The film editing room handbook: how to tame the chaos of the editing room [4th ed] 9780321679529, 0321679520, 9780321685735, 0321685733, 9781282694132, 1282694138, 9786612694134, 6612694130

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THE FILM EDITING ROOM HANDBOOK HOW TO TAME THE CHAOS OF THE EDITING ROOM

FOURTH EDITION

N O R M A N H O L LY N

The Film Editing Room Handbook How to Tame the Chaos of the Cutting Room, Fourth Edition Norman Hollyn Peachpit Press 1249 Eighth Street Berkeley, CA 94710 510 / 524-2178 Fax: 510 / 524-2221 http://www.peachpit.com Find us on the Web at www.peachpit.com To report errors, please send a note to [email protected] Peachpit Press is a division of Pearson Education Copyright © 2010 Norman Hollyn Senior Editor: Karyn Johnson Development Editor: Robyn G. Thomas Copy Editor: Kelly Kordes Anton Production Editor: Myrna Vladic Compositor: Rick Gordon, Emerald Valley Graphics Proofreader: Scout Festa Indexer: Emily Glossbrenner, FireCrystal Communications Interior Design: Maureen Forys, Happenstance Cover Design and Production: Mimi Heft Notice of Rights

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information on getting permission for reprints and excerpts, contact [email protected]. Notice of Liability

The information in this book is distributed on an “As Is” basis without warranty. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of the book, neither the author nor Peachpit shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the instructions contained in this book or by the computer software and hardware products described in it. Trademarks

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and Peachpit was aware of a trademark claim, the designations appear as requested by the owner of the trademark. All other product names and services identified throughout this book are used in editorial fashion only and for the benefit of such companies with no intention of infringement of the trademark. No such use, or the use of any trade name, is intended to convey endorsement or other affiliation with this book. ISBN-13: 978-0-321-67952-9 ISBN-10: 0-321-67952-0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed and bound in the United States of America

Praise for The Film Editing Room Handbook, Fourth Edition “The Film Editing Room Handbook systematically explains everything you need to know about the editing process, exactly as it exists in the making of major motion pictures. Complicated technical concepts are made totally clear and easily understandable in this absolutely essential book for all assistant editors, indie filmmakers, and those who aspire to break into the industry.” –Mark Goldblatt, A.C.E., editor of The Terminator, Starship Troopers, and True Lies “ This is a wonderful book that explains the complexities of the editing room assistant’s job with clarity and wit.” –Alan Heim, A.C.E, Oscar-winning editor and former president of American Cinema Editors “ The assistant editor is the unsung hero of the editing room, tip-toeing around land mines to keep everything running smoothly in a job where all the important rules are unwritten. Until now. Norman Hollyn does an excellent job explaining the process of editing, the role of the assistant editor, and clearly labeling where all the booby traps are buried.” –Larry Jordan, producer, director, editor, and Apple-certified trainer “ This book is an excellent introduction to editing in the real world. Norman Hollyn not only tells you what is necessary, he tells you what is efficient. He knows how important that can be because he’s been there.” –Burton J. Sears, fi lm instructor at Savannah College of Art and Design, editor of Virtuosity, Jacob’s Ladder, and Henry and June

Acknowledgments There is no doubt that the filmmaking world around me has transformed—as have I—in the 25 years since the first edition of this book. Yet one thing remains the same: I have yet to have an editing room job in which I did not learn something about editing, filmmaking, or people. Not all the jobs I have worked on, nor all the people I’ve worked with, have been fun. Still, it is possible—no, necessary—to learn from every job. When that stops happening, it’s time to start selling real estate. In this spirit of learning, I dedicate this latest edition to all those people I’ve learned from, with the hope that this text will be able to teach others. Trudy Ship, who was there on my very first feature job—Lenny—thought I should acknowledge everyone I worked with at Sound One, which was, for many years, the hub of my editing existence in New York City. She’s right. Each edition of this book has been informed by all the people who took me under their wings—knowingly or unknowingly— and taught me the concepts and spirit that I try to pass on every day at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. I am fortunate to run the Editing Track at USC, where I have learned and grown as well. So, I’d like to thank everyone at Sound One, Trans/Audio, 1600, Disney, Lions Gate, and Lantana, as well as all my students, friends, and faculty at USC. Believe me, the result of all the help and experiences I’ve had over the years is a better and richer book than I could ever write on my own. Thank you, everyone. I also thank the rooting section for this fourth edition—Karyn who agreed to take this journey with me, and Robyn (another editor with the letter “y” in her first name!) who got sucked into it partway through. Nancy, Damon, Mimi, the incomparable Gary-Paul, and everyone else on the fantastic Peachpit team deserve a standing ovation. A lot of people helped fi ll me in on the many aspects of assistant editing that I don’t know as well as I did 25 years ago. Great dollops of appreciation go out to Steve Ansell, Tim Broderick, Marty Cohen, Steven Cohen, Mark Goldblatt, Darrell Hall, Kenny Hall, Alan Heim, Larry Jordan, Bill Kinder, Diane Mercer, Scott Pellet, John Portnoy, Paul Rubell, B.J. Sears, Leslie Shatz, Callie Thurman, Byron Wong, and a host of others who I undoubtedly will remember after this book goes to print. You know who you are. I thank you all and apologize to those who I’ve left out. Thanks to Mom and Dad (who I’m sure is still watching) for their continuing, unwavering support and love. Things change, but that never ever does. While it’s cliché to talk about the impossibility of writing without the support of family, it’s cliché for a reason. Janet has been ever supportive, ever helpful and ever patient, even in the final six-week stretch when she must have wondered what was so fascinating in my office that I’d spend every available minute there. And Elizabeth…Elizabeth. An inspiration for my life and my work. There’s no way I can talk about her without devolving into even soppier cliché. So, I won’t. I’ll just say—thank you both. I love you both. And a thank you to Renton. He’s been by my side during much of the writing of this book, silently supporting me through thick and thin.

To all the students who I’ve been fortunate enough to teach and be inspired by— please keep the passion. Your talent will always be with you.

Contents

Introduction to the Fourth Edition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

Delving into Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xiv Assistants and the System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xiv The System at Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv Organizing People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvi Cast of Characters in the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii Chapter 1

Editing Within the Filmmaking Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Preproduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Postproduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Chapter 2

Your Home—the Editing Room . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Machines, Machines, Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 A Bookcase, Supplies, and Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Emergency Supplies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Plenty of Room . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Film in the Editing Room . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Obtaining Supplies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Chapter 3

Before the Film Begins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Examine the Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Get to Know All the Players. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Put Your Information to Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 And Now…Let’s Get Going . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Chapter 4

Shooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27

A Brief History of Video Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Three Primary Workflows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Dealing with Metadata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Preparing Dailies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Synching Dailies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Screening Dailies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Chapter 5

Moving on to Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65

Organizing the Footage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Backing Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 How the Editor Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 After the Editor Edits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 As If This Wasn’t Enough . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 All At the Same Time? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Chapter 6

Special Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79

Synching Musical Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Synching Multicam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Synching Unslated Takes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Redigitizing Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Stock Footage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Location Shooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Film-Within-Film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Foreign Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Plug-Ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Preparing Documentary Footage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Chapter 7

The Editor Cuts Away . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93

Perfecting the Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Color Correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 Creating Outputs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Preparing the Paperwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 After the Screening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Chapter 8

The Editor Recuts Away . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 1 CONTENTS

Keeping Your Editor Organized . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 There Are All Kinds of Recuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Questions and More Questions! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Change Notes for Film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Requests from All Over . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

VII

Chapter 9

Visual Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Opticals—Simple, but Effective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Complex Visual Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Finalizing the VFX Shots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Adding Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Moving On to the Finish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Chapter 10 Handing Over to Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .135

Preparing for the Handover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Handing Over Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 After the Handover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Chapter 11 Sound Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .143

Sound Editing Personnel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 Delivering Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Beginning the Job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Editing Sound Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Editing Foley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 Editing Dialogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Preparing for the Mix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 Sending It All to the Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 Chapter 12 Music Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .165

Music Supervisors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 Temp Music for Previews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 Picture Locking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 The Recording Session . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 Back in the Editing Room . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 Legal Paperwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Chapter 13 The Mix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .181

1 CONTENTS

The Mix Begins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 The Final Mix/Dub . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 The Last Mixing Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 After the Mix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

VIII

Chapter 14 To the Finish—Ho!! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .191

Making the Cut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Previews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 On the Way to the End . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Marketing Department Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Video Prints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Television Versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 DVD Extras. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Wrapping Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Packing Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 Chapter 15 The Hardest Job of All—Finding a Job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .215

Expand Your Circle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Get Your Résumé Ready . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 Do I Need a Sample Reel? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 What Do I Need To Know?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 Hitting the Pavement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Consider Unions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 Try Social Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 Go to School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Final Words on Job Hunting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .233 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .276

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I Introduction to the Fourth Edition The copyright date for the first edition of this book, tucked just inside its bright red cover, was 1984. That means I was writing the introduction to that edition more than 25 years ago. The first photo in that edition, shown in Figure i.1, is of a film editing room setup from that time. The room is complete with neatly wound rolls of 35mm fi lm on a fi lm bench and a little squawk box at the rear, sitting next to a rack with stacked white boxes of trims. None of these things are common today, and showing this picture to new film editors and assistants elicits as much amusement from them as the latest comedy fi lm. Well, maybe not that much.

Figure i.1 An old-fashioned editing room.

I 1 Introduction to the Fourth Edition

XII

But, as you shall see in this book’s tour of the “new editing room,” the world of editing has changed not only in terms of what our facilities look like, but in the way we approach our jobs. Twenty-five years ago, the word “workflow” was as alien to us as the phrase “online social networking.” Today, everything in the world of editing is being done faster, in different ways, with different goals. We are being asked to do much more than ever in our editing rooms, and we need to be ready for that. The last edition of this book straddled the old and new worlds—alternating chapters on traditional film editing with chapters on digital film editing. At this point, anyone still straddling those two worlds is more than just a dinosaur. He or she is also hopelessly out of work. A significant change in the industry is actually the speed at which changes happen. When I emerge from a six-month job, I find that the landscape of editing has changed yet again—while I had my nose to the grindstone. I see new cameras forcing new ways of getting material into our editing machines and new ways to do color correction and sound. It’s exhausting! No doubt some details in this book will be out of date by the time you finish reading it. That is why I focus more on process than on equipment. I don’t care whether you edit on Adobe, Apple, or Avid software. You need to learn to be flexible, accommodate change, and know how to organize your work. For that is what this book is really about—how to run a great editing room—whether you are an assistant or an editor doing those tasks. Another major change in the industry, and the one that is hardest to incorporate into this book, is how the industry has changed. Previous editions of the book were centered on the Hollywood/New York feature fi lm world. Back then, knowing how high-budget editors did things helped the lower-budget ones to organize themselves as well. Today, the average editor and assistant move back and forth between the high-budget world and the arenas of low-budget and web-based media. As a result, though I still center the discussion around a feature film, the techniques I cover should work whether you are working with a crew of 15 or a crew of one, on a commercial or documentary, a music video, or scripted short. Our industry and our jobs are changing every day. I hope this book will give you a leg up in this exciting and crazy new world.

II Introduction At the end of my first week working on my first feature film, I rushed out to the producer’s bank to cash my very first paycheck. Though I saw long lines, I was not dismayed. I had in my hands a check from United Artists/Marvin Worth Productions proclaiming in bold letters: Lenny. I was working on a film with Dustin Hoff man! Surely the bank officers would usher me to the front of the line and give me my money without as much as a glance at my identification. Of course, it didn’t work out that way. Not only did I have to wait in line with everyone else, but, when it finally was my turn, the teller refused to give me any money because I didn’t have an account with the bank. Thus I learned my first and perhaps most valuable lesson about working in the film business: fi lm editing is a job—make no mistake about that. Despite all the mumbo-jumbo we see and hear about the movies and their glamour, it is a bit of a shock to learn that people working in moviemaking are judged by the same criteria as the rest of the world: how well they get the job done. Your standing in the business comes from how well you do the job, not just from the fact that you are doing it. The second lesson you’ll learn about film editing is that there are a lot of ways to get the job done. Line up 20 different editors or assistant editors and you’ll probably get 20 different systems for organizing a cutting room. Some work and some do not, but the worst thing you can do is to attempt to impose the system that worked on fi lm “A” onto the very different fi lm “B.” One of the tests of a good assistant editor is flexibility. That leads to lesson number three: It takes a certain type of person to be comfortable in the field of editing. The ability to work long days, long weeks, and long months in a small, dark, crowded room with the same small group of people is a necessity. You must be able to concentrate on the tiniest detail and keep working until it is right. Editing can be an obsession—good editing almost certainly is.

Although this book discusses editing rooms and the nuts-and-bolts techniques of running them, I could never write about how to be an assistant fi lm editor. You have to learn how, by working in an editing room, day after long day, month after long month. But, that said, I can tell you this—once you do it, it is all worth it. And let that be lesson number four.

Delving into Details This book is designed primarily for editors and assistant editors (or those who aspire to be) with an active interest in how a professional cutting room operates. To help those who are thinking of making editing their career, I often provide quite a bit of detail—maybe more information than the normal fi lm student would like. This level of detail is important because editing room procedures, even those for the newer technologies, have been developed and refined over many years to streamline the editing process. Therefore many of the techniques could be of help to all fi lmmakers, regardless of their budget or the type of fi lms they are making. However, since few film teachers or professors are also professional fi lm editors, these techniques are rarely taught. This book gives fi lm students, independent fi lmmakers, and others enough knowledge about editing room procedures to best organize their editing process to conserve the time and money usually in such short supply. It won’t be necessary to completely copy every system explained in the book, but the discussion should help you choose which things are important in your own editing rooms. Film buffs may be both fascinated and overwhelmed by the sheer mass of technical data here. To them, let me express my apologies. But to truly understand the art of film, I believe the modus operandi of the film editor must be understood as well. In the years to come, as increasing sophistication offers the fi lm audience a higher awareness of film editing, those fi lm buffs who know how it is done will be in a much better position to say why it is done.

II 1 Introduction

Assistants and the System

XIV

A friend of mine describes the assistant’s job as “primarily grunt work.” Media-Match, a job search web site (www.media-match.com), describes the assistant as the person who aids “the editor and director in collecting and organizing all the elements needed to edit the film.” IATSE Local 700, the main union for editors, defines an assistant editor, in their contract, as “… a person who is assigned to assist an Editor. His duties shall be such as are assigned to him and performed under the immediate direction, supervision, and responsibility of the editor to whom he is assigned to assist.” Frankly, though I dislike all these definitions, I much prefer the last one (despite its implicit sexism). The assistant’s main task, as I see it, is to make sure the cutting room runs smoothly for the editor. Period.

The implications of that statement are what this book is all about. Assistant editing always seems to boil down to answering this one question: “How can I make this place run better?” A good assistant should be able to locate, almost immediately, any frame of the huge amount of material the average project shoots, no matter when it was shot or what its origin was. To this end, editing staffs have, over the years, developed a number of methods for logging, storing, and retrieving footage. As anyone who has ever looked for editing room work can tell you, this is what is called the system. All things being equal, I would rather hire someone who knows the system over someone who doesn’t. In fact, almost every editor I know would rather hire someone who knows the system. As important as it is, however, you shall soon see that there is no real mystery to the system. It is all rather logical and straightforward. Why would we rather hire someone who knows the system? Simply put, the real test of an assistant editor comes when the editor is cutting fast and furiously. Assistants rarely have time to step back and think about how to handle new situations. The more you have internalized this system (and the more you have internalized the exceptions to the system) the more efficiently you will be able to serve the editor during these inevitable crisis situations. This is when the experienced (and good) assistant editors earn their salaries.

The System at Work

II 1 Introduction

On the fi lm Network, the system worked smoothly. Everything seemed so easy to me. It was a dialogue film, for starters. The director, Sidney Lumet, shot in a straightforward style using only a single camera (except in some of the television studio/control room scenes). There were no complicated visual effects. Lumet shot very little footage; there was usually no more than 27 minutes of dailies to look at each day. The script supervisor, Kay Chapin, was a model of efficiency; her notes were explicit, fast, and accurate. I cannot remember a day when the picture and sound crews forgot to get slates for synching (see Chapter 4, “Shooting”) or when their reports were inaccurate or misleading. There was only one editor on the fi lm, Alan Heim, and he was wonderfully efficient. Dailies (the footage shot the preceding day) were shown every evening after the day’s shoot, so we had plenty of time to prepare for them and still go about the business of cutting the picture. Less than one week after the completion of shooting, a first cut of the film was ready for Lumet to see. And no wonder. The entire process had been exceedingly smooth, helping us in the editing room do our jobs very quickly and just as effortlessly. But Network was a rarity. Other fi lms, with equally fine crews, can be very problematic. The fi lm Hair, for instance, was an organizational task of immense proportions. First, it was a musical, and that complicated the tasks. Then, the director, Milos Forman, was shooting with multiple cameras, most often two, but on some days as many as seven. Days of synching two hours of fi lm were very common, and several days served up more than four. Because of Forman’s personal style, much of the footage was neither as predictable nor as easily categorized as that from Network. Despite the superb script supervisor, Nancy

XV

Tonery, keeping up with the dailies that came in every morning was a Herculean task. Not surprisingly, there were days when her notes bore little resemblance to the camera and sound reports and the processed footage and sound transfers. We had one, then two, and then three editors on the fi lm, each working on his or her own flatbed. In short, Hair tested the organization of its editing crew to the utmost. The fact that we kept everything moving, accessible, and pleasant is a testament to what good, experienced crews can do with good, workable systems. Today, with the advent of computer editing systems, much of the most boring cataloging work is handled by the software. However, computers can only process the information given to them. It is still up to the assistant to verify the accuracy of every piece of information. At various times during the editing of the fi lm the assistant will need to extract data from the computer. If the information is incorrect (whether entered manually or automatically), it will be just as bad for the production as if there were three feet of film missing during the editing process. An additional challenge is that an increasing number of fi lms are shot on file-based cameras of varying resolutions and specifications. (Don’t worry about these terms; we’ll get to them in the course of this book.) This often means that more footage is delivered to us in a more confused manner. Too many directors, intent on giving the actors maximum flexibility, will keep running the cameras without cutting and slating for a new take. As a result, four or more takes may be contained within a single camera slate, making it much harder to organize and locate later.

