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The Five Stages of Editing: Denial, Anger, Bargaining...

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editing can be tough and frustrating all right. I went to las vegas and made a short film for a company at a trade show. They asked me to get two or three good timelapse shots of setup.

I got 27. Weeks later back in the editing lab, I get a long series of phone calls.

"could you make it so the camera is higher in this one shot."

"how about putting in some non timelapse footage."

"you know you should ad some CG in there at no extra charge"

"Can you make it look like the camera is filming bigger"

"Are you sure a film should have ending credits?"

"how come this 10k video doesn't look like this ad I found on youtube?" (sends link to victoria secret commercial directed by Micheal Bay for over 220k.)

Yes life in commercial editing is a non-stop thrill ride.
 
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:haha::rofl::wait::lol:

THAT'S HILARIOUS! "It's funny cuz it's true, " -- Homer Simpson

I consider myself to be an editor more than anything though I am also a videographer, but I am an indie/freelancer, so while we're ranting, how about:


"Joe Schmo only paid $$$ for his equipment, why is yours so expensive?" He uses a handicam. Not that there's anything wrong with handicams, I use one as secondary.

"Joe Schmo doesn't take as long as you do to edit. Why do you take so long?"

"Joe Schmo gave us DVDs before we left after the show, why can't you do that?"


"How many screen shots can you give us?" Screen shots = angles you move your camera to. Took me an hour to figure out what he was talking about. Guy belongs to a band.


"You gotta help me out with the cost of this next project. This time it will only be me in it, not other people,"
This from a person whose real job allows for an expensive hobby that he wants on videotape. He's beginning to get it, but I may have to explain it again.


-- spinner :cool:

DISCLAIMER: There is nothing wrong with handicams, especially when you are just starting out and have no other recourse. The issue is cost: handicam vs. Canon XL/Panasonic DVX.
 
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fun with kerning

spinner said:
"How many screen shots can you give us?" Screen shots = angles you move your camera to. Took me an hour to figure out what he was talking about. Guy belongs to a band.
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Click to expand...

That one is awesome.

I sent an ad in to this guy once. Quick 3 word phrases were flying by almost faster than you could read them. Big 3d letters where 3 words took the whole scenes. 7 phrases total.

Guy sends me back 7 corrections all 7 changes went like this

original - "presents"

customer fix "presents it's largest discount sale on store items ranging from large to small on items currently on stock in our physical location, where prices are low and the service is friendly and helpful as soon as you walk in the door."

original - "the big march sale"

customer fix - "a door that once walked through provides you acces to savings on many of the items that are currently available within the store, which can also be found by surfing the internet on our site."

I had a chat with him about bullet points and human information absorption per second, then he accused me of failing to make the ad correctly.

So, I made all the changes exactly as he had asked for, with almost a page of single space type in 30 seconds. 5 sentences per 3 seconds or so. Not only that, because of the 3d formatting, many of the sentences spilled off of the view and were unreadable because there was so much text and I had to keep legibility.

I sent it to him, completely trashed, but with his changes word for word. They still play the ad to this day and have come back for 2 more ads.
 
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This reminds me of selling ad time to auto dealerships, Nate. Our sales department would pretty much agree to anything to close the deal and also foster the dealers need for celebrity.

G-a-w-d, we shot some crap content for money. I would deny being on the shoot.
 
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The client has NO IDEA what they need or what will actually work. :rolleyes:

They THINK they know what they are talking about = clueless.

They don't understand why their commercial can't look like "that cool one on tv'" Maybe because they aren't bartering for their commercial. THEY are actually PAYING for their commercial spot!

....I worked at a tv station where commercials were done on trade...

-- spinner :cool:
 
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I tend to be a real nasty editor of my own work- I don't edit for other people, but I don't let myself off the hook at all. If something is bad I'll lambaste myself to get the work done.

Indeed I've gone through all those stages of editing. My "favorite" is when I'm editing down sound/pics down to obsessive levels, which leads to my starting to curse, which ends up my better half taking me and laying me down for awhile, listening to my grunts and complaints.

I feel better after that ;)
 
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