do on this project, not hiring others to do for you. If this is your first (or close to first) film, this is your time to learn. You should have at least a basic knowledge of all the components that go in to making a film. If for no other reason than if you are lucky enough to continue working on other films with bigger budgets and crew, you need to be able to base your directorial decisions on the knowledge you have. If you know little to nothing about the various parts of the process, you're flying blind...

My $.02...
 
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Honestly, that's the job of the DP on set... There's only so much you can do in post to match shots... eventually, you hit diminishing returns on your time. I would white balance the shots and set your exposures on them as best you can... you shouldn't zoom in on any footage in post if you don't have to... it'll make it look blurry as you increase the size of the pixels within the frame.

Get it close and move on... Learn to get it right on set and move forward. This is why folks storyboard heavily and preproduce these things so heavily... As an Editor, you'll constantly want to strangle the DP and Director, even if those roles are filled by you... there's always another shot you need in the edit to make the cut "right." It never ends... I'm a decade in and am getting much better at it finally.

For the shadows, use the 3 way color corrector and put your video scopes up in your editor... use the numbers and trust that they are correct... then verify them visually.
 
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Okay thanks I'll try that. Usually there are a lot of catches I am missing. I want to have a final edit or something close to, ready to show my actors by June hopefully as I told them. But it takes a lot of time to figure all this stuff out. Here's one thing I need help with. There were a couple of shots that are long that I wanted to do in one take. But they are good in different sections of the take. I was told that you can do digital effects to make two takes look like one.

There was a movie a while ago that used that effect to make it all look like it was shot in one take. How do I do that with Premiere Pro or After Effects?
 
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harmonica44 said:
There was a movie a while ago that used that effect to make it all look like it was shot in one take. How do I do that with Premiere Pro or After Effects?
Click to expand...

Again, that's not something that needs to be done on set. There's no magic wand that will make something look like one long take. It's a combination of the way you shoot it and, to a much lesser extent, the way you edit it.
 
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You have to shoot with stuff you can hide transitions with. Like if they walk behind a telephone pole you can mask it off so everything to the right of the pole is take 1 and everything left of the ole is take 2. A locked off camera in a kitchen for 4 minutes probably won't let you hide anything.
 
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Oh okay. Well for now, I'll just keep the best takes. I think I still might advertise to high a color corrections editor, and audio engineer, if I cannot figure it all out soon. But he or she will only have to color correct. My final edit will all pretty much be done, unless of course any better suggestions are made.

So you said that sometimes shots that are blurry when blown up, can be sharpened sometimes cannot depending on how it was shot. What should I know for next time? As far as zooming in, I have only had to on two shots so far, that were shot from too far away, but didn't realize until after. I hope I can fix the non-matching shadow patterns in some of the shots.
 
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If you hire a colorist, you will lock your edit first... otherwise, you'll have to pay them for more time whenever you make a change... same with audio...

Lock your edit first!!!!!!!!!! I would put more exclamation points here, but after a while they lose their impact... it's really that important. Lock first.
 
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knightly said:
70attention.gif

Lock your edit first!!!!!!!!!!
tumblr_lqmm48kRYO1qcbo9lo1_500.gif

I would put more exclamation points here, but after a while they lose their impact... it's really that important. Lock first.
Click to expand...

Better? ;)
 
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harmonica44 said:
But they are good in different sections of the take. I was told that you can do digital effects to make two takes look like one.
Click to expand...

It is possible when the framing is the same and you have a way to cut or crossfade in way nobody sees the cut.
A common trick is someone blocking the lens for a moment.
(I even shot 2 shots this way last saturday to move the focalpoint without focuspulling :-p I haven't edited it yet, but I think it will work.)

Once your edit is finished you need a colorist to match the colors.
Sounds like the colorist will need quite some time... I did colorgrading on a short once where they forgot to put on certain lights on half of the shots of a certain scene: that's not funny...
 
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Hitchcock's "Rope" was a "single shot" movie... the editing point has been referred to as "blanking the lens"... and happens on set, not in the edit room. The only edit done by blanking the lens is a cut from the first shot to the second... no magic.

In "Panic Room", the intro shot has a bunch of shots tied together to make it look like a single shot... watch the BTS from it for the how to.
 
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I saw rope and that was obvious, but Panic Room was not! Thanks. I will work with what I have for this one though. But it's tough to know what the final edit should be in the shots that do not much light and shadow wise. Should I choose the shots that are a little blurry for the colorist to fix? Should I choose the ones that are too dark that you can barely see? Should I choose the ones where there is too much red noise? Or I could just choose the ones which are shot the best for performance, and camera movement wise, and just hope the colorist can fix them.

Before I hire though, I will post an edit of the whole thing to be judged for suggestions on what I can improve. But I will have to post on a site that supports 1080p to see the shots I am talking about properly.
 
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Actually I played back a lot of my footage through my friends computer monitor and it looks fantastic. Some of my shots looked pixelated, especially on shots where there was a lot of red in the room. On her monitor all the pixels were gone and it was a lot more clear. Those shots that looked blurry I mentioned all looked much more clear on hers as well.

She said that my monitor is probably set to something that is making some shots look pixelated and blurry. But wouldn't such a setting make all the shots look that way if they are in 1080p, all the same format? Or only certain ones would be effected? What settings does it have to be on?
 
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