Organizing People

II 1 Introduction

Organizing and accessing footage is only one part of an assistant’s mandate to “keep things moving.” He or she must be the editing crew’s link to the outside world, interacting with the suppliers, laboratories, job seekers, and the general chaos arriving at the editing room door every day. Since the task of organizing an editing room generally falls to an assistant editor, this book examines editing from the assistant’s point of view. Four types of editors work in feature fi lmmaking:

XVI

•

Picture

•

Visual effects

•

Sound

•

Music

Each editor’s assistants perform some tasks that are similar to the others’ tasks and some that are particular to their department. The first assistant picture editor is usually on the film before any other assistant, so he or she often has the most information and experience with the fi lm. Therefore, an unwritten chain of command exists in the editing

room. The picture department provides the other departments with all the help and information that they can give and, in exchange, the other departments report to picture. Thus, the supervising picture editor is regarded as the ultimate editorial arbiter (though, of course, that editor is responsible to higher powers, like the producer and director) and the first assistant editor is the ultimate editorial organization arbiter. The sound, music, and visual effects departments maintain their own semi-autonomous crews with the occasional apprentice or “runner” (sometimes called a postproduction p.a.) taking direction from assistants who take direction from editors. (There is a similar chain of command within the picture department.) Figure ii.1 (on the next page) shows the organization of a typical editing crew. This chart shows the division of work on a large-budget film. On many low-budget projects, one person might be the film, sound, and music editor. On some fi lms, there is no assistant.

Small Crews, Big Problems Many producers try to finish their films with as few people in the editing room as possible. Some directors believe that they can do it all. In my experience, combining too many jobs is rarely the smartest idea. Just because you can edit a picture well does not mean that you can smooth out dialogue professionally, for example. The biggest problem I’ve seen, however, is when an editor is asked to perform assistant work. The two mindsets are so drastically different that it requires a great mind shift to go from shaping a performance to cleaning up the sound track or exporting an edit for a producer to screen. Some great editors have lost the ability to import and digitize footage properly, and even when they can, the production ends up paying editor rates for a person who is doing an assistant’s work.

II 1 Introduction

Regardless of the type of project or size of the crew, the various departments’ tasks need to be done by someone. So, you should think of this book as “task-oriented” rather than “person-oriented” or “position-oriented.” This book is more or less organized according to the order in which assistants will need to perform their tasks. As you read about how to make a cutting room work, you will also get a tour of the filmmaking process itself, as seen through the editor’s eyes.

XVII

XVIII

Figure ii.1 The Supervising Film Editor presides over a large number of tasks and people. The assistant editing positions are white.

Assistant Dialogue Editors

Dialogue Editor

BG/Foley Editor

Sound PAs/Runners

Assistant FX Editors

Assistant Foley Editors

Supervising Assistant Sound Editor

FX Editor

Supervising Sound Editor

II 1 Introduction

Apprentice Editor

2nd Assistant Editor

Postproduction PA/Runner

Additional Assistant Editors

Film Editor

1st Assistant Editor

Supervising Film Editor

Editing Room Organization

Assistant Music Editor

Music Editor

VFX PAs/Runners

Assistant VFX Editors

Additional VFX Editors

Supervising VFX Editor

Cast of Characters in the Book To make the various roles and processes a little easier to understand, I’ve created a cast of characters who are working on a fictional fi lm called Silent Night, Silent Cowboy. These fictional characters appear throughout the book and are there to help you better understand how to work with the various members of the fi lmmaking crew. For your convenience, here is a list of who they are and what their functions on the film are. Director. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Adam Free Producer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Laura Vrij Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wendy Libre Assistant Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . You Apprentice Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . Philip Spring Postproduction Supervisor . . . . Rina Gratis Composer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lester von Beethoven Music Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nate High Assistant Music Editor . . . . . . . . Betty Bound Supervising Sound Editor . . . . . Charles “Chuck” Lone Assistant Sound Editor. . . . . . . . Liz Clear ADR/Dialogue Editor . . . . . . . . . Mitzi Lowe What I do not cover in this book is the aesthetics of film editing itself—except as it influences the assistant’s job. There is a Bibliography on my web site (http://normanhollyn.com) that lists books and articles on fi lm-editing aesthetics, including my own book, The Lean Forward Moment. As you read this book, I hope it becomes apparent to you that there is an “aesthetics of assistant editing.” There are good ways and bad ways to organize. There are smart ways and not-so-smart ways to try to keep things moving. And when everything is working properly, the organization has a beauty all its own. –N.H.

II 1 Introduction

XIX

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1 Editing Within the Filmmaking Process Making a movie is often compared to running a war. It is a huge, complicated process, involving hundreds of people who must all be in the right place at the right time. All the players are involved in their own chains of command, with one or two leaders at the top who determine, for right or wrong, the course of everyone’s work. It is an exhausting process that is often not very fulfi lling until the fi lm is complete and viewable. Editing is just one part of the movie-making battlefield, but I believe it is one of the most important parts because it is where all the disparate elements come together. Whoever controls the editing process—whether the director, the producer, the showrunner, the distributor, or, in a few cases, the editor—controls how the fi lm appears to the public. That person can, with the changes that can be made through editing, save or ruin a fi lm. If the shooting process is one of creating, the editing process is one of re-creating. The overall fi lmmaking process is divided into three handy categories: preproduction, production, and postproduction (the processes before, during, and after the shooting). Much has been written about the general processes, and I won’t attempt to delve very deeply into them. Instead, this chapter offers a brief description of the tortuous road a film must take to get to your neighborhood theater, told from the point of view of the editing room. First, however, I need to address one misconception about how editing works within the process. Many people believe that editing begins once the project goes into postproduction. Other people understand that an editor is more valuable if he or she is cutting during the shooting, and so they believe that editing should start during production. In fact, the best place to start the editing process is during preproduction. If you are not thinking about the proper workflow for the editing process before you even turn on a camera, you are already creating problems. Many problems editors face come from inadequate preparation before production. Material might be shot at incompatible highdefinition resolutions, visual effects inputs and outputs might not be thought out ahead of time (causing expensive changes when a visual effects, or VFX, house is brought on), and material that needs to be played back on set isn’t prepped early enough, requiring makeshift fi xes on set. Many problems that arise during the postproduction process can be avoided by thinking about them while you’re still in the preproduction phase.

So, let’s talk about the phases of the filmmaking process from the point of view of the editing room. Some editors are consulted during the script process, particularly if they’ve worked with their collaborators before. But it is really once the preparation for the physical shooting starts that the editing room can get involved. I will go into these stages—preproduction, production, and postproduction—in more detail as we go through the book, but let’s start with an overview now.

CHAPTER 1 1 Editing Within the Filmmaking Process

Preproduction

2

The earliest stage of moviemaking begins with an idea. A writer, producer, director, or studio executive gets an idea for a film. The idea is then sold to a movie company. As soon as the money is exchanged, a writer begins writing and the other facets of the production begin to come together. A director is chosen, if one is not already involved. A cast and crew are hired. Chief among these is the production manager, who will supervise the day-to-day operations for the producer. This production manager (sometimes called the line producer) determines the actual budget and shooting schedule, supervises the crew members who will obtain locations and equipment, makes most of the financial deals (except cast salaries and some heads of departments that are handled by the producer), and, in general, makes sure that everything will be in place for the first day of shooting. As work on the film gets more complicated, the editor becomes increasingly more important during the preproduction phase. At times, for example, I have sat down with the director and director of photography to help storyboard complicated scenes in a film. We plan all the coverage for a scene and work with a storyboard artist who will create frames from those planned shots. While an editor is involved during this phase, an assistant editor is rarely needed at this point. If a fi lm involves visual effects, however, it is advisable to begin planning them early in preproduction. In that case, an editor may be hired onto the project months before the start of production. A small editing room may be assembled to help with the process of previsualization (sometimes called previz). Using the tools of previz, the exact camera movement and framing is determined ahead of time so that computer modeling and other components of the visual effects can start. Programs such as FrameForge 3D, Autodesk 3ds Max, Poser, or even Adobe After Effects are specifically designed to help plan the shots, determine lighting plots, and decide how the live shooting needs to be shot in order to integrate into the planned visual effects.* Usually previz artists work with the heads of the departments, under the guidance of the director, to create these visual models. These previz shots can then be sent to the editing room, cut together, and combined with sound and music to give directors, producers, and financiers a better sense of how the movie will come together. The picture editor may give valuable suggestions such as identifying additional shots, shots that need to be longer, and shots that could use a different lens size. On some complicated fi lms, such as Watchmen, an entire company is hired to do nothing but previsualization (such as Frantic Films VFX). They often have their own assistants to help create the massive amounts of material. (See Chapter 9, “Visual Effects.”) *A short fi lm on how and why previz was done for Danny Boyle’s Sunshine can be found at www.movieweb.com/video/VI5jX77byJp386

A fi lm might also have visual or sound material that needs to be prepared for playback on the set for scenes when people interact with computer or television screens or particular pieces of music. Often the editor will be responsible for preparing this material in time for its use on the set. In Sophie’s Choice, for example, Kevin Kline’s character Nathan had to conduct an imaginary orchestral version of Ludwig Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in front of a bank of darkened windows. Since nothing was prepared for Kline to rehearse and to shoot to, when the time came to prepare for the scene, the sound recordist on set, Chris Newman, ran out to a local record store to purchase a copy of the music. He grabbed the best one he could find—the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, as conducted by Eugene Ormandy. When I was hired as the music editor on the film late in postproduction, we discovered that purchasing the rights to that particular version of Symphony No. 9 did not fit into the production’s music budget. I needed to find an alternative version—but Ormandy had recorded his version at a much different tempo than any other version we could find. The problem could not be corrected by simply speeding up the cheaper versions we could find because of the way that Ormandy sped up and slowed down his own tempi. It took days of detailed work—speeding up and slowing down individual musical phrases—for me to make it look as if Nathan was actually conducting the version we purchased. Had the production planned ahead of time—and found the proper version in preproduction— we could have avoided all that time and money spent in postproduction. Pixar Animation offers an excellent example of integrating the editing process into preproduction. In Pixar productions, the cutting room is continually assembling footage, even temporary footage created during the writing of the script, helping the creative team to shape the best possible story.

When the first day of shooting arrives, a slew of people descend on the set. On Four Friends, for example, some days more than 120 cast and crew were working. On Cotton Club, we had days with 120 crew members plus dozens of cast, extras, and dancers, for a total of more than 250. Even on the low-budget film Heathers, the average day saw nearly 70 people involved in making the movie. There are departments to handle every conceivable job—from lighting the set to providing the cigarette lighters the actors use, from supplying bushes and shrubs to training any cats, dogs, sheep, and cattle, and from driving the cars that transport crew members to managing the special effects that will make it seem to rain or snow on cue. While all this chaos is occurring on the set, the editor and staff are quietly working away in another location—perhaps even another city. They are organizing the work so people on the set can see results from the previous day’s work (called the rushes or dailies) as rapidly as possible. At the same time, they are beginning to cut the film. Requests flood in from the set. “We need to reshoot part of a scene; could you send us a frame showing the character’s tie?” or “The sound on one take last night wasn’t very good; do we need to get a wild line?” Each question is important and the answer can’t come too soon. In addition, editors will communicate their own needs to the set. They may be concerned that there isn’t a necessary shot for a scene and will recommend a pickup shot.

CHAPTER 1 1 Editing Within the Filmmaking Process

Production

3

At other times, they may call with clarification on notes. On one film I worked on, the lab communicated to the director of photography and the producers that an entire roll of camera negative was damaged. Because I got to see the footage before anyone on the set, I was able to call and tell them that the damage was small and sporadic, and they didn’t need to worry. (In cases like that, I would put together a quick cut of the scene and bring it to the set so the director could see whether the damage was problematic.) In fact, the amount of back and forth between the editing room and the rest of the production team is extensive. As a result, I cover communication in more detail in Chapter 3, “Before the Film Begins,” and Chapter 4, “Shooting.” And, all the while, the film is being edited together.

CHAPTER 1 1 Editing Within the Filmmaking Process

Postproduction

4

When a film is finished shooting, most of the production crew goes off to find other work, the director takes a short vacation, and, after a week or so, he or she and the editing crew meet in the editing room or a small theater to screen the cut the editor has been working on during the shooting (the editor’s cut). Afterwards, the editing crew begins recutting the film, attempting to bring out what is good in the film and trying to minimize what is not. There are several screenings, after each version (or cut) is completed, and, slowly, a film emerges from the mass of raw material shot on the set. The movie is periodically output to some format that can be played back, and then taken into a screening room or theater and previewed for the general public. After each preview, we ask the audience questions. Often, sound and music editors (with their assistants) are brought on for this series of previews because studios generally like to have a more finished sound track and cleaner looking picture for these previews. And you keep editing, piling up more and more versions of the fi lm. Marketing people from the distributor begin to make plans for the publicity campaign—posters, trailers (those “coming attractions” you see in movie theaters), television spots, promotions, and so on. Sound editors begin working to clean up sound effects and dialogue in the sound track. If some lines of dialogue need to be redone for clarity, members of the cast are brought into a recording studio to rerecord the lines. A composer and a music editor assist in creating a score for the film. Finally, the fi lm’s sound is mixed together into one sound track for the film’s release. The original negative is cut to match the editor’s cuts and the color is corrected on every shot, or a digital intermediate is created from high-definition video, which is then used to create the final film (see Chapter 4, “Shooting,” and Chapter 14, “To the Finish—Ho!!”). The picture and the sound track are then married onto one piece of film in preparation for its first theatrical and critic screenings. After that, the film opens and (everyone hopes) is very successful. But the editing crew’s work is not quite done; they often continue to work on creating and finishing other material—the DVD extras, television versions of the film, and numerous delivery items for international distribution of the film. Finally, sometimes weeks after the fi lm’s theater release, all the editing crew members can go off for some badly needed vacations or onto work on other fi lms. The editing department’s involvement in the fi lm is unique—it works on the film from before shooting begins until after the film opens in the theaters. Very few people work this comprehensively on a fi lm, and it is one reason why the editing crew is a valuable, integral part of the filmmaking process.

2 Your Home—the Editing Room The first time I entered a feature film cutting room, I was looking for work. I had heard of a fi lm called The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (the original version of the film— you do the math) that needed an apprentice fi lm editor. I reviewed the few fi lm books I could find, trying to gather enough information so I wouldn’t seem like a complete dunce when I went for my interview. I took only two steps into the cutting room before realizing just how useless all of my reading preparation had been. Several walls of the room were stacked, ceiling to floor, with hundreds of white boxes, each labeled with one of three or four colors of tape. A series of editing tables were stacked with equipment and supplies that none of the books had mentioned. Nothing had prepared me for the sheer awesome complexity of the thing. How does a professional cutting room look today? First of all, it looks nothing like the rooms from my early job-seeking days. Racks of tapes, discs, and hard drives have replaced the racks of 16mm or 35mm fi lm boxes. In most cases, actual celluloid doesn’t exist in our rooms. But some things haven’t changed. Whatever the situation, every cutting room has many things in common—they all have a place to store the footage (no matter how it is shot and delivered to us), they all have a place to do the editing, and they all must have the equipment to do both adequately. Figure 2.1 on the next page shows today’s typical editing room. Compare this to the old room shown in Figure i.1 in the introduction. An average cutting room on a medium-budget movie begins with a place for the editor to work. The editor needs an editing machine or two, a slew of computer monitors, a mixing board, an area with a stack of electronic equipment, a table complete with all of his or her favorite supplies, some place to put the fi lm logbooks, and as much room as possible. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a couch, sitting a comfortable distance behind the editor and facing the NLE (non-linear editing) software running on a large client monitor on the wall or on top of a table. Any other software the editor and assistant need to do their work will be installed on the editing computer or another nearby computer.

Figure 2.1 A typical editing room has a table with the editing computer and a host of monitors sitting on or around it.

Trying to describe how new technology fits into the filmmaking process is like trying

note to teach a frisky puppy to obey commands. As new technology emerges, new editing

CHAPTER 2 1 Your Home—the Editing Room

room techniques must be invented to accommodate them. It is the assistant editor’s responsibility to continue to ask the questions: “Is there a better way of doing this job?” “Is there a better tool for this job?” and “What did I learn last month that might be outdated this month?”

6

Somewhere in this room, or in another room nearby, you’ll see a large bookcase fi lled with videotapes and a stack of supplies. Sometimes a large bank of computer hard drives are stored here as well. You’ll also find a number of logbooks and printed manuals. On many fi lm and television productions, the editors work with shared storage, and that means that the assistant will have his or her own NLE sitting in another room. This controls the network that links all of the editing computers. Let’s look at each of these items in more detail.

Machines, Machines, Machines A typical editing room is full of a variety of machines—computers running NLE software for editing, machines that help us to see and hear the footage, decks that allow us to input and output the footage, and a host of supporting machines.

Non-linear Editors and Servers Today’s editing room is built around a computer running non-linear editing software, often called NLE. Among the most well-known NLEs are Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro, Avid Media Composer, and Sony Vegas. It is important to note that these are software programs that run on computers—not self-contained machines. This means that, unlike in the past, an assistant editor has to be able to troubleshoot both the software and the hardware in the editing room. Depending on the fi lm’s budget, you may have one or more NLE stations and they may or may not be connected. A larger editing room may have a separate server with all of the footage on it; every editing computer is connected to the central server. Solutions such as Avid Unity and EditShare are designed to allow several editors and assistants to work on the same material. On reality television shows, for example, as many as 20 or 30 people need to access the footage at any given time. This is also the case at trailer houses or facilities that edit commercials and music videos.

Hard Drives

Monitors and Mixing Boards On top of the editor’s desk, you’ll usually find one or more pairs of television monitors (the setup in Figure 2.1 uses four). He uses the pair at left with Avid Media Composer and the pair at right for the playback of the footage (you can see the color bars on them in the figure). These monitors are called NTSC monitors, and they are the same as a normal television. (NTSC is the body that sets up the standards for broadcast television—National Television Systems Committee.) The monitor at right is much larger and sits where it can be viewed by the director or producer from a couch behind the editor.

