editing Workflow to edit feature length narrative?

[Rue99]

I'm looking for pointers on guides on the post production process, and most particularly the editing for an 80 minute feature. I've looked on Amazon and online, but most articles and books discuss specific tasks like effects or specific features and not the whole process.

I've edited 5-15 minute films without any problem, but those are short enough to be manageable with a single sequence. With a run time of 80 minutes, I don't think my techniques will scale properly. What concerns me the choosing the wrong workflow for a large project could waste weeks or months of time.

I'm using CS5 for editing, and have enough budget to purchase books and software that can make this task easier. Some sample questions regarding best practices:

- How should sequences be organized within the film (e.g. by scene or by act)?
- Should there be several projects or does the entire film go into a single project?
- Are there file naming conventions to keep nearly a thousand clips straight?
- Is there a way to catalog clips by keyword?

 

[chilipie]

1. I think by scene makes most sense. I have a sequence for each scene, and then a master sequence to collate all of those.
2. One project would probably be easiest.
3. You'll probably want to have scene, slate/angle and take in the file name. The feature I'm currently editing has S01 A01 T01 as the file name, and each reel of clips is divided into a different folder on my scratch disk and in the project.
4. Can't answer that one, I'm not a Premiere user.

Remember to lock your edit before moving onto sound editing, visual effects work and grading - if you carry on editing through those you'll have a royal mess on your hands.

 

[Cracker Funk]

Books? You don't need no stinking books. You're making too much out of this.

1. Doesn't matter. Every ten minutes, or so, if you wanna call that a "scene".
2. Doesn't matter. If you have one project, with several sequences, it can start to take time to load, when you start the program (depending on your computer's speed, possibly several minutes). You're going to need to have it all in one project, eventually, but if you don't want to wait for it to load every time, you can have a seperate project for each sequence, and then when you're finished, you can import all of the sequences into your master sequence, and place them in your master timeline.
3. Doesn't matter. Whatever works for you. I had mine organized by day of shoot, because that's what made most sense when I was dumping them from my card to the computer. Then, I made a list detailing which files where which shots from which scenes. I contemplated re-naming the files, but in the cost-benefit analysis, didn't think it was worth the effort.
4. Not that I know of.

My advice -- don't sweat it. It's not that big a deal. Use the same workflow you've used before. You've made 5 15-minute shorts. Do that again. Except when you're done, import all of them into a master timeline.

 

[Alcove Audio]

- How should sequences be organized within the film (e.g. by scene or by act)?

At the Low/No/Micro budget Indie level it's not going to matter too much, as long as the editor(s) know how everything is organized.

- Should there be several projects or does the entire film go into a single project?

For audio post I break everything down into "reels", looking for obvious hard breaks; they usually end up about eight to 12 minutes long. I further break thing down by "process", i.e. separate sessions for dialog editing, ADR, Foley, Sound FX and music editing. Everything goes into a master "build" session for further editing, pre-dubs & pre-mixes, and from there into a master mix session. It's bit different for audio post as most effects are done in real time (as opposed to being rendered), and there can be dozens, even hundreds, of audio tracks and a very large number of sub-mixes and effects returns.

- Are there file naming conventions to keep nearly a thousand clips straight?

The audio files that come to me I assume match the visuals - sc11b-tk4 - Scene 11B, Take 4. Just so you are aware, on most of my feature projects I get all of the audio from the takes unused in the edit; it's gold mine of alternate dialog performances and wilds. I've reconstructed the dialog of entire scenes in that way.