CHAPTER 2 1 Your Home—the Editing Room

Some editors work directly off external hard drives, usually firewire drives. If your NLE station is a laptop, then you definitely will be working with external hard drives—and the faster they are, the better. Hard drives are finicky beasts; if you ever look inside one, you can quickly figure out why. Essentially, they are a series of small metal platters that spin very fast. Above the platters sits a series of magnetic heads that dive on and off the metal platters. If anything gets in the way of that magnetic head as it touches the metal platter, data can’t be read off the hard drive. You can’t see the hard drives in the editing room shown in Figure 2.1 because they are networked into the system, in the next room. In fact, you can’t see the computer the editor is using to cut with (although you can see the editor’s personal laptop computer, which is used for other tasks). The main CPU (central processing unit) is sitting off to the side of the desk, safely out of the way, and is used only for the storage of the editing application (this is another term for program) and the other software the editor needs. You should never put digital footage onto your main computer. Because the main computer’s hard drive is constantly working to access the NLE software, it may interfere with access to the footage, causing it to stutter.

7

CHAPTER 2 1 Your Home—the Editing Room

Elsewhere on the desk, you’ll find a keyboard and mouse—or possibly a Wacom graphics tablet. Some machines also provide a console that operates almost exactly like a controller on old film machines. Slightly off to the side of the NLE station, sometimes on another table, sits a mixing board (see Figure 2.2). This machine is used for combining the many sound tracks your editor will be working with. It allows the editor to funnel each of them through separate volume controls (or sliders) into one pair of signals, one for each speaker that you are listening on. The most common configuration is a board with 8 or 16 individual sliders and several master sliders that control the overall sound. Output from the mixing board is sent to a series of speakers set in various areas of the room. In most cases, there are two speakers, one on either side of the monitor. Occasionally, editors set up rooms for stereo sound, in which case more speakers are installed in the room in appropriate places. Another use for the mixing board is to control the audio equalization (the relative amount of treble, medium, and bass frequency sounds). Although most NLEs give the editor control over this and add echo and other effects, many of us still like to fine tune it all as we output to tape. These days, when digital systems can provide 24 tracks of output or more, and accept input from a variety of different machines, a mixing board helps the editor to sort out just where the audio is coming from, where it is going to, and what it sounds like.

8

Figure 2.2 A mixing board controls all the sound that comes into or out of the NLE. A microphone is also connected to it for recording temporary voices or sounds.

An advantage of using a computer editing system is how easy it is to try out different editing scenarios. Often, the editor will need a piece of dialogue or voiceover that wasn’t recorded on the set. With a microphone, it is very easy to temporarily record these lines into your NLE. The editor can then try out ideas and easily make editing choices. Usually, you set up the microphone within easy reach of the editor and the sound mixer. The microphone output is routed into the mixer, which is then routed into the NLE. In this way you can control the sound. In fact, I often use my microphone to record temporary sound effects, such as punches, chair squeaks, and breathing.

The more you introduce specialty setups into the editing room—such as 5.1 sound

note and color correction abilities—the more the room needs to be specially treated. As discussed in Chapter 7, “The Editor Cuts Away,” color correction requires that the room be properly painted and lit, something that is rarely possible.

A Rack of Electronic Equipment Having all this computer equipment is wonderful, but you also need machines to help get all of the picture and sound into and out of the computer. To that end, you usually have a stack of machines placed just off to the side of the editor’s table. The better editing rental houses put all this equipment into a big metal shelf, called a rack, that permits easy and safe access to all the equipment. Figure 2.3 shows a typical rack setup, including—from the top—a printer, an HDV/DVCam tape machine, two forms of patch bays, a DVD player, a VHS deck, an Avid Nitris DX box, and, at the very bottom, the power switches for the rack.

Printer

HDV/DVCam deck

DVD player VHS deck Avid Nitris DX UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) Editing computer CPU Power switches

Figure 2.3 This rack, sitting to the right of the editing table, contains much of the equipment the editor needs to control his or her processes.

CHAPTER 2 1 Your Home—the Editing Room

Patch bay/routers

9

The equipment sitting in this rack mount varies depending on the editing system you use and the needs of the production. In general, however, it usually contains the items in the following sections.

Input Videotape Machines As you will see in the next chapter, the dailies usually arrive in the editing room for input into the computer editing system on some sort of videotape format. The types of tapes vary, but they usually are VHS (for a low resolution but popular format), HDV/DVCam (for an easy-to-use standard definition digital format), Digibeta (for a higher resolution standard definition tape), or HDCam (for excellent quality high definition).

Output Video Machines As you complete each edit, you need to create playable copies for the producers, directors, or clients. In the old days, when editors created VHS tapes, it was a simple matter of outputting a cut directly to a tape machine. Today, there are many ways of creating these tapes, depending on what they are needed for. Many outputs can go directly to DVD. Some need special time codes or watermarks (artwork or text burned into the visual image to make it less desirable to copy). In many cases, assistant editors use the same machines for video output that they use for video input. In other cases, they create DVDs. Because creating QuickTime movies that are suitable for DVD authoring can be very time consuming, the production often provides a DVD recorder. You can then easily play out the edit directly to the machine and record it just as when output to tape. These QuickTime fi les are also useful if clients or studio executives want to watch the outputs directly over their shared networks.

CHAPTER 2 1 Your Home—the Editing Room

Audio Machines

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Sound is recorded on a variety of different formats today. Some sound recordists use DAT (Digital Audio Tape), which allows for recording stereo, or DA-88 or DA-98 tapes, which allow for more tracks. Though more projects are recording directly to digital files (using machines such as the Deva recorder, which are often backed up to DVD-ROM discs for safety’s sake), you sometimes still see an audio machine of some kind in editing rooms for the export of sound mixes. Some editors like to have a CD player in the room for quick and easy testing of music. By playing the music directly from the player, they save the time of importing and converting the music fi les into their NLE.

A Patch Bay/Router With all the various video and audio formats available, you often find yourself switching among them. You could switch the cables between each machine and your computer every time you need to switch the format—but this would quickly get to be a colossal bore. Most good equipment rental houses provide an easy switching system called a patch bay, a router, or a switcher. If you want to record from an HDV/DVCam deck into your NLE, for instance, all you need to do is press a few buttons or flip a switch. Every rental house

has a different setup, and it can take a little while to familiarize yourself with the differing configurations. It is often helpful to post a diagram next to the switcher that lists what buttons to press for each variation. Figure 2.4 shows an example of a typical router.

Figure 2.4 The router sits in the rack and contains a series of white buttons that control where the picture comes from (top row of buttons) and direct where it goes to (bottom row of buttons).

Backup Equipment

Project files are the small files that instruct the NLE software where to make all the

note edits, and specify how you’ve organized your material into folders and bins. They do

not contain the actual digital footage and are, therefore, small enough to fit on thumb drives or burnable DVDs.

UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) Most NLEs periodically and automatically back up crucial data to their own hard drives. You may have it set to back up every 15 or 20 minutes, for example. This is a great thing. However, what happens if a power outage occurs one minute before a backup? You will lose

CHAPTER 2 1 Your Home—the Editing Room

Because computers can be finicky beasts, it is a good idea to back up all the editor’s work at regular intervals, usually twice a day. Every system works differently, but the basic idea is always the same. You take the editing information—the footage on the system, what and where every version of every edit was made, and so on—and copy it onto a disk that can be removed from the computer and placed in a safe area. Backups are discussed in more detail in Chapter 5, “Moving on to Editing.” At this point, it’s important to note that assistants have different strategies for backing up. Many copy all new material over to an extra set of large disk drives using a program such as ChronoSync or Super Duper. They also copy the project fi les (usually in a clearly marked folder) over to several different locations, including a large-capacity thumb drive.

11

everything done since the last automatic save. You need a way to keep the power going, uninterrupted, to your NLE until you have a chance to do a backup. Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) do exactly what their names suggest. They keep a certain amount of power running to the computer even if the main power is cut off. You then have enough time to save whatever you’ve been working on before shutting the computer off. A UPS is essentially a giant battery designed to power the system if the normal power supply ever fails. In that case, the UPS beeps regularly to warn you that there is no power. The box then provides power for anywhere from one to ten minutes, giving you enough time to back up all your work and safely shut down the computer. This way, you can protect your information during those infrequent, but still annoying, power outages. You can see the white UPS sitting to the left of the CPU in Figure 2.3.

A Bookcase, Supplies, and Books Like it or not, the job of an assistant editor involves an enormous amount of librarian work. You need to be able to find material quickly, answer any questions, and solve problems through quick research. This requires enormous amounts of paperwork as well as a place to put all the videotape reels, DVDs, CDs, and other materials the editing room receives on a daily basis.

CHAPTER 2 1 Your Home—the Editing Room

Tapes to Manage

12

During the course of a production, you will probably receive tapes and discs for dailies, at least one for each day. Each tape is usually no more than 60 minutes long; if you get more dailies than that, you usually receive more than one tape. Each tape is numbered sequentially from the first day of shooting until the end. I label the tapes by writing a large numeral on a piece of white tape, then placing the label on the bottom of the tape box’s spine. That way, when the tapes are standing up on the bookcase, it is easy to locate any tape. You rarely need to go back into these tapes once they are digitized (occasionally, however, you might need to recapture certain takes due to computer problems or to work at a higher resolution). It is very unlikely that your editor will need to access them. As a result, they can be stored in a separate room, or on shelves off to the side of the main editing room, depending on the editor’s preference. During the course of editing, you will also receive additional tapes of music, sound effects, stock footage, opticals, and B-negative takes (footage that was shot, but not included on the dailies tapes). You should leave space for them on your shelves as well.

Paperwork and Supplies In addition to the paperwork from the production office, you will receive paperwork from the telecine house (the facility that transfers the fi lm onto video) that you also need to save. Keep them on clipboards hung on the wall or in large binders on the bookshelves.

I like to keep all my hardware and software manuals on a shelf above my computer in the editor’s room, or on a separate shelf in the main bookcase. Other editors like their assistants to keep them. You also need space for all of the supplies you would normally need in an office— including a supply of blank computer discs, CDs, and DVDs plus labels for all of them. If you need to output tapes in a particular format, make sure you have a good supply of those around as well. You don’t want to run out of tapes just as the producer is telling you that the studio needs a reference copy of the temp music in two hours. I have a series of templates in my word processor for printing labels on 8½" by 11" label paper. The assistant then cuts out the labels and puts them on the cassettes and boxes. Precut labels in many of the tape and disc formats are also available.

Additional Computers Depending on the movie budget, you may be lucky enough to have an extra NLE. Often they are networked together. This means that both machines can use the same material from the dailies without having to make additional copies for each machine. The editing room is likely to have one more computer for general tasks such as creating logs, writing memos, and printing tape labels.

Emergency Supplies

CHAPTER 2 1 Your Home—the Editing Room

Computers often get sick and stop performing the way you want them to. Unfortunately, this usually happens at the most difficult times—like at 10 p.m. on the evening right before a major screening. You need to know something about how to fi x computers and have a list of numbers to call if you cannot. If you are renting machines from an outside company, they often have a help desk. Many rental houses advertise “24/7 help lines,” that claim to offer help 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But often these numbers are no more than pagers that, as you can imagine, are sometimes left behind when the technical support people go to the theater or to their mother’s house for dinner. If the 24/7 help line is not responsive, have a backup plan such as an independent consultant who actually is available. It is always a good idea to be as prepared as possible for disaster. If you are using your own computer as an NLE, then you generally are responsible for any repairs. Each computer editing system has its own help line numbers, most of which aren’t worth very much. I find that online sites, such as Creative Cow or the Avid-L2 group, are better sources for help.* One way you can prepare is to have a set of useful tools with you. Unlike 35mm film toolboxes, which are mostly a collection of screwdrivers and pliers, your digital editing toolbox should contain some computer discs or USB drives filled with programs that can help you diagnose and attempt to repair some elementary computer problems. Often, these * http://forums.creativecow.net/ and http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/avid-l2/

13

programs are installed on the main computer systems. However, if your entire computer system is down, then separate discs with programs such as Alsoft DiskWarrior, (a disk maintenance and repair program), along with a number of other diagnostic aids, can come in very handy.

Plenty of Room Actually, plenty of room is the one thing editors get all too little of. Editing rooms are usually too small, with barely enough room and electricity to plug in the editing machines without blowing a fuse. These are the conditions you’ll find in most New York City editing rooms as well as many independent houses in Los Angeles. Editing rooms at the major studios in Hollywood range from the luxurious to the ludicrously closet-sized.

CHAPTER 2 1 Your Home—the Editing Room

Floor Plans

14

Obviously, the type of floor plan your editor wants will vary depending on the type of room you are editing in and the show’s requirements. If you are printing film as well as editing digitally, you obviously need a lot more room than you if you are just using one or the other. Figure out some arrangement that places the fi lm editing machine near the editor, without cramping him or her too much. It is often necessary to compare images from the flatbed to those on the digital system. Make sure your editor can see both screens from his or her seat. Most editors work with one or more NLEs, so the requirements will be a little different. Figure 2.5 is a sketch of what a typical editing room might look like for a small project. A key to developing a functioning editing room is adjusting the floor plan to what your editor wants. In this case, the editor clearly wanted his back to the door. He or she also wanted the assistant working in another room. Notice that the computer screens are close to the window in this layout, so we’ve curtained them to block out ambient light that makes images hard to see. Other editors might want to face the door so they can see immediately who is coming into the room. Others want to be close to the door so they can close it whenever they like. The important point here is to ask questions of your editor, to find out what they like and don’t like. The assistant editor must play the part of interior designer and come up with a comfortable and efficient layout for the room, whatever its size and wherever it is. Remember, you’ll be living in the editing room for the duration of the film. It needs to be friendly. Figure 2.5 might be a perfect arrangement for a low-budget fi lm with no assistant editor or an assistant who came in only at night to sync the dailies. But it has an area for the editor to work and also has a wall-mounted large client monitor so the director and producers can watch the footage and give notes to the editor while sitting on the couch behind him or her.

Side table Windows, with curtains

E NL

Mixer

m ito on rs NTSC monitor UPS

CPU

Equipment rack

Client monitor

Bookcase Door

Another crucial component, often overlooked in this era of mobile phones, is the phone placement. In the sketch, two phones are placed near the editor and the couch. There are, of course, many other possible configurations and situations in editing rooms. Some low-budget fi lms can’t afford an assistant, leaving the editor to perform all these tasks. Some high-budget fi lms have more equipment and dailies than can fit in the same room with the editors. On Hair, we had one room stacked ceiling to floor with fi lm. But the principle remains the same—make sure everyone can get their work done as efficiently and humanely as possible. If that can happen, the job of making the best fi lm out of the available material seems that much easier.

CHAPTER 2 1 Your Home—the Editing Room

Figure 2.5 An example of one floor plan for a small project. Every project, and every editor, requires different setups.

15

Room Lighting Working with a computer monitor all day is very taxing on your eyes. This means that you need to provide proper lighting in the editing room—both the ambient room lighting and any specific desk lighting in and around the editor’s workstation. Generally, I find that fluorescent lights are the worst on the eyes and on the computer monitors. If I have to work in a room with overhead fluorescent lights, I always ask my assistant to find a number of lamps for the room and I keep the overhead lights off. Every editor has lighting preferences; I like to keep the overall light level relatively low. This keeps my focus on the screens and decreases the amount of light reflected from them. Keeping the overhead lights either off, or on a dimmer, gives you that kind of control. In addition, I have one or two lamps on my editing table to illuminate my paperwork (the lined script, for instance) and any equipment with small labels—such as the mixing board.

Paperwork Storage We discuss the nature of the logbooks in later chapters, but you should know now that there are a few types of logs. Some are on clipboards hung on the walls and some are in looseleaf notebooks near the editor or assistant. A small table is helpful for these items. Editing tables get crowded almost immediately—they are no place for logbooks.

CHAPTER 2 1 Your Home—the Editing Room

Film in the Editing Room

16

A few shows still print fi lm for screening purposes. These fi lms are decreasing in number as the resolution at which we edit footage gets better and better, and as the price of digital finishing and projection gets cheaper. For those few fi lmmakers who still like the look and feel of film in the editing room, we usually keep a flatbed editing machine in a separate room. These machines are called KEMs, Steenbecks, or Moviola flatbeds, depending on the manufacturer. A flatbed is a machine that pulls the separate rolls of picture and sound track from left to right, either independently or in synchronization. In Figure 2.6, you can see a roll of 35mm fi lm threaded on the back part of a flatbed machine, parked at the 2-pop on the leader. The roll in the foreground is a synchronous roll of 35mm sound track. For most uses today, it is not necessary to run sound track. The flatbed is mainly for viewing assembled reels of film before they are screened. If you are going to use film in the editing room, you need a splicer (to cut and tape pieces of fi lm together). There are a few types of splicers, the most popular of which are the Rivas and the Guillotine. Both do the same thing: provide an edge for cutting the film evenly on a frame line and a setup block on which two pieces of cut film can be aligned and taped together. This is the extent of the “cutting” part of film editing. Cut piece number one, cut piece number two, lay them side by side, and tape them together. It is ridiculously simple, which is why many editors (myself included) get touchy about being called cutters. Cutting and splicing is easy, it’s the editing that’s difficult.

Figure 2.6 A KEM fl atbed editing machine for viewing film.

Along with the flatbed and the splicers, you need a few additional supplies: Splicing tape: This tape connects the pieces of film in the splicer.

Academy leader: The numbers you sometimes see at the beginning of a film (8, 7, 6, 5, and so on) are part of a standard designed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the same Academy that gives out the Oscars every year. The leaders count down in seconds from eight to two and then go to black before the picture begins (another standard counts down in feet, from 12 to 3, which is the same thing). All kinds of helpful information is imprinted on these standard leaders as well. There is a field for the projectionist to focus on and sometimes there are markings showing the borderline of the screen area (normally, only part of the full frame is meant to be projected with the rest covered up by a plate in the projector). There are also marks that the lab uses to position the fi lm negative properly on its printing machines. One Academy leader should be placed at the head of everything to be projected—so order a lot of it, either from your lab or a supply house.

CHAPTER 2 1 Your Home—the Editing Room

White leader: You cannot thread fi lm in a projector from the beginning of a reel; you need 15 or 20 feet of leader wound at the top and bottom in order to provide room for it to be threaded through a projector.

17

Loupe (or loop): This is basically a magnifying glass you can place on top of fi lm to look at the tiny numbers on the side or examine an image more closely. Spare take-up reels, split reels, and cores: Flatbeds require small 3" circles of plastic called cores on which you wind the film. (You can see them in the center of the fi lm rolls in Figure 2.6.) When projected, you insert these cores into split reels or wind them onto large plastic or metal reels to prevent the film from falling off the projector’s spindles. Gloves, cleaning velvets, and cleaner: A disadvantage of fi lm is that it tends to pick up any dirt from around the editing area. As a result, it needs to be cleaned every time it is projected. White boxes: The fi lm comes to you in rolls on cores. You need to cut into it and assemble the edited film. This leaves excess pieces called trims. Both the trims and the assembled film need to be stored in boxes or cans.

CHAPTER 2 1 Your Home—the Editing Room

Obtaining Supplies

18

None of these supplies magically appear when you sign onto your job. On some fi lms, the producer or postproduction supervisor orders the editing machine. But normally, it is the job of the assistant to rent items that can be rented and purchase the rest. In some situations, you can rent a cutting room complete with an editing machine and all the other electronic equipment for one flat price (on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis). More often, the room comes equipped with nothing other than a door and (rarely) a window or two. You need to rent all the equipment from a separate supply house. Sometimes the editor or assistant owns some of the equipment and rents it to the production. No matter where you get it from, it is wise to order the equipment as far ahead of time as possible. This type of equipment can get booked weeks in advance, so you’ll end up spending days trying to find equipment for your editor. You can purchase supplies almost any time, of course, as long as you’ve got the money. If you are working on a studio lot, the studio’s postproduction department or facilities manager may provide some of the equipment and supplies for you. Let them know what you need and make sure your editor’s needs are handled.

3 Before the Film Begins Before your editing computers, tape machines, bookcases, and desks move into the editing room, there are things that you, as an assistant editor, must do. The first task, of course, is to get hired on the job—but let’s assume you’ve already managed that (for an exploration of that topic, see Chapter 15, “The Hardest Job of All—Finding a Job”). Let’s say you’ve just been hired for director Adam Free’s new picture, Silent Night, Silent Cowboy, a fictitious project used throughout this book. Your editor is a woman named Wendy Libre. (As an aside, traditionally, more women work in editing than almost any other fi lm trade.) What should you do before the editing begins? After Wendy hires you, the first thing to do is determine your salary—if this hasn’t already been determined by Wendy or the fi lm’s production manager. While many editors have agents or lawyers to handle the money talks with production, assistants never do. Assistants count on their editors to advocate for them. However, you will be the one to sit down with the producers and agree on a salary. To negotiate successfully, first discuss with Wendy what sort of schedule the fi lm will be on, what your responsibilities will be, and how difficult the politics and personnel on the fi lm are going to be. As you negotiate, be aware that people get paid in more ways than money. Working on a good fi lm with good people, learning a lot about your craft, and making more contacts are all legitimate forms of payment on a film. And while your landlord probably won’t want to get paid with that kind of currency, you should take all these factors into account when you are negotiating your salary. Once the financial issues are settled, what should you be doing before the first day’s dailies roll in?

Examine the Script As soon as you’ve taken the job on Silent Night, Silent Cowboy, get a copy of the script. The script tells you a lot about how to set up the editing room for the film. The organization of a musical will be different than a straight dialogue film. On an action fi lm, you will get different kinds of footage than on a musical or dialogue film. The script shows you if much

special effects work is planned (visual effects shots, stock footage, on-set projection, and so on). You can see if there are many short scenes or if the fi lm is composed primarily of longer scenes. Let’s assume the following about the movie you are working on: Silent Night, Silent Cowboy is a fi lm about the shooting of a Western movie. It focuses on the scriptwriter’s life, which is, naturally, falling apart just as his fi lm is being made. The fi lm involves three weeks of shooting in a desert-like location (for the Western fi lm-within-a-film), one week on various locations in the city, and four weeks in a studio. Because of the nature of the film, there will be scenes of people watching projected fi lm, some visual effects, and some on-set music. Though there might be one or two scenes in the Western with fast action, most of the fi lm appears to be dialogue centered, with a lot of long scenes intercut with the Western. This may be all that you can tell from a few readings of the script. (You should read the script a few times, so you know what everyone is talking about as they discuss it with you.) You already learned quite a bit of information from these few readings. As you learn more and more of what different kinds of fi lms demand of you in the editing room, you can easily read scripts for these types of clues.

CHAPTER 3 1 Before the Film Begins

Get to Know All the Players

20

After you’ve read the script, discuss the job with Wendy. She will tell you how she wants things set up. Some editors have more demands than others, but all of them have some demands. Most of their requests are reasonable ones, which they have learned help them do their job better. You can find out which NLE Wendy will use (this might be her choice, or it might be the production company’s). She also will tell you her schedule: In this case, she will be editing in the city while the company is shooting in the desert. Wendy shares the results of any conversations she had with the director—how much coverage Adam intends to shoot, what type of coverage and style he has planned, any special requirements that he has for the editing room (I worked with one director who wanted a bowl of candy there every day), when he wants to see the first cut, and so on. She may discuss what format the film will be acquired in (film or digital, tape or fi le-based) and how it will be delivered at completion.

Get to Know the Leaders You should get to know the people you will spend a lot of time with, and the people you will depend on for the smooth functioning of the editing room. Besides the director, the key people for you to know are the sound recordist and whoever is taking the sound notes, the second assistant camera (this person takes the camera notes), the production office secretary, the production manager, the postproduction supervisor, and the script supervisor. The script supervisor’s paperwork will be your most direct link with the set. If you have a good rapport with him or her, everything will run that much more smoothly. The unit production manager (UPM) or postproduction supervisor (if the film has already hired one) can also give you valuable information. Ask them approximately how

much fi lm footage Adam will be shooting and printing—because you will need to organize the cutting room differently for 80,000 feet (15 hours) of dailies than for 800,000 (148 hours). The UPM will probably also have decided what laboratory will process the dailies, what sound house will transfer the sound dailies (if any), where any telecine tapes will be created, and where you will be editing. The UPM or the production office coordinator (POC) can also give you some idea of where and how to obtain supplies, how you can obtain a supply of petty cash, and supply a current crew list. Get your name and Wendy’s on the crew list immediately (as well as anyone else working in your editing room, such as an apprentice or a postproduction assistant). Often, you will be working with people you already know. A current crew list can help you to plan for the strengths and weaknesses you will face during the filmmaking process.

Meet the Supporting Characters

Visit the Telecine House A key stop to make along your get-acquainted tour of suppliers is the telecine house. This is where the processed negatives and sound go every day to be transferred to the videotapes used for input into your editing machine.

Some productions don’t sync their dailies in telecine, choosing instead to transfer

note all their film to tape or digital files and have it synchronized in the editing room

instead. John Portnoy, a postproduction supervisor, cautions against this. “When the producers find out this means they won’t get to see their dailies for an extra day, they usually change their minds.”

CHAPTER 3 1 Before the Film Begins

Finally, you should do something that seems so obvious to me that I am always shocked by how many people never bother to do it. Before the first day of shooting, I make a point of meeting the people with whom I’ll be dealing. I drop by the laboratory to introduce myself to the customer contact person and the shipping clerks. I say hello to the dailies projectionist (if you are going to be screening dailies—often this is at the lab where you’ll be processing your dailies). I visit the person doing the sound transfers and the shipping clerks at the sound house. In fact, I introduce myself to as many people as I can—at the editing rental house, in the production office, and on the set. At each stop, I try to iron out procedures. What time will I get my dailies? Should I pick them up or will you deliver? Who gets the paperwork from the office every day during the shoot? Where can I reach you after-hours in an emergency? (Although editing staffs often work late and on weekends, many of your contacts will not.) I tell the projectionist all the details about the fi lm, such as aspect ratio (the ratio of an image’s screen width to its screen height) and whether the dailies will come on fi lm or tape, and which tape formats we will use. I work out a system for the delivery of all paperwork to the editing room. Finally, I find out how to submit time cards and get paychecks.

21

CHAPTER 3 1 Before the Film Begins

22

Telecine machines are large and expensive, so the telecine house usually makes sure the machines are booked in advance. It wouldn’t do to have any of their machines sitting idle— the interest on the purchase loans is way too high. Your production needs to book a certain amount of time on a regular basis. Just how much time may have already been determined by the production manager, but if not, discuss it with him or her first. Give the telecine staff details about the schedule such as when you will have night shoots and what days you will not have dailies. Most directors of photography like to work with specific people who do the color timing (or grading, as it is also called). Be sure to meet these people. Like any supplier, the better the relationship you have with them—which means keeping them informed about anything that affects them—the more flexible they will be when you need changes. Keeping them informed works to everyone’s advantage. While at the telecine house, find out from the sound recordist what format of sound they plan to work with. Most location recordists use a digital recorder of some kind, such as the Fostex or a DEVA or Nagra. Normally, the recorders use broadcast wave format (BWF), but some recorders have alternative formats that will affect your work. It is a good idea to get all these details organized before the first day of shooting. You can help things move smoothly by making sure everyone on the set knows exactly what the telecine house needs to do its job properly. For example, the second assistant camera person needs to mark the camera report or the purchase order “PREPARE FOR TELECINE” so the lab knows to punch a hole at the top of each roll of negative. If your crew is shooting on video or audio tape, they probably need to ensure that they have at least five or ten seconds of pre-roll before recording any sync sound (including the slate). This means the recordists need to roll their tape machines for at least five or ten seconds before clapping the slate. If the footage is going to be telecined from negative, you need to schedule its movement from the lab after processing. If a print needs to be made, you need to schedule whether it is done before or after a negative telecine. On Mad Dog Time, we telecined the fi lm from the negative, but still made prints of all the selected takes so the director of photography and I could look at it each day for quality. We used a lab that did both printing and telecine— but we had them do the negative telecine first because it was done with sound while the picture film dailies were silent. We had our tape dailies first thing in the morning after a day’s shoot, and the printed fi lm was ready in time for the director of photography’s dailies screening that evening. Once you acquire all the fundamental information about the film, what’s next?

Put Your Information to Work The assistant editor’s job is to keep things moving smoothly during the editing process. A little bit of preparation will ease your path later in countless ways. Everything is about proper communication. Without it, something will surely go wrong. It is one of the major jobs of an assistant editor to anticipate every potential problem so nothing goes wrong that could have been avoided.

If you are lucky, the production manager will hire you early enough to do all these things (two or three days in advance is plenty of time). But assistants are rarely that lucky. On most fi lms, you find yourself put on the payroll the first day of shooting. The dailies start arriving early the next morning, and you have your hands full with making sure all the equipment and supplies arrive in the editing room on time and in one piece. Given the general lethargy of suppliers, one day is rarely enough time to get all this done properly. In that case, I usually spend a day or so during the preceding week making contacts and ordering the supplies—even if I’m not getting paid. This is not, of course, a completely satisfactory solution. There are always a thousand things you must do in your personal life the week before you start a film (that dentist appointment really won’t wait another ten months). Production managers, however, seem to expect that you will give them this free time and, in order to avoid hassles later in the film, you should oblige them if possible. Meeting people before the film begins—even while not yet on the payroll—really is that important.

Pull Together Your Crew

Test, Test, Test It is absolutely essential that you make sure you have assembled everything in the editing room and that it is working properly at least one day before the first day’s dailies arrive. Computers are testy by nature. Cables that worked fine on one film malfunction on the next. Additional software on the computer may conflict with the editing programs. I have

CHAPTER 3 1 Before the Film Begins

Another major task at this point is hiring the crew. On some fi lms, it is obvious at the outset that the complexity of the film will exceed the crew’s capacity. To get it done effectively, you can hire an extra assistant (or an apprentice). Often, you will be able to hire a postproduction runner (or p.a.). In any case, if Silent Night, Silent Cowboy requires more crew, you and Wendy need to decide who to hire. Say that after the two of you read the script, you decide that no additional assistant is necessary on this fi lm. Instead, you decide to hire an apprentice/runner. There are many ways of finding qualified editing crews. After working in the business for a while, you will probably know people with whom you’re comfortable working. Actually, this is one of the assets you bring to the editing crew—your contacts with potential apprentices. You may have worked with an apprentice before who already knows how you work and can spend a minimum amount of time learning your systems. Wendy may know someone she wants to hire as well. You can call the unions for their “availability lists” of qualified people— although I often find these lists to be quite out of date. In many cutting rooms, job seekers come by in a seemingly never-ending stream, leaving their résumés behind. I sometimes hire from among these people. In Chapter 15, we talk about how you can find a job. Some of that advice, such as posting on Craigslist or Mandy, may apply to looking for people to hire as well. However, editing is a difficult task, and you want to make absolutely sure you can work with your apprentice/ runner over the course of a show. It’s much better to hire people who you know.

23

had machines delivered without the proper setup and machines that edited fine, but were not able to control tape machines or input footage from them properly. All these things need to be ironed out before the first dailies tape comes through the editing room door. All NLEs allow users to set many options that tailor the software to the way they like to work. These are called preferences, and most editors set them differently. I like to carry my NLE preferences around on a USB thumb drive so I can easily copy them to a new computer and be ready to start editing. It is your job, as the assistant, to set up Wendy’s computer and software according to her preferences. If possible, try to save one day’s worth of dailies from a previous film on whatever tape format is used on the new fi lm, along with the computer disc fi le for that day’s dailies. That way, when your computer editing system is set up, you can test the entire process from beginning to end—digitizing in the dailies, organizing it in the machine, attempting a trial edited sequence, and outputting it to video. You can also try to generate some cut lists or EDLs (Edit Decision Lists) as well. (Don’t worry about these terms right now; we will get to all of them in future chapters. Your patience will be rewarded—or you can look them up in the Glossary at the back of the book.)

CHAPTER 3 1 Before the Film Begins

Determine Storage Needs

24

Digital editing systems work by converting the fi lm picture image into a series of bits, saved onto the computer’s hard drives. The computer then plays back the images by very rapidly reading this data and converting it into video information on the computer screen. Each frame consumes an enormous amount of space on the hard drives; it is not uncommon to need several drives for an average fi lm. One of your jobs is making sure that the producers rent an adequate amount of storage space for the amount of footage to be shot. As discussed in Chapter 1, “Editing Within the Filmmaking Process,” the better the picture quality, the more space you’ll need for storing those bits of picture information. The degree of picture quality is referred to as resolution. Everyone wants to edit at the highest resolution possible, without using formats that create fi les that are too large for adequate storage and processing. Each NLE has its own brand of compression—for example, Avid has DNxHD and Apple has ProRes. The NLE developers’ web sites provide calculators for computing the amount of hard drive space you need. At the beginning of a shoot, you don’t need to have the full amount of storage space available (in both hard drives and space for storing them). You can begin with far less and add more in chunks as you come close to fi lling up each drive.

Create the Standard Elements Another setup task involves creating a variety of repeating, standard elements for Wendy to use while editing. (Otherwise, you’ll end up creating these again and again, every time she needs one.) Television shows, for instance, must adhere to a strict pattern, with the same main and end titles nearly every week. Features have standard video material at the beginning and end of every reel of picture.

You or your postproduction supervisor should create a reel and capture it into your NLE before your editor starts working. This reel, called an elements reel, contains the items that repeat every week on the show. The elements reel should include the following material, set against a black background: •

Countdown leader with proper information

•

Main title

•

End title backgrounds if they stay the same for every episode

•

End title logos

The director of photography often creates focus and framing leaders for you to digitize for the dailies.

And Now…Let’s Get Going Let’s say Wendy and you decide to hire Philip Spring, a young man who worked with the two of you on your last film. You’ve all settled on your salaries, read the script, and set up the cutting room with the NLEs and supplies. Maybe you’ve even met the director to say hello. You’ve checked all the rental equipment and handled any necessary repairs. You’ve worked out the traffic of the dailies, and met everyone who is involved in that process. You’ve spent some time with the script supervisor and the production office coordinator and learned their systems. If you’re lucky, you may have even stopped by the set on the first day of the shoot to have lunch with the crew and put faces to the names on the crew list. The first day’s shooting is complete. It is now Tuesday morning. Your real work is about to begin.

CHAPTER 3 1 Before the Film Begins

25

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4 Shooting The actual process of production is going through tremendous changes today. Crews may be shooting on 16mm or 35mm fi lm, or they may be capturing on video. If they are shooting video (either digital or analog), they may be recording to tape or directly to some kind of computer fi le format. Regardless, everything that we do in the editing room today goes through digital video in some way, no matter what the final finishing format is going to be. The big difference between fi lm and video formats is that film generally moves through a projector at either 24 or 25 frames per second. It is either 16mm, 35mm, or 70mm wide. And that’s it. Video is another story entirely. There are more video formats than any one person can possibly keep track of. There are varying frame rates, such as 23.976, 24, 25, 30; interlaced and progressive display formats; different international standards such as NTSC, PAL, and SECAM; various forms of compression and decompression; and different forms of time codes. In short, it’s overwhelming. Creating a project in one format, when you’ll be working with another (or with more than one), can lead to all sorts of editing issues. Taking a little historical tour of video editing helps put all these formats into a less intimidating perspective.

A Brief History of Video Editing Years ago, when videotape became popular for television storage and viewing, shows were first edited on fi lm in the old-fashioned way and then transferred to video for airing. Eventually, however, some producers (especially of live and news shows) wanted to reduce the expense of finishing on fi lm by shooting and editing that videotape. At first, videotape was edited like film—a razor blade was used to slice the tape into small pieces. The individual strips of videotape were then taped (or spliced) together. There were countless problems with this method. First, because it is impossible to see an image on tape, making edits exactly on the “frame line” was difficult. Second, if the editor

wanted to change a cut, it was hard to splice consecutive frames back together without getting unwanted interference. To solve these problems, clever engineers came up with another way of editing videotape. With this new system you never actually cut the dailies. Instead, you played them back on one machine while simultaneously making a videotape copy on another machine of exactly the section you wanted for that particular edit. (This copying process is called making a transfer; the video copy is called either a transfer or a dub.) Then you found the next shot you wanted and transferred that to the end of the first transferred piece. In this way, you could assemble an entire show without destroying the original tapes. Of course, there were problems with this method. Finding the exact frame lines on which to start and stop transferring the tapes was just as difficult as making physical slices with a razor. Eventually, technicians invented a machine that could find frames and start and stop the copying process with such precision that it produced no visible interference at the point where one shot was cut to another. Another problem with this method was that one piece of videotape looked very much like any other piece. (With celluloid, on the other hand, all sorts of identifying numbers were put on the film.) This lack of identification made it more difficult to recognize and locate particular frames on tape than on fi lm. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE, pronounced “simptee”) solved this problem. SMPTE developed a standard, called SMPTE code, that consists of a special series of numbers electronically recorded on the tape. This number uniquely identified each and every frame in a reel of tape. You could name a particular video frame 3:07:36:19, for example. When combined with a tape number, which you assigned, you could always find a particular frame amidst all the reels that had been shot.

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

Editing with SMPTE Time Code

28

SMPTE numbers are electronic signals, such as 3:07:36:19, buried into the normal video signal. This number is the sequential hour, minute, second, and frame from an assigned starting point. For example, the start mark for reel number three might have the SMPTE code for three hours (3:00:00:00). The first frame of the picture (which would be at eight seconds) would be called 3:00:08:00. The frame with code number 3:07:36:19 would probably run seven minutes, 36 seconds, and 19 frames after that start mark. Now, let me explain the use of “probably.” Video footage numbers run a little different from fi lm footage numbers. For one thing, in the United States, there are 30 frames to each second in video footage. (Film is shot at 24 frames per second in the United States and at 25 frames per second in Europe and elsewhere.) A SMPTE number of 3:07:36:29 would be followed by 3:07:37:00. Also, because of the way SMPTE code and video work, each second of video time is not precisely one second of real time. Thus, a tape that started at 3:00:00:00 and was 9 minutes and 35 seconds long would not end at 3:09:35:00. This was confusing to people who needed to know real-time lengths. As a result, SMPTE developed another code standard that dropped periodic frame numbers so, at the end of 9 minutes and 35 seconds, the SMPTE code numbers would read exactly 3:09:35:00. This type of SMPTE code is known as drop frame code and the original

type of code became known as non-drop frame. Both types of code are still in use today. The code of choice, however, seems to be non-drop frame.

The information in this section is specific to the United States. Video in European

note countries runs at 25 frames per second, which is the same as their film shoot rate.

No matter what type of time code you use, editing systems use the SMPTE code to uniquely identify each frame of video. The editor can then find the exact frames needed for his or her cut points.

Editing Goes Non-Linear

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

With the invention of the electronic editing machine and SMPTE code, many barriers to effective editing on tape began to disappear. But there was still one giant problem: the linearity of the tape medium. Editing on videotape meant that whenever an edit was changed, every single edit after that point needed to be shifted earlier or later in the tape to accommodate that change. Th is enormous time waster often degraded the video quality as well, as editors copied the cuts from one videotape onto another. So the engineers went back and created new editing systems to fi x that problem. This is how they did it. Most of these systems (such as Ediflex, Montage, Touchvision, EditDroid, E-Pix, and Laser Edit) worked by making numerous copies of the dailies tapes, either on videotape or videodisc. These copies were then put into many videotape or disc playing machines that were all connected to a computer. To make an edit, the editor told the computer which frames he or she wanted to edit, say from shot one to shot two. The computer then would tell one of the video machines to play back (without transferring or recording to another tape machine) its copy of shot one until it reached the SMPTE code for the last frame the editor wanted, say 15:26:13:19. At that exact instant, the computer told a second video machine to begin playing from the SMPTE code number of the first frame the editor wanted in shot two (say, 07:53:27:07). This process continued on a shot-by-shot basis until there were no more edits to play back. No tape was recorded until everybody was happy with the sequence. If the director wanted to add ten more frames to the end of shot five, the editor would give the computer that instruction. The computer would then tell the machine playing back shot number five to keep playing for ten more frames before switching over to playing back from the machine with shot six in it. All the machine had to do was add ten frames to the SMPTE code number that it was sending to the machine playing back shot five. The key to making this all work was having enough machines playing identical copies of the dailies. That way, the computer could think far enough ahead so it could have those machines cued up to the exact point where the footage would be needed in four or five or six or seven more edits.

29

This style of editing is called non-linear editing because the fi lm doesn’t have to be edited in a linear fashion, from beginning to end, in order to view it. While it was an ingenious solution, it required a large number of videotape copies of every set of dailies. Editors were slaves to the tape machine speeds. As a result, often the playback of an edit stopped while the computer waited for a videotape machine to get to the proper time code frame to “make the edit.” So, once again, the technical geniuses went to work.

Entering the Digital Era

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

Since the late 1980s, the process has changed so much that we can now avoid using stacks of videotapes entirely. Instead, the picture image on each frame of fi lm is converted into digital images that computers can read. This digitized image and sound is stored on computer hard drives and played back (rather than a video image from tape or videodisc). The computer thinking process is the same as it was in the tape or disc form of non-linear editing, but now the computer controls the locations on hard drives rather than locations on videotapes. Because computer hard drives are much faster than videotape or videodisc machines, the editor no longer has to wait until all the videotapes are cued up in their proper places for playback. Access to any frame is virtually instantaneous. The only weak point of digital non-linear editors is that playing back high-quality images from hard drives is very computer processor-intensive and requires massive amounts of disk drive space. One way to minimize the amount of disk space required to store each frame is to compromise in terms of image quality. The better the quality of the images, the more hard drive space needed to store the images. So, images play back better when they are compressed (or slightly degraded) to fit better through the computer’s input and output channels. With the introduction of high-definition shooting, the desire to edit high-quality images forced the developers of non-linear editing systems to come up with compression/decompression methods (called codecs) that provide better images. It is the assistant editor’s job to become familiar with the details of those codecs before the first frame arrives from the set.

30

Three Primary Workflows There are three paths for how shot footage gets to the editing room, and they are dependent on how it originates on set and what the final delivery format should be. Projects may be shot on fi lm or tape, or using the new tapeless, fi le-based cameras in which footage is captured on a hard drive or a computer card. Projects may be released on fi lm or video, using celluloid, videotape, or digital formats. The resulting paths can be fi lm to fi lm, fi lm to video, or video to video (which is basically the same as video to film). Once you get the material into your NLE, the editor’s editing process is virtually the same, no matter which path the project needs to take. It is up to you, as the assistant, to make sure the digital footage is created properly to make the transition from the initial format to the final release format.

I discuss finishing formats in more detail in Chapter 14, “To the Finish—Ho!!,” but let’s take a look at some of the possibilities. (In the following workflow overviews, I may use a few unfamiliar terms that are described in more detail in later chapters.) Our imaginary fi lm, Silent Night, Silent Cowboy, is taking a typical path for many features and television shows. It is shooting on film—35mm in our case—that will be transferred to videotape for editing and then released in movie theaters on fi lm. Let’s start by discussing that path first.

Film to Film The 35mm fi lm from the first shooting day (Monday) leaves the set and arrives at a lab for processing, where the film negative is developed. After the fi lm is developed, it is prepped and sent to a telecine house, where the film is converted into a video format. On set, each roll of film that goes through the camera is called a camera roll and it is given a unique camera roll number. A typical system for numbering is to start on the first day with camera roll number one and continue sequentially throughout the entire shoot. Many productions shoot with more than one camera. The cameras are indicated by letters such as A, B, and C. On the first day, if production shot three rolls from the A-camera, two from the B-camera, and one from the C-camera, six camera rolls would go to the lab, labeled A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, and C1. Prepping for telecine involves marking the fi lm negatives in such a way that the telecine operator can find a particular frame in the film and link it up in a specific way with the video frame. This is done with key numbers. Figure 4.1 shows the number KK 23 1234 5677. The bar code next to it is readable by the telecine machine.

Figure 4.1 A piece of film with imprinted markings. The dot to the right of the key number identifies the frame associated with that exact key number. (Courtesy Kodak Corporation)

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

Every piece of negative, no matter which manufacturer it is from, has key numbers imprinted when it is created. As the negative is processed, the numbers become visible. Kodak’s Keycode added a tiny bar code on the same edge that can be read by the telecine machine. To make your job easier, the telecine operator looks for a frame that falls exactly on a key number as indicated by a little dot after the actual key number (see Figure 4.1). At the lab, the person prepping the negative for telecine will punch a small hole in the first frame that falls at a key number for each new camera roll (or whenever the key code numbers don’t run sequentially). You can see this hole punch on the third frame in the figure. That frame is then lined up in the telecine machine and aligned with a particular video frame. The fi lm is locked together with the video and they are run in sync, copying each frame of the film onto the video.

31

Of course, it isn’t that easy. The frame rates of film are not the same as in video (especially in the United States) so an adjustment has to be made. Somehow, six new frames of video need to be created for every second of film. Every 24 frames of film needs to be converted to 30 frames of video. This is accomplished by a process called 2:3 pulldown, which takes clever advantage of the fact that each video frame is actually made up of two video fields made up of alternating video scan lines that essentially draw one-half of the image on screen. When this video is projected, the fields are interlaced together, resulting in one complete video frame. Let me explain interlacing a little better. Video images are created by shooting electronic signals onto a surface that displays them as a series of lines drawn on that surface from left to right, one line at a time. Because of the quality of the phosphorous in most televisions at the time these standards were created, engineers decided to shoot them as alternating lines. At first, all the odd lines are shot onto the screen (see Figure 4.2). Then, the even lines are drawn (see Figure 4.3). But because the phosphorous would hold the image for a slight amount of time, the human eye would perceive the image as made up of one complete image (see Figure 4.4). Each time one set of scan lines is drawn, it is called a field.

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

Figure 4.2 To create one full video frame, the odd-numbered scan lines are drawn onto the television screen at first. This creates the video frame’s first field.

32

Figure 4.3 After the first field is drawn, the even-numbered lines are drawn to create the frame’s second field.

Figure 4.4 When we view the two fields together, we perceive both as being drawn at the same time and we see the full video frame.

2:3 Pulldown So, what is the trick to creating these 30 frames of video in each second (made up of 60 fields of video) from the 24 frames of film? The easiest way to think about it is to consider a group of four film frames, which we’ll call the A, B, C, and D frames (and which take up ⁄ of a second). We now need to convert them into five video frames for that same ⁄ of a second. In Figure 4.5, you can see how this is accomplished. The first fi lm frame out of every set of four (called the A-frame) is converted into two video fields, as normal, and this becomes the first video frame. The second film frame, the B-frame, is converted into three fields— the full second video frame and the first field of the third video frame. The third fi lm frame, the C-frame, is converted into two fields—the second field of the third video frame and the first field of the fourth video frame. The fourth film frame, the D-frame, is converted into three fields—the second field of the fourth video frame and the entire fifth video frame.

A

Video fields

B

C

4 FILM frames 24 f/sec

D

A 1

A 2

B 1

B 2

B 3

C 1

C 2

D 1

D 2

D 3

1

2

1

2

3

1

2

1

2

3

4 VIDEO frames 30 f/sec

1

⁄6 of a second

The sequence is then repeated for the next set of four fi lm frames—two fields, three fields, two fields and three fields. This alternating sequence of two and three fields is what gives this conversion process its name—the 2:3 pulldown (also called 3:2 pulldown).*

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

Figure 4.5 The 2:3 pulldown converts four film frames into ten video fields (or fi ve video frames) to adjust for the film rate of 24 fps to video’s 30 fps.

*Other sequences that are used in video are 2:3:3:2, which avoids false frames, and 2:2:2:4. 33

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

34

The problem with this conversion process arises when an editor is working. If the editor happens to cut from the third video frame in the 2:3 sequence to the fourth frame in another 2:3 sequence, the cut actually occurs between two video frames that are made up of a combination of two film frame images. Where, pray tell, should you make the film cut when you attempt to match the film to the editor’s video edit? Because the editor is working in the 30-frame-per-second mode, it is difficult to accurately match back to the 24-frame world. The solution is to take the 30 frames per second video and convert it back into 24 frames per second inside the digital editing machine. As long as we can accurately determine which video frames are which frames of any 2:3 sequence, the computer can easily throw away the artificially created frames. To do this, however, the computer needs to know just which frames on the video are A-frames, which are B-frames, and so on. Actually, it only needs to know the orientation of one of the five video frames for it to deduce the proper order of them all (aren’t computers smart?). Traditionally, the frame used is the A-frame. When the telecine house transfers the fi lm to videotape, normally you request that they make cuts on the A-frames and that they put their A-frames on the “zeroes and fives.” This means that every time they make an edit in the videotape transfer—which will happen whenever they stop and then restart the recording process, usually at each new take— they should make sure the A-frame falls on the time codes ending in either a zero or a five. In other words, if the video frame at time code 1:13:23:05 is an A-frame, then the next A-frame will fall at 1:13:23:10. This is why the lab will prep the negative for telecine at every key number jump by punching that frame, as we saw in Figure 4.1. The telecine operator can easily see what frame contains an actual key number and make sure that it falls on an A-frame. If your telecine house has not put the A-frame on a zero or five, you can still tell which frame is the A-frame by examining the time code burn-in on the videotape. As you rock the videotape forward field by field, the A-frame should have no time code change between the fields. The B-frame, which is made up of three fields, will have no time code change between the first two fields but will have a change between fields two and three. The C-frame will have two fields with a time code change between them. The D-frame, made of three fields, will have a change in between fields one and two, but not between fields two and three. After the film has been converted to video images, the telecine house will go through each take, one by one, and synchronize the sound up to the picture image. This is done in several ways, but the most accurate way is to find the exact frame where the second assistant camera person has clapped the picture slate (see Figure 4.6) and align it with the exact moment on the matching sound track where the slate sound can be heard. This moment is called the first modulation of that sound.

Figure 4.6 A “slate.” The stick at the top pivots, so when it is pushed down onto the slate it makes a distinctive sound that can be easily synchronized with the picture frame where the stick closes.

When the director shoots a particular setup, he or she will shoot it as many times as

note necessary to get the exact combination of acting, camera work, and sound desired.

Each time the scene is shot, from the clapping of the slate through the director’s scream of “Cut!” we call it a take. If take one is not satisfactory, the director will do take two, then take three, until he or she is happy. The next setup will start with take one again.

Once this common synchronization point is found, the rest of the take should match. This process is called synching the dailies. When it is all done, we say the “dailies have been sunk” or “sunk up.” When the telecine house finishes synching the dailies, they either send a tape or a hard drive with the fully sunk-up material to you in the editing room. If they send a tape, it is typically a low-cost tape such as an HDV/DVCam.

Working With Telecined Film

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

For a fi lm-to-fi lm workflow, the next thing to discuss is what sort of information you need to input into your digital editing system. Along with the video dailies from the telecine house, you also should receive some paperwork and some computer fi les (either by e-mail or on a CD-ROM). The paperwork consists of a telecine log and, occasionally, a report of any problems occurring in the telecine (the sound is too loud, a take is out of focus, and so on). You will also receive information that tells the computer how to read the fi le. The data in that fi le is one kind of metadata that your NLE uses to keep track of the digitial fi les.

35

A typical telecine log contains information for every take on the tape including: •

The name of the take (the scene and take number, for example 10-5 for Scene 10 Take 5).

•

The starting and ending time code numbers.

•

The Keycode of the first frame of the take (this is the key number for the take that is automatically read by a machine at the telecine session).

•

The time code of the first frame of sound used (if the on-set sound recordist used a time coded machine; if he or she didn’t, synching at the telecine house will be an expensive nightmare).

•

The camera roll.

•

The sound roll unless the shot was MOS.

•

The date the take was shot.

•

Other assorted information you may or may not need.

MOS refers to a take shot without sound. Legend has it that a German director

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

note referred to those takes as “Mit Out Sound.”

36

Several standard formats are used for these files—FLEx, Evertz, Keyscope, ALE, and ODB. The two most commonly used formats are FLEx and ALE (a proprietary Avid format). Some telecine houses can create logs directly in FLEx and ALE format. Otherwise, you need to translate the fi le into a format appropriate for your system. Since each videotape typically holds up to 60 minutes of dailies, and each tape gets its own FLEx fi le, you may receive several fi les if you have a lot of dailies. The fi les are quite small, so several files can fit on one disc. Every day, a new disc is delivered with your editing tapes. An example of a FLEx fi le is shown in Figure 4.7. You will also get a videotape, typically an HDV/DVCam, with your dailies. Th is tape must be created to very detailed specifications. Figure 4.8, on page 38, shows an example of an order that the postproduction supervisor submits to the telecine house. Once the material arrives at the editing room, check the tapes to ensure that they match the work order. Then, bring the video and audio material from the videotape or hard drive into your NLE. (This process is called digitizing, ingesting, or importing.) As discussed in Chapter 5, “Moving on to Editing,” you will sync the dailies and give them to the editor to cut. The editor starts cutting, and when public screenings (previews) of Silent Night, Silent Cowboy are necessary, the tape used for projection is made from an output of the NLE or from an uprezzed (higher resolution) version of the dailies. The editing process continues with successive rounds of editing and screenings.

000 Manufacturer da Vinci

No. 021 Equip Keylink

Version 8.61

010 Title SILENT NIGHT 011 Client BIG TIME FILMS. Facility TELESINNY HOUSE 012 Shoot Date 09-13-10 Transfer Date 09-14-10 Opr SM Asst

Flex 1004

Bay 6

Edit 0001 to V1234 Field A1 NTSC Split Delay Scene CHART Take 1 Cam Roll A1 Sound MOS Scrpt COLOR CHART IMAGE 35 23.98 A1 005209+00 000015+0 Key EASTM KJ296989 005209+00 P4 VTR-A INSERT SN0027 At 01:00:00:00.0 For 00:00:10:00.0 Using LTC VTR-B INSERT SN0027 At 01:00:00:00.0 For 00:00:10:00.0 Using LTC Cut

100 110 120 200 300 300 400 500

Edit 0002 to V1234 Field A1 NTSC Split Delay Scene 77 Take 1 Cam Roll A1 Sound 1 12:27:16:00.0 Scrpt 77/1 IMAGE 35 23.98 A1 005265+00 000050+12 Key EASTM KJ296989 005265+00 P4 VTR-A INSERT SN0027 At 01:00:10:00.0 For 00:00:33:25.0 Using LTC VTR-B INSERT SN0027 At 01:00:00:00.0 For 00:00:33:25.0 Using LTC SOUND 29.97 fpa 5 At 12:27:16:00.0 For 00:00:33:25.0 Using LTC Cut

100 110 120 200 300 300 400 500

Edit 0003 to V1234 Field A1 NTSC Split Delay Scene 77 Take 2 Cam Roll A1 Sound 1 12:45:23:15.0 Scrpt 77/2 IMAGE 35 23.98 A1 005475+00 000045+04 Key EASTM KJ296989 005475+00 P4 VTR-A INSERT SN0027 At 01:00:43:25.0 For 00:00:30:05.0 Using LTC VTR-B INSERT SN0027 At 01:00:43:25.0 For 00:00:30:05.0 Using LTC SOUND 29.97 fpa 5 At 12:45:23:15.0 For 00:00:30:05.0 Using LTC Cut

100 110 120 200 300 300 400 500

Edit 0004 to V1234 Field A1 NTSC Split Delay Scene 77 Take 3 Cam Roll A1 Sound 1 12:52:15:16.0 Scrpt 77/3 IMAGE 35 23.98 A1 005524+00 000046+00 Key EASTM KJ296989 005524+00 P4 VTR-A INSERT SN0027 At 01:01:14:00.0 For 00:00:30:20.0 Using LTC VTR-B INSERT SN0027 At 01:01:14:00.0 For 00:00:30:20.0 Using LTC SOUND 29.97 fpa 5 At 12:52:15:16.0 For 00:00:30:20.0 Using LTC Cut

100 110 120 200 300 300 400 500

Edit 0005 to V1234 Field A1 NTSC Split Delay Scene 77A Take 2 Cam Roll A1 Sound 1 13:45:16:12.0 Scrpt 77A/2 IMAGE 35 23.98 A1 005572+00 000041+04 Key EASTM KJ296989 005572+00 P4 VTR-A INSERT SN0027 At 01:01:44:20.0 For 00:00:27:15.0 Using LTC VTR-B INSERT SN0027 At 01:01:44:20.0 For 00:00:27:15.0 Using LTC SOUND 29.97 fpa 5 At 13:45:16:12.0 For 00:00:27:15.0 Using LTC Cut

100 110 120 200 300 300 400 500

Edit 0006 to V1234 Field A1 NTSC Split Delay Scene 77B Take 2 Cam Roll A1 Sound 1 14:14:16:00.0 Scrpt 77B/2 IMAGE 35 23.98 A1 005615+00 000043+00 Key EASTM KJ296989 005615+00 P4 VTR-A INSERT SN0027 At 01:02:12:05.0 For 00:00:28:20.0 Using LTC VTR-B INSERT SN0027 At 01:02:12:05.0 For 00:00:28:20.0 Using LTC SOUND 29.97 fpa 5 At 14:14:16:00.0 For 00:00:28:20.0 Using LTC Cut

100 110 120 200 300 300 400 500

Edit 0007 to V1234 Field A1 NTSC Split Delay Scene 77B Take 3 Cam Roll B1 Sound 1 14:24:12:16.0 Scrpt 77B/3 IMAGE 35 23.98 A1 000584+00 000117+08 Key EASTM KM307997 000584+00 P4 VTR-A INSERT SN0027 At 01:00:00:00.0 For 00:01:18:10.0 Using LTC VTR-B INSERT SN0027 At 01:00:00:00.0 For 00:01:18:10.0 Using LTC SOUND 29.97 fpa 5 At 14:24:12:16.0 For 00:01:18:10.0 Using LTC Cut

Figure 4.7 A FLEx file shows every take telecined for digitizing into the NLE along with the metadata that enables you to get back to the original film, if necessary.

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

100 110 120 200 300 300 500

37

BIG TIME FILMS, INC. 3265 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90048 Feature Film: “SILENT NIGHT, SILENT COWBOY” CONTACT: Postproduction Coordinator: Ruth Hochberg (123-456-7890) Assistant Editor: You R. Assistant (123-444-5678 edit, 494-987-4567 cell) SHOW DETAILS: • Production will be in Los Angeles with one week on distant location • Production is shooting 48 days, beginning Monday, Sept. 13, 2010, and ending Nov. 18, 2010 • Production will shoot five-day weeks, Monday through Friday, with one Saturday shoot on Oct. 16, 2010 • There will be approximately 9,000 feet of 35mm film processed per day. We anticipate shooting largely with two cameras. There are presently three days during which more than two cameras will be used. Production will notify telecine house of those days. • 35mm negative (24fps/4perf) will be processed and prepped for telecine at Favorite Film Labs and telecined at Tele Sinny House • Favorite Film will punch each camera roll • Production will shoot a smart slate and recording Fostex with 30fps NDF, 48K, 24-bit, Broadcast WAV files (left channel at -20db, right channel with -30db head tones) TELECINE DETAILS: • Audio files will be delivered to Tele Sinny House each night on DVD-RAM disks, without cartridges. TS will pick up processed and prepped negative at 2 a.m. each morning. Camera reports and purchase order will travel with the negative. • Dailies will be transferred each from from 2:30 a.m. until 8:30 a.m. in Room 6 with colorist Jonathan DeCarlo. All grey scale and color charts should be transferred. • Dailies will be transferred to the following: o HDCam (Dailies Master)
1080 24p 16x9 with best-light dailies color correction
Audio 1 to 1 and 2 to 2 unless otherwise noted on sound report
23.976 NDFTC with time code hour corresponding to tape reel number
Video and audio time code and negative key number embedded in VITC lines 17 through 19 o DVCam (Editor’s Cassette)
16x9 anamorphic with best-light dailies color correction
Same specs as the HDCam Dailies Master plus: • 29.97 NDFTC to address track (matching the 24p HD Master) • Time code windows o Upper left: 24 frame time code o Upper right: 30 frame time code o Upper center: Scene-take number o Lower left: Production Audio time code with Sound Roll number trailing o Lower right: Film Keycode numbers, with Camera Roll number leading • All wild tracks should be transferred last in a given session. • One FLEx file and one ALE will be created for each dailies tape. Both files will be emailed to the editing room at [email protected]. A CD-R with all FLEx and ALE files for each day shall be delivered to the editing room with the final Editor’s Cassette. • All tapes should have the following information on the slate and labels: BIG TIME FILMS, INC. Shooting Date(s) Transfer Date Total Running Time “Silent Night, Silent Cowboy” Time Code Hour Number “NDFTC”

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

DUB DETAILS: • Three DVD dubs with the same specs as the DVDCam Editor’s Cassette, all delivered to the editing room. All dubs should have the following watermark burned into the upper letterbox area: “PROPERTY OF BIG TIMES FILMS, INC.” • One DVCam dub with the same specs as the DVDCam Editor’s Cassette, all delivered to the Production Office, labeled “Marketing Department Copy.” These dubs should have the following watermark burned into the upper letterbox area: “PROPERTY OF BIG TIMES FILMS, INC.—Marketing.”

38

SHIPPING DETAILS: • Editor’s DVCam will be picked up by the client at 9 a.m. each weekday. Call Assistant Editor and Post Supervisor if there will be a delay. • Dubs will be picked up by client at 11:30 a.m. each weekday. Call Post Supervisor if there will be a delay. VAULTING DETAILS: • The film negative, HDCam Dailies Master, and original sound DVD-RAM disks will be vaulted at TSH.

• TSH shall keep copies of all telecine sessions, FLEx files, ALE files in their possession.

Figure 4.8 A work order that a postproduction supervisor sends to a telecine house that specifies exactly what you need.

When the editing is complete, various people create lists that enable you to recreate the edits in high-definition video. This new edited master, called a digital intermediate, is used to create a new fi lm negative. The negative will be matched up with a separately created sound mix to create the print audiences see in theaters. (See Figure 4.9 on page 40 for a chart of this process.) Voilà! Your fi lm is done.

Film to Video The process for film to video (such as for television or home video), shown in Figure 4.10 on page 41, looks similar to the film-to-fi lm path outlined in Figure 4.9. In fact, the process is more or less identical until the final step. The material is telecined, then edited and screened using a lower-resolution video format. This is typically called the offline. When the editing process is complete, an online session is performed. In the online session, a higher-resolution version is created from the original negative and then conformed to match the edited offline. The material is then color corrected and the sound is laid back onto the tape. That becomes the master from which you create all subsequent video copies. In many cases, high-quality (usually HD) offline tapes are created at the telecine stage from all the original dailies as well as the editing HDV/DVCam tapes. This means that it will not be necessary to go back to the negative to create the masters. We discuss all this in more detail in Chapters 5 and 14. So, once we do the layback onto a videotape for the final master, voilà! Your fi lm is done.

Video to Video The third primary workflow is videotape to video or video fi le to video. These are the two workflows chosen by the majority of low-budget films made today, an increasing number of fi lm and television productions, as well as virtually all corporate and event videography. These paths involve capturing in a video format and finishing on video. Let’s take a look at each workflow separately: videotape to video and video fi le to video.

Videotape to Video CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

In the videotape path (see Figure 4.11 on page 42) the original picture tapes and sound files are sent directly to a tape dubbing house where they are converted for use in the editing room. (Usually, audio is captured separately to allow for better quality and control, so you have both picture and sound files.) Because the conversion process usually involves creating a lesser-quality video image, this process is called downconverting. Tape copies are made from this master for editing. On television shows for which the final format exists on tape rather than film, the video master is on a high-quality digital videotape, usually on D-1, D-2, Digital Beta (Digibeta) tape, or HD tape, with a series of SMPTE time code numbers. The viewing and editing tapes made from this master tape (usually HDV/DVCam tapes) have the same time code numbers as the master, making it easy to match back to the high-quality tape at the end of the editorial process.

39

40

Figure 4.9 This chart summarizes a film-to-film workflow with a digital intermediate (DI).

Sound Files Shot

On Set

Pix Neg Shot Process

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

Telecine (MOS or Sunk)

Assistant Syncs/ Sets Up

Dubs Made

UpRez (If Needed)

HD Previews

Editing Complete

Offline Editing Period

Editor Edits

VFX

Sound Mix

Neg Match for DI

Answer Prints Made

Sound Files Shot

On Set

Pix Neg Shot Process

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

Figure 4.10 When a project finishes on tape, the digital intermediate does not need to be created. Instead an online finish is performed. The editing process is called offline.

41

Telecine (MOS or Sunk)

Dubs Made

Assistant Syncs/ Sets Up

HDV/DVCam Tapes

HD Masters

UpRez (If Needed)

HD Previews

Editing Complete

Offline Editing Period

Editor Edits

VFX

Sound Mix

Online from HD

Layback for Final Master

42

Figure 4.11 In the videotape-to-video path, the production captures the action on high-quality video, downconverts it to a lower resolution for editing, and then completes the project using the original videotapes. Downconvert

HD Masters

Sound Files Shot

On Set

HDV/DVCam Tapes

Shoot Video

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

Input into NLE

Assistant Syncs/ Sets Up

Dubs Made

UpRez (If Needed)

HD Previews

Editing Complete

Offline Editing Period

Editor Edits

VFX

Sound Mix

Online from HD

Layback for Final Master

This editorial tape is input into the digital editing system. Screenings are usually produced from a direct output from the editing system, although occasionally an EDL (edit decision list) is made of the editor’s cut. We discuss EDLs in the next chapter, but for now you should know that an EDL is used to exactly recreate a cut using the master tapes (instead of the editing tapes). After every screening—and there can be many—changes are made using the NLE. At the completion of the editing process, a picture EDL is generated to recreate the editor’s work on the master tapes. This edited master is color corrected and the polished sound is laid onto it. Voilà! Your fi lm is done.

Edit Decision List (EDL) A list generated by the computer on which an off-line video edit has been made. It lists all the cuts (called events), titles, and transitions; the type of cut (for example, picture only, track only, both); and all the pertinent time code information from the footage.

Video Files to Video

Dealing with Metadata Metadata is information stored with digital fi les that indicates details such as who created the fi les and when they were made. Metadata is important when ingesting video because it maintains the link between each frame of video and its matching frames of fi lm and sound.

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

The final workflow we’ll talk about (see Figure 4.12 on page 44) is coming into play more and more at all levels of fi lmmaking. In this workflow, the original shoot is not recorded onto fi lm or tape, but directly onto some kind of computer fi le and stored either on a hard drive or on some kind of storage card. The format might be compressed video such as P2 or HDCam EX, and the footage is delivered to the editing room on memory cards. Or, a production might use a higher-resolution format such as those produced using the RED, Viper, Sony F35, or Phantom cameras. This footage is usually delivered on hard drives. Since no videotape is involved, this is often called tapeless acquisition. With no tape on set, the fi les can (with some work) be copied into your NLE for editing. Generally, you will need to transcode the footage from the capture format to an editable format that can be used with your editing system. After transcoding, the video and audio fi les can be copied quickly into your NLE where they can be sunk as normal. At that point, the editor will edit as in any other workflow. At the end of the process, all the color correction can be with digital files—no tapes. When that is done, it is typical to transfer the final, color-corrected film onto a high-end tape format for duplication and distribution. (In the future, with digital delivery to theaters, this might change as well.) Voilà! Your fi lm is done.

43

Sound Files Shot

On Set

Shoot Tapeless

DIT Makes File Copies on Set

Input into NLE

Original Files

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

Transcoded Files

44

Figure 4.12 When a production shoots in a tapeless video format, no tapes need to be made to get the video into the NLE. However, the files may need to be transcoded to work properly. Assistant Syncs/ Sets Up

Dubs Made

UpRez (If Needed)

HD Previews

Editing Complete

Offline Editing Period

Editor Edits

VFX

Sound Mix

Online from HD

Copy to Tape

Layback for Final Master

The computer maintains a record of this link throughout the editing process; when you convert your digitally edited sequence back into film, it is a simple matter for it to convert the time code numbers into the proper film and sound numbers for matching. This data comes to you in two ways. The first is as data, embedded in the video file or a separate file (such as the FLEx file). Time code data is sometimes stored on spare, non-viewable, areas of videotapes. The information is usually placed in two locations: on the Longitudinal Time Code (LTC) area, sometimes called the address track, and in the Vertical Interval Time Code area (VITC), which is a number of scan lines that are not used for the picture. The information is also placed visually—on the picture you will input into the computer for the editor to cut. This is called a burn-in because the numbers are burned on top of the picture, obliterating the image underneath. Sometimes, on wider-screen films, the numbers are placed in the black bands at the top and bottom of the picture, the letterboxing (see Figure 4.13). Various amounts of information can be burned in. In the example here, you see both 30 fps and 24 fps time codes at the top with the scene and take in between. In the lower band, there is the audio time code, sound roll, camera roll number, and key number. The burn-ins should be large enough to be read easily without blocking out too much of the picture. You can choose where to place the information. Some editors like to place all the information on two lines across the bottom or top of the picture. Others like to split it between one line at the top of the picture and one at the bottom. No matter how your editor likes it, be sure the telecine house is clear about the details before it makes the first day’s transfers. It is better to have the dailies consistent. 30 frame time code

Set-up and take

24 frame time code

Audio time code

Sound roll number

Camera roll number

Key number

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

Figure 4.13 A frame from Silent Night, Silent Cowboy that shows the various burn-in codes requested in the work order.

45

On feature fi lms, the letterboxing (shown in Figure 4.13) simulates the 1.85:1 aspect ratio that the fi lm will be projected at in the theaters. Black bars are placed at the top and bottom of the video frame, precisely where the theater projector will cut off the fi lm image. With these markings, the editor can get a good sense of just what the audience will see. If there is a microphone hanging at the top of the frame, she only sees it if the audience will see it, too. This does create some difficulty if the editor needs to see the picture out of the 1.85 area, so some editors (myself included) would rather get our telecine full frame and add the letterboxing in our NLEs. Th is will place the burn-ins on top of the visible picture area. In that case, it’s a good idea to place them as high as possible, without putting them out of the visible picture area.

Aspect ratio, such as 1.85:1 (read as “1.85 to one”) or 1.78:1, refers to the ratio

note between the picture’s width and its height. Most movies today are released in 1.85:1. High-definition films and television are often released at 16x9 (read as “16 by nine”), which translates into 1.78:1. Widescreen is typically 2.35:1.

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

Notice from the work order (Figure 4.8) that the production company asked for one master tape to be struck from the original film negative—the dailies master. This is a highquality HDCam tape that will be used at the end to create a high-quality edit of the film. But the editor will not want to edit from this tape because it takes too much hard drive space and is too taxing on the editing computer. So the production also requested that an HDV/ DVCam tape be made simultaneously with the master tape (a simo cassette). This enables the editor to edit with all the burn-ins shown in Figure 4.13, and make work easier for the sound, music, and online editors who will complete the fi lm after picture lock. A number of other tapes or DVDs are created at this time as well. Three DVDs were made (probably for the producers, the director, and the studio) and one HDV/DVCam dub for the studio’s marketing department. Some productions insist that each viewing cassette be labeled and burned-in with the name of the person who is receiving it. This is to protect against illegal duplication of tapes. Make sure you receive your editing room tape as early as possible—even if you or your apprentice, Phillip, need to go get it yourselves.

46

Preparing Dailies Every day after shooting, you will either pick up or receive three different packages from three different locations. Your job will be to take this material and put it together in a way that everyone on the production can see their work from the previous day’s shoot. Whether you all look at them together at a screening or individually on DVD, this material is called the dailies since it allows everyone to see their work on a daily basis.

From the telecine house, you will get the dailies and their accompanying paperwork. You will also get the sound fi les and their paperwork from the sound house. Finally, you will receive a copy of the script supervisor’s notes from the production office. Every assistant starts at a different time, depending on when the fi lm and track comes in, but during dailies you can count on starting anywhere between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m.

From the Telecine House

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

The paperwork that comes with the picture dailies HDV/DVCam tape should include the telecine report and the camera report (sometimes, the camera reports come from the production office rather than the lab). In addition, you should get a FLEx fi le, one for each tape roll of dailies. If there is anything wrong with the printed dailies, the customer contact person at the lab should give you a verbal report (a negative report). Often, the lab will have already notified the director of photography and, perhaps, the producer if there is something drastically wrong with the footage. However, for small scratches, dirt, or other minor problems, you may be the only one to know at this point. Be sure to determine if the problem is correctable. The camera report you receive is written by the second assistant cameraperson on the set (see Figure 4.14 on the next page). It lists a lot of information helpful to the lab and a few useful tidbits for you. For starters, it shows everything shot the day before, camera roll by camera roll, including the scene number, set-up letter, and take number. Takes that your director, Adam Free, selected for editing are circled on the report. These takes are also called printed takes after the old practice when only circled takes were printed to 35mm film from the negative. Today, they denote the takes the director wants transferred to video at the telecine house. Even if all the takes are going to be telecined (which often happens when the assistant editor is synching dailies rather than the telecine house), it is still good practice to circle takes because the studio may request to see only the director’s preferred takes on their DVDs. On top of the camera report, you’ll find two pieces of important information: the shooting date (in this case Sept. 13, 2010) and the camera roll number (the cumulative count of rolls shot over the entire movie shoot; since this is the first roll shot on the first day it is called camera roll number one). Each camera roll takes up one or two sheets, depending on how many takes were shot on that roll. The camera report never includes data for more than one camera roll. If you are shooting with multiple cameras, the camera letter is usually added to the beginning of the roll number—the fifth roll from the “A camera” would be called A5, the twentieth from the “B camera” would be B20, for example. After processing the original negative, a negative assembly person at the lab pulls out the negatives of the circled takes and strings them all together. The lab then puts these takes onto the roll of developed negative that is going to telecine to be transferred to tape. The remaining nonprinted takes—called B-negative—are stored for possible later use, usually at the lab.

47

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

48

Figure 4.14 A camera report listing the first day’s shoot for Silent Night, Silent Cowboy. Note that only certain takes are selected.

In addition to the telecine, the camera reports, final tapes, and their FLEx fi les are sent to you. If you had the telecine house sync the dailies, it will also send you a sound report. If you will be synching dailies in the editing room, then the sound fi les (usually transferred onto a hard drive at a sound transfer house) and the sound report will be sent to you from somewhere. Long before the first day, figure out who will be sending the sound materials to you and when.

From the Sound Transfer House The sound report is analogous to the camera report—it lists all recorded takes and indicates (by circling the take number) which takes you want. The takes should be the same ones listed on the camera report. It also lists the sound roll number (the cumulative roll number for the original quarter-inch tape reel the sound has been recorded on), the date of recording, and any special notes in the Remarks column (see Figure 4.15). It will also, typically, show what was recorded on each track of the fi les.

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

49 Figure 4.15 This sound report shows the sound takes made on sound roll number one along with the takes that were selected. It also shows what was recorded on each of the four tracks on the recorder.

The sound dailies arrive in any number of formats—but the most common is a BWF file (Broadcast WAV Format). Some sound reports list the starting time code of the recorder. Notice in Figure 4.15 that the recordists used three out of the four available tracks (columns 1 through 4) on his recorder. On the first, he created a mix of all the microphones in use. On the second, he recorded a clean version of the first boom mic, on the third track he put the second boom mic. He left the fourth channel empty. Some recordists use this track to record another track of the mix, but at a lower volume. That way, if the digital sound gets too loud and cuts out, there will be a lower-volume recording that might still be usable.

From the Production Office Assistants also get daily paperwork from the production office. Generally, they will send you each day’s call sheets (lists of every scene planned for shooting on that day, as well as the lists of cast and crew used) and any revised script pages. You will insert these revised pages into the editor’s master script, and hang the call sheets on a clipboard or put them in a three-ring notebook.

I like to put all the paperwork in a book so it’s easy to find. Some assistants like to put

tip all the sound reports together, all the camera reports together, and so on. Others

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

like to group all the paperwork from each day’s shoot together. It is up to you.

50

The production office will send you several important pieces of paperwork from your script supervisor as well. One is called the editor’s daily log, although your script supervisor may use other jargon. This log (see Figure 4.16) lists every picture and sound take the director selected in the order the takes were shot, which is the order you will normally be receiving them. It also lists camera and sound rolls as well as short descriptions of each setup. This information can be your guide as to exactly which picture and sound takes should be delivered to you. If there is anything missing, you can quickly order it and get it in time for the dailies screening. In the report, some script supervisors list everything that was shot and circle the selected takes. Others list only the selected takes. Find out what the script supervisor plans to send you and make sure that it is clear before the first day of shooting. The final, but crucial, pieces of paperwork you will receive are the script supervisor’s notes. These pages consist of the lined script, or script pages the supervisor has drawn lines on to denote just what lines are covered by which takes (see Figure 4.17 on page 52 and Figure 4.18 on page 53), as well as the script notes, Figure 4.19, on page 54. This paperwork, along with the editor’s daily log, is often the only real link you have with the director. You will soon find that there are as many systems for script supervisors as there are for assistant editors. Every person seems to have his or her own paperwork form. Often, you will receive more paperwork than discussed here, some of which will be useful and some of it completely superfluous to your job. Familiarize yourself with the type of notes the script supervisor plans to send before shooting begins—they are all interesting, but you won’t have a lot of time to peruse them during the busy synching period.

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

Figure 4.16 The editor’s daily log, sent by the script supervisor, is the ultimate arbiter for what was shot and selected each day.

51

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

52

Figure 4.17 The first of two pages of lined script. Every piece of coverage is shown against the lines of dialogue and action they cover. The arrows at the bottom indicate that those setups continue on the next page.

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

Figure 4.18 The second page of the lined script.

53

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

54

Figure 4.19 The script supervisor’s notes page or facing page gives details of every take shot in scene order.

Insert the lined script pages into a three-ring binder, and place the notes pages opposite them so that they face the page of the script where the coverage begins. When you receive all this paperwork, the first thing you need do is to compare it to make sure everything that was supposed to be printed was actually printed. You may be surprised to find out how often things go wrong, either because the second assistant camera person or assistant sound person didn’t circle the proper takes, or because the lab or sound house made an error. If there is any discrepancy, you should immediately call the telecine or sound house to get it corrected. Up until now, you’ve done a lot of paper pushing and haven’t even touched the dailies. Finally, you can do that (about time, huh?). Assuming that the last of the paperwork arrived by 8:30 a.m. (something that almost never happens, but let’s make believe), by 9:15 you should have had your morning coffee, chatted with the crew of the film down the hall, checked out all the paperwork, and are now ready to proceed. Let’s sync the dailies.

Synching Dailies Most fi lm and television projects have their dailies sunk up at the telecine house, so you may be able to skip this process. In that case, you can skip ahead to the “Working With Dailies Sunk in Telecine” section. If you will be synching the dailies, you will want to organize your material to make this easier.

Organizing Materials After you’ve checked all the paperwork, you can start to organize the dailies. Directors have different organizational preferences: Organize the dailies according to script order, so that Scene 11 always comes after Scene 10, no matter what the shooting order was.

•

Arrange the dailies in the order in which the fi lm was shot, which helps the director remember the day better.

•

Organize according to which camera the takes are from (when multiple cameras are used). For example, the director might like to see all the shots from Camera A then Camera B for the same setup. So 10A-1 “A” is followed by 10A-2 “A” and 10A-3 “A,” then 10A-1 “B” and so on. Or, the director might like to organize it so 10A-1 “A” is immediately followed by 10A-1 “B.”

•

Some directors don’t care about the order—they screen it in the order that it comes from the telecine house.

Before the first day of dailies, ask the editor how to organize the dailies. I like to create a series of folders in my NLE to group the original material received in the morning. I’ll label one folder “Dailies Tapes,” a second “Sound Files,” and the third “Dailies Sunk.” Notice how clear these designations are. In this way, if I am sick one day, then a replacement can easily jump into the process and keep things organized in the same way that I do.

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•

55

A good rule of thumb for organizing anything is to create a system that will be clear

tip to someone coming in to the editing room without any preparation.

Now, let’s start to sync the dailies.

Creating the Sequence and Leader To create a sequence for the dailies, use your NLE’s timeline and include all the dailies for the previous day. At the top of the sequence, place one minute of bars and tone. If you follow the instructions in Chapter 3, “Before the Film Begins,” you should have this ready in your standard elements bin. I then cut in 10 seconds of black, followed by 10 seconds of a slate, which includes all the crucial information for the day (see Figure 4.20), including contact information for you.

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

Figure 4.20 Place ten seconds of slate at the top of each roll of dailies.

56

After the slate, add another 10 seconds of black, followed by an Academy Countdown Leader at the beginning of the sequence. This leader, with its 8-7-6-5-4-3-2 sequence, should have a one-frame long 1000Hz sound tone (called a pop or a beep) at the exact frame where the number “2” appears.

Synching the Dailies In general, do not remove anything from the picture roll in case someone needs to see it. Some things, however, are clearly not needed. You can cut off portions of the picture before or after the takes that are completely clear or black. Cut off long pieces at the end of takes where the assistant cameraperson has put his or her hand over the lens. Do not cut out, unless asked, color cards, gray scales, or pauses at the end of takes where the actors are still visible. On Fame, one take was going badly for one of the actresses. She stopped in the middle of the take and waved for the director to cut. Later on, the editor, Gerry Hambling, was able to use that wave to make another story point. If I had thrown away this “bad” part of the take, he wouldn’t have known it existed on the negative—and he would have lost the solution to the problem with that scene.

24 vs. 30 Frame Projects Before you begin digitizing your first dailies, you need to make one irrevocable decision— at what frame rate to input the footage. Earlier in this chapter, you learned about the 2:3 pulldown. Remember that in the United States fi lm is projected at 24 frames per second (fps) and video is projected at approximately 30 fps. This creates certain problems in converting from one frame rate to another as you digitize the 30 frames per second video dailies. If your project will end up back on fi lm, you need to digitize and edit the fi lm at 24 fps since that is how it will be distributed. With television shows and web videos, this issue is a little trickier. Normally, it would make sense to edit the film in 30 fps since that is how the project will be shown. That way, only one conversion is necessary—when the original fi lm is digitized. Your 30 fps digitized material would directly match your 30 fps final edited master. However, some networks and web companies are asking for delivery in 24 fps formats because of the growth of 24 fps high definition. In that case, you will most likely edit in a 24 fps project (sometimes called a film project).

Finding Sync Points

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

When you sync dailies, you are combining the picture and sound files so that people’s mouths move at the same time they are talking. Th is involves finding a common point between each take of the picture and audio, and then telling your NLE to combine the takes. There are several ways to do this (see Figure 4.21 on the next page), including using either the in or out marks (also called in and out points) as the common sync points.

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CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

Figure 4.21 In Final Cut Pro, you sync dailies by finding a frame with a common sync point and merging the clips. This example uses the in points, which you’ve already marked in the picture and the audio, as the common point.

If the picture and sound have the same time code (created using a process called jam sync on set, where the camera and sound recorder are linked up with a smart slate that displays the time code), then the work is very easy. However, it is likely that you won’t be working with a smart slate. In that case, you need to find the sync point by looking at and listening to the dailies. The best sync point is the exact moment when the slate closes. Th is provides a clear picture frame and a definitive audio frame that you can easily see when you turn on the waveforms as in Figure 4.22. If you mark these matching moments with in or out points, then use the Merge Clips (Final Cut Pro) or Group Clips (Avid) command, and a new clip will be created with the audio and video sunk up. Continue this process until all the takes are sunk.

On some takes, you may see a blurry tail on the closed slate. This happens when the

tip camera’s aperture is open as the slate is actually closing. If you see this, use the next frame that is not blurry.

58

Waveforms on Audio Track 1 and 2

Figure 4.22 A sample of two tracks on a sequence’s timeline, with the waveform visible.

At this point, you can add an Academy Tail Leader, with its own pop, two seconds after the last frame of your dailies. In general, leave the MOS takes completely silent. Sometimes the sound recordist will take some wild sound (that is, sound for which there is no picture). Generally, these wild tracks are added to the end of the dailies or left out of the synching process entirely. Check with the editor to see what she wants to do with them.

Working with Dailies Sunk in Telecine Often, the dailies are sunk by the telecine house. This greatly simplifies your work and makes the dailies available much earlier. Nearly every decent budget film and television show that is shot as a double system (with separate picture and sound) has the telecine house sync their dailies for that reason. However, this doesn’t mean that you have nothing to do. You need to check the following: •

Make sure the telecine house transferred everything listed on the script supervisor’s notes (in particular, the editor’s log) and the camera and sound reports.

•

Check the accuracy of FLEx fi les as well.

•

Make sure the information for every take is correct.

If multiple cameras were used on the set, you probably need to add the designations for A and B cameras to the end of the scene and take number (for example, 34-2A or 34-2B). Most telecine operators don’t bother to write the camera designations in the name portion of the file. Confirm that the telecine house sunk the dailies correctly. I often find that their work is not as precise as mine. In that case, you need to re-sync the material using the method described in the previous section.

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•

59

CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

Checking Your Work

60

Don’t let anything leave your editing room without checking it for accuracy. For example, the assistant cameraperson on the set might have clapped the slate a second time (this is called second sticks and is, ideally, noted on the script supervisor’s notes as well as the camera and sound reports), but you might have accidentally sunk the picture up to the first clap. Screening the dailies once, all the way through, will ensure that nobody else sees a mistake. Checking the dailies also gives you the first real look at any problems inherent in the footage. If there is anything serious that hasn’t come to your attention by now, a viewing will bring it to your attention. And let us not forget the importance of listening to the dailies as well—preferably with headphones. As you watch the dailies, keep the script supervisor’s notes nearby for reference as well as your own lists of what is on each dailies roll. Once the dailies themselves are ready, you need to create the editor’s dailies notes sheets for the editor (see Figure 4.23). Some editors like these notes on loose-leaf paper and some prefer spiral notebooks, but the basic concept remains the same. At the top of the page is the dailies roll number and the date of shooting. Following each take on the roll is a short description of the shot. Leave room for the editor and director to make notes during the dailies screening. Your description should be fairly short and standardized. List the size of the shot (WS for wide shot, CU for close-up, and so on) and a description that identifies it for the editor (master, dolly to CU of ABBY, and so on). You can decide what to write as you watch the Figure 4.23 A page from the editor’s dailies notes for the editor shot, using the script supervito use at the dailies screening with the director. sor’s notes if necessary. As you watch the dailies, confirm that everything is in perfect sync.

Many editors like to have their assistants break to a new page when a new scene starts. That way, when they are finished watching dailies, the sheets can be separated and placed into a large three-ring binder along with the dailies notes from the previous days, in scene order. It is easier for editors to find notes organized by scene order than in the order of the dailies reels. As you do this, make sure your video burn-ins are placed properly on the screen and that every A-frame is on a zero or a five frame (if your editing machine requires that). Be sure to compare the visual burn-in codes (the video and audio time codes, as well as the key numbers) at the start and end of every take against the numbers your NLE says are at those frames. They should match exactly. When you’re finished with all this, you’ve finished synching the dailies.

Screening Film In rare cases, the production company will ask to screen a film of the dailies rather than a videotape. Or, it might want to screen the HD master tape rather than the sunk footage created in your NLE. In these cases, you will actually screen your fi lm or HD tape, running in sync with your sunk audio. Some facilities allow you to screen the material directly from your NLE. Others require you to output your dailies sequence to a tape (either audio or video) that can be locked together with the film or HD tape. Since you will have little or no ability to edit those formats, make sure that you do not remove or change the order of anything in the dailies. Ensure that the order in which you are synching (down to the exact number of frames between takes) is exactly the same as your HDV/DVCam tapes.

Screening Dailies

Creating Viewable DVDs On a higher-budget fi lm, the assistant is not likely to create the DVDs for the producers, director, studio executives, and others. Instead, you will do a playout to tape, or create one DVD. All the necessary DVDs will be generated from that copy—along with the appropriate visual watermarking that allows the studio to trace the footage if it ends up on the Internet.

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Sadly, all too few projects screen dailies with the crew anymore. There is a great deal of value in screening dailies—the director can give immediate feedback to the editor on takes; the director of photography and production designer can see how their work is translating to the fi lm; and everyone gets to talk with each other, which tends to help communication. Unfortunately, the group screenings happen infrequently these days. Instead, you will spend much of the rest of your day creating DVDs for everyone to take home.

61

On a low-budget film, however, far fewer DVDs are necessary, and you will often be responsible for creating them. The typical process for creating DVDs involves exporting a QuickTime movie from your dailies sequence and then dragging that movie into iDVD, DVD Studio Pro, Sonic, or some other DVD creation program. To make the footage fit on the DVD, you may need to compress the file using a program such as Compressor or Sorenson Squeeze.

Many studios now ask you to upload QuickTime movies to a server for executives to

note watch. This saves the time and expense of creating DVDs, and it provides quicker access to dailies when films are edited remotely.

Ask the production office for a list of how many DVDs to create and where to deliver them. Be sure to factor enough time into your day to create the DVDs along with appropriate labeling. For most documentaries, a transcription service needs a DVD of the dailies as well. These services precisely transcribe all the interviews and spoken words in the dailies; editors and producers find the transcription essential to preparing for the editing process.

Attending the Screening Later that day the editorial crew and much of the production crew will march into a screening room to watch the first day’s dailies. You, however, need to arrive 10 or 15 minutes before the scheduled time to make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible. There are many ways to screen dailies. Some productions screen directly from the NLE, so you will need to bring a hard drive with that day’s dailies to the screening room. Other productions output the dailies sequence to a videotape of some kind. Still others screen the QuickTime movie from a DVD or server.

If you create a Blu-ray DVD, you will be able to screen much more material at

tip a higher resolution. To do this, you need to be able to record a Blu-ray disc in the CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

editing room and play it back in the screening room.

62

Seating preferences at the dailies vary from fi lm to fi lm. I’ve worked on movies where the director opens the dailies to anyone who wants to come, and I’ve worked on some where the attendance is very restricted. Some directors prefer that everyone sit in the same places every day; some don’t really give a hoot. The most important thing for you, as the assistant, is to be near the sound level controls (if you’re going to be working them), the intercom, and the projectionist so you can relay the seemingly endless stream of instructions up to him or her.

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Some directors like the assistant or the editor to call out the number of prints of each setup as they are screened (for example, “Scene ten master, two takes”). Ask the editor what the director will want. Once everyone arrives and the doors close, someone (guess who?) will signal the projectionist to begin. Every person in the room will look at the fi lm for his or her own reasons. The camera crew watches to be sure the fi lm was shot and printed correctly. The sound crew listens for sound problems. Costume and makeup people look for problems such as messed up hair or a poorly folded handkerchief. In fact, the only people who look at the fi lm as a whole are the three people whose jobs depend on it—the director, the producer, and the editor. This puts you in a very interesting spot. For one thing, you need to notice all the things that the other people are noticing individually. It is important that the star’s handkerchief matches from shot to shot. It is also important to remember which shots have lousy sound or focus problems. (These issues are usually difficult to see on the editing machine and, if you will be cutting on a digital editing system, they will be impossible to see.) It is also important to note which shots have the best performances, and which are the most consistent with each other. All these things are important to the editing of the fi lm and the editor should be taking careful note of all of them. Yet, very often, it is the assistant that ends up taking notes on technical problems and the like so they can be recorded on all the paperwork. You will often need to pass along comments to the lab or telecine house for the editor. There’s also a good chance that, at some point during the editing, the editor will turn to you and say something like, “Remember the shot that had the bump in the middle of the dolly?” To find it, it helps if you take your own notes during dailies screenings. And since you’ll never write it down if you don’t notice it first, pay attention at dailies. While you take notes, the editor will take notes on the editor’s dailies notes worksheets you created. The editor is likely seated next to the director, who offers feedback on what he likes best—and least. Some directors prefer to be there when the editor does the first cut, but the usual practice is for the editor to cut day by day as the crew shoots. Adam’s notes on likes and dislikes—and why—is very helpful to Wendy as she cuts the footage. When the screening is over, collect all the paperwork and tapes (or other media) and take it back to the editing room. Your footage is too important to risk being misplaced by screening room personnel who may not really care about your troubles (they probably have more fi lms coming in after yours anyway). Unless you feel 100 percent sure that the dailies will return to you safely, always return it to the editing room yourself. At this point, Adam and Wendy head to the production office to discuss the footage or the next day’s coverage (and, presumably, a dozen other department heads, all of whom need to know some crucial information in order to plan for the future). You and any assistants you have bring the material back to the editing room and get it ready for the editor’s needs the next day.

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CHAPTER 4 1 Shooting

One final word about dailies screenings. Many production managers, in their desire to be thrifty, think that banning editorial assistants and apprentices from dailies during evening overtime hours is a good way to save money. The truth, however, is exactly the opposite. The more you and your assistants know the film, the more help you will be to the editor in the editing room. In the long run, this saves a lot of time and money. There is no better way to examine the fi lm than to see it on a large screen. In addition, there is the human side of things. You will work with these people for months, maybe even a year or more. There is no faster way to alienate people than to ban them from the screening of a project they are working on. Besides, if your assistant comes, that person can help you get all the film back to the cutting room after the screening.

64

5 Moving on to Editing A tip in the last chapter is so valuable that I want to repeat it here: “As an assistant editor, you should organize the editing room so that everything will be clear to anyone coming into the room without any preparation.” In other words, if you got run over by a truck today, would your replacement be able to take over with minimal confusion? Believe it or not, a large part of your job in the editing room is to make sure you are replaceable. If you’re not around when Wendy needs something, she should be able to find it. If you’re sick one day and Philip can’t step into your shoes, a replacement should be able to find anything without much trouble. Your organization should be clear, obvious, and simple, no matter how complex the fi lm. Your first step towards that goal is organizing your folders and bins.

Organizing the Footage After you’ve sunk the dailies, you’ll store them in a few bins that contain everything from each day’s worth of shooting. Now, you need to organize them in a way that will allow Wendy to work efficiently. The basic organization of the footage depends on the type of film you are working on. A documentary requires a different setup than a music video, which requires a different setup than a scripted fi lm. So, we will examine how you might organize the footage on a feature fi lm such as Silent Night, Silent Cowboy. Note that the way the material is organized in your NLE should reflect what Wendy wants. Every editor wants his or her material set up differently, and you should make sure that you know what Wendy wants before the first dailies roll in.

Categories You’ll be handling many different types of footage. The following list is typical of a production such as our fictional example, Silent Night, Silent Cowboy.

•

Original picture fi les

•

Sound effects

•

Original sound fi les

•

•

Sunk dailies in the order watched at dailies

Standard elements—such as leaders, bars and tone, et al.

•

Still images—stock photos, perhaps

•

Dailies organized by scene numbers

•

Wild track

•

Stock footage—video

•

Edits

•

Titles—temp

•

Alternative edits

•

Titles—final

•

DVD extras

•

Visual effects

•

Music

•

Voiceover

In addition, many editors like to separate material for the gag reel, which is often played at the production’s wrap party. With the increasing importance of additional material for DVDs, most assistants keep a folder of deleted scenes as well.

CHAPTER 5 1 Moving on to Editing

Setting Up the Folders

66

Most NLE software is based on a combination of computer metaphors and old 35mm film metaphors. In film systems, rolls of individual takes or setups were placed into large green bins. After editing a particular sequence, the footage from these bins was stored on metal shelves that fit into large racks. Thus, all of the takes for Scene 10 were stored in a bin devoted to Scene 10. This footage was then stored on a shelf for Scenes 1 through 12, for example, within a rack for all the dailies. Other racks were devoted to shelves and bins for wild tracks or music or stock footage. Still others might contain the edited footage for the picture and sound for reels 1 through 5. Most professional NLE systems work in way that is analogous to this old method. Individual takes (called clips or subclips) are stored inside bins. A bin for Scene 10, for instance, can be grouped with other bins into a subfolder for Scenes 1 through 12. The subfolders for all a film’s dailies can be placed in a large folder for all the dailies. You can create other folders to contain bins for wild tracks, music, and stock footage. Pretty similar, eh? Figure 5.1 shows a possible organizational structure for Silent Night, Silent Cowboy. The structure has the following features: •

Inside each folder is a series of bins that contain the footage clips.

•

In some cases, such as the folder --SCENE BINS, the footage is further subdivided into multiple folders to prevent the project window from becoming too cluttered.

•

The subfolders subdivide the scene dailies into groups—Scenes 1–10, Scenes 11–20, and Scenes 21–30, and so on.

•

Each bin inside the subdivided folders is named with the scene number and a short description of the scene. This makes it easier to identify each bin by sight in case you forget the scene numbers.

It’s a good idea to create several bins inside the sound effects folder (SFX) to separate different types of effects. Depending on the project, you might find yourself working with general backgrounds, cars, guns, machinery, animals, and many other types of sounds. If you put each sound effect into its appropriate bin (or several bins, if they fit in multiple categories), then it will be much easier for Wendy and others to find them once they’ve amassed 200 or more sound effects.

The Beauty of Digital Editing Systems Digital editing systems make it possible to organize footage in very flexible ways. Each entry in each folder and bin, such as the one for 10-5 or 10-6, doesn’t contain the actual footage. Instead, it contains a computer instruction that points to the location of that scene on the drive where you keep the footage. This means that you can have an entry for 10-5 in two or three bins, and it wouldn’t take up double or triple the disk space. Each entry in the different bins is simply a pointer to the same exact footage. This feature is invaluable when you are preparing footage shot for a montage or material for a documentary. You might want to have the same interview with three people appear in three bins, one for each interviewee. Or, you might want to put all the material containing rivers into one bin, and all the footage with factories in another. Shots that contain both rivers and factories could be inserted into both bins.

Figure 5.1 A sample project window from Avid Media Composer. The dailies for Scene 10 are inside a folder for Scenes 1 through 10, which is inside the overall 001-010 folder in the Dailies folder.

CHAPTER 5 1 Moving on to Editing

Use the NLE’s organizational features to create a sensible structure that enables Wendy to find footage in the way she prefers. If you want a folder to appear higher in the project window, precede its name with a symbol, such as a hyphen or an asterisk. These will automatically sort to the top of the list. In the sample, you’ll notice a folder called zASSISTANT near the bottom of the window. (The folder name is preceded by the letter “z” so it sorts towards the bottom of the list.) This folder contains folders and bins that Wendy doesn’t need to see—such as the original dailies files and the original sunk dailies rolls. Sometimes, it is necessary to go back to the dailies and re-digitize takes, so it is helpful to keep the dailies in their original order somewhere on the computer.

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Organizing Your Files into Folders

CHAPTER 5 1 Moving on to Editing

How does your folder structure work in practice, you ask? In the zASSISTANT folder, create a folder that contains all the bins from the dailies screening. In the --SCENE BINS folder, create scene bins from which Wendy will be editing. Create a bin for each scene in the film. To assure that the scenes are alphabetized in the proper order by the NLE, number them all with three digits. For example, label Scene 1 as Scene 001, Scene 23 as Scene 023, and Scene 140 as Scene 140. Some assistants simply use the number and a short description of the scene, such as 037 Phone Call Home. Make a bin with copies of all the dailies clips for that day (you might call it Temp Dailies). This bin will be temporary because you move each of the shots, including its wild track, from it into the bins for each scene. For example, grab all the shots for Scene 10 from the Temp Dailies bin, and move them all to the Sc 10 bin. All the shots for Scene 11 in the Temp Dailies bin go to the separate Sc 11 bin. After you do that for all the scenes in a day’s dailies, the Temp Dailies bin will be empty. If any shots are left over, you haven’t properly organized everything. If the footage from any particular scene is shot over several days, transfer everything from that scene into the same scene bin. That way, Wendy will have all the footage for each scene in the same place. When scenes are shot over more than one day, many editors like to see a simple designation that the bins are not yet complete. You can append “INC” (for “incomplete”) to the end of the bin name, for example, or put an asterisk at the start of the name. Some editors like the names of bins containing unedited scenes to start with a particular sign. As Wendy cuts each scene, she then removes the sign (such as an asterisk or a percent sign) from the bin name. This indicates that she cut the scene. The folder drops into its proper order; the unedited scenes remain at the top of the list. The organizational system will vary from person to person—the most important thing is that it’s clear to everyone.

68

Working in Frame View You can arrange material within the bins differently, depending on the NLE you are using and Wendy’s preferences. Figure 5.2 shows one option. In this system, all the shots for Scene 22 are placed in one bin and arranged in “Frame View” (as Avid calls it). All the takes for each setup display on the same row. You can also choose a representative frame to display in the bin. (It is better to show a frame that is indicative of the actual shot, not the slate.)

Most NLEs allow you to create “workspaces,” which are a collection of windows

tip arranged in a particular way. Using these workspaces, it is easy to switch from the arrangement of windows that you need to do your assistant job to the windows that Wendy needs to do hers.

Any wild track shot for Scene 22 goes into its scene bin as well. In addition, some editors like to have the wild tracks in separate bins or arranged by location (“Abby’s Apartment,” for instance). Not every editor likes to see all this information, and not every editor likes it arranged this way. As the assistant, it is your responsibility to present Wendy with a system that not only allows you to do your job perfectly, but one that she is completely comfortable with. When you’ve done that, you’ve really done your job.

Backing Up

CHAPTER 5 1 Moving on to Editing

You can see that a lot of organizational work is necessary to prepare the footage for Figure 5.2 You can set up bins to show frames, and arrange the frames in lines according to Wendy. It would be a shame if a computer setup letter. problem caused you to lose everything before she started working. For that reason, you should always back up your work onto several backup drives. There is no need to back up the actual footage, which is stored on an external hard drive or on shared storage drives. You can easily re-digitize that material from the HDV/DVCam tapes. You should, however, make a copy of the project folder, which contains the folders and clip names that help the NLE to find the exact frames needed on the material drive. These are usually relatively small fi les, so you can back them up onto a USB drive. I also prefer to back up the project folder in a second or third location, such as a folder on the material drive. If there are multiple drive partitions (sections of a hard drive set up like individual hard drives), then the backup is usually placed on the highest partition number. If you are working with a tapeless workflow, in which the fi lm was shot onto digital hard drives or cards rather than on fi lm or videotape, then you have a more serious job. The original fi les created on set have long ago been wiped away from the reusable cards and you have no HDV/DVCam tapes as backup. It is essential to back up the material drives as well. Sometimes a duplication house will do that for you; at other times it will be up to you. Using a program such as ChronoSync, you can create incremental backups, which back up all the fi les that have changed since the last backup. You should back up at least twice a day—typically at lunch and at the end of the day. Some backups happen automatically, in the background, while Wendy is working. Your primary job is to back up anything that would be difficult or impossible to reconstitute in case of emergency. Note that sound effects and music imported from CDs or files are often

69

difficult to re-input and link up with already edited sequences because they don’t come from a source with time code. So it’s a good idea to synchronize the material drive at least once a day, so have a backup from which to easily restore that material. You should also back up Wendy’s and your user settings. You can usually find these settings under your computer sign-in name, in a folder somewhere on the internal hard drive for the NLE. This contains the instructions for all the special ways that each user prefers the NLE to run—workspaces, names of saved timeline settings, default lengths for dissolves, and much more. While losing these settings is not disastrous, it is very inconvenient. Back up these settings as well.

Dividing Up Your Work The division of work varies from film to film, depending on the budget and workflow. On higher-budget films, the film crew traditionally has at least one assistant and at least one apprentice or postproduction assistant. On lower-budget movies, there is no budget for a full crew. In this case, it is common to bring on an assistant editor for the dailies phase of the project and then lay off the assistant until screenings are necessary. On many low-budget movies, the editing room functions with only one assistant editor, often with only one NLE. If both you and Wendy need to use that one digital editing machine, you will be forced to work at completely different hours. On Cherry Pink, I cut from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and my first assistant worked from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. Our Avid got only four hours of rest each day during production!

CHAPTER 5 1 Moving on to Editing

So, at the end of the day on Tuesday, all the dailies were in the NLE and screened. You then returned to the editing room and organized the footage and the paperwork in the way that Wendy likes. Now it’s time to go home and get ready for Wednesday, because that is when Wendy will start editing. Get some sleep already. You’re going to need it!

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How the Editor Works Eventually, Wendy needs to start editing. On some films, the producer or director will be in a mad rush to get the first few scenes cut to see whether a particular actor or actress can really act, if the director is getting the proper coverage, or if the editor can edit. Even if there is no rush to see edited scenes, the schedule for most fi lms requires that Wendy begin editing while the fi lm is being shot—normally, as soon as the dailies are separated into scenes and ready for her. Wendy starts by opening the bin or folder on the NLE and looking at all the footage for the scene she is about to edit. Like Adam, most directors prefer to shoot a master shot of all (or most) of each scene from the widest possible angle so it shows as much of the action as possible. He then goes in to shoot coverage, the myriad of other camera setups that help to shape the story of the fi lm—closeups, two-shots, and so on. Any shot that provides

an alternative view from the master is called coverage. Wendy examines all of it. If a scene, let’s say Scene 10, is not connected to anything she has already edited, she creates a new sequence, names it in a logical way, places the new sequence in a Cuts or Edits bin, and begins editing. If she already cut the scene immediately preceding or following the one she is working on, she may review those scenes as a reminder of how the new scene fits into the overall emotional flow of the film. If you have her folders and bins well organized, she can go into the Cuts folder and easily find the sequence for the surrounding scene, say Scene 9. She can make a copy of that sequence, label it Scene 9-10, and edit directly onto the end of this edited footage. All the while, Wendy takes notes regarding her preferences and any problems with each take. She integrates these notes with those she took at the dailies screenings, so she has a complete idea of what she wants to do with the scene. She makes a plan—in her head or on paper—as to how she thinks she wants to cut the scene. She decides what take she wants to begin the scene with and starts editing. Every editor works differently. A few like to have their assistants sitting with them, but most work by themselves while you perform your considerable work in another room. She may occasionally call to you, either on the phone or by yelling “Hey, you!” out into the hallway, to get something she doesn’t have—a piece of music, a sound effect, or some eggs and bacon. Most of the time, however, you work on your own, preparing more footage for her and attending to the many other tasks that make up your day.

Since editors are concerned with the storytelling flow of the entire fi lm, they often ask you to provide them with an easy way to see the entire movie. Some editors put every scene’s name on an index card and pin it to a wall nearby. Others take tiny screen shots from each Figure 5.3 The first page from a continuity for Silent Night, Silent Cowboy. Note that Scene 21 was omitted scene and put those on the walls. Many from the script and therefore isn’t listed. Scenes 14 editors find it helpful to make a list of though 16 fit together as one storytelling unit so the all the scene numbers along with a short three separate scene numbers are grouped together on one line. four- or five-word description of the scene. This list is called a continuity (Figure 5.3 shows an example of the first page from a continuity), and they pin these five or six pages up on the wall next to them.

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Continuity

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The short descriptions make it easy to identify scenes by content rather than scene numbers. The descriptions might be a few words of memorable dialogue from the scene (for example, Scene 11 might be called, “Evening Mister DeMille?” or just “Mr. DeMille”), a reminder of a particular shot in the scene, or a piece of scenery from the scene. On Hair, for example, we titled three musical numbers shot together in a Central Park tunnel as “The Tunnel Suite.” These are, more or less, the same descriptions used to name your scene bins. The continuity is useful for many reasons during the course of the editing. At various times, you might want to send copies to people outside the editing room—your producer, a composer, your visual effects supervisor, and others. It is possible that, during the course of production, the script will change in some major ways. For example, scenes may be added (such as Scene A19 in the continuity with the letter A indicating that it is the first scene added before Scene 19) or dropped (such as Scene 12 and 21). Keep the continuity up to date, and make sure you change the date at the top of the first page as well as in the footers of every page.

After the Editor Edits

CHAPTER 5 1 Moving on to Editing

As Wendy edits, she may create many versions of the scenes she cuts. Digital NLEs make it easy to copy a sequence so Wendy can create many different versions without losing any of her old work. The disadvantage is that it is sometimes difficult to tell which of the many versions of a scene is the one that Wendy considers her best and wants to screen for Adam. I don’t mind having all these different edits in the same bin, but some editors like to move the preferred cuts into their own bin. Deleting them from a particular bin or gallery does not delete them from the computer, so you can always find them again if necessary. Regardless of how you do it, be sure to come up with naming conventions that make it easy to see which version of the scene Wendy considers the correct version. For the system used on this fi lm, Wendy plans to number all the versions using my preferred system:

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•

First, give every cut of a scene a name and a version number.

•

Before the entire cut is fully assembled, give all the versions names in the “000” series. For instance, if Wendy has three cuts of Scene 12, she names them 012v001, 012v002, and 012v003.

•

When Wendy arrives at a cut she likes, she names it 012v099.

•

By naming all “finished” versions with a suffi x that ends with the number 99, it is extremely easy for assistants to find her preferred edit.

Using this system, when Wendy combines Scene 10 with Scene 11, she names it 010-011v001. When she has a good version of the two scenes, she names the result 010-011v099. In this way, you can keep various versions of the editor’s cut, yet it’s still a simple matter to find the final versions of each section or reel for presentation to Adam. When Wendy finishes editing a scene, she needs two things to happen. First, she needs to go on to another scene. You should have everything prepared so she can begin cutting that next scene as soon as she is ready. Try to stay at least two or three scenes ahead of her,

whenever possible. Once again, being ready means that all the footage, wild sound, and paperwork are complete and ready for the editor. The second thing that Wendy needs is for you to prepare her just-edited scene for screening.

Preparing the Tracks Different editors edit with different levels of attention to the sound and picture details. Some do a good job of removing unwanted noises from the audio tracks and others leave much of that for you. Some editors leave run-throughs, also called add edits, in their timeline. Run-throughs are places in the cut where Wendy leaves an edit, even though the frames on both sides of the splice are actually continuous. You should remove these edits. Also, make sure there are no areas where there is no picture, unless Wendy has faded to black and wants nothing onscreen. But that isn’t your only task. It is your job to go through and clean up the rest of the audio and sound tracks as well, so the timeline is in perfect shape for screening.

Checking Sync and Filling Holes Make sure that everything that is supposed to be in sync is actually in sync. Play through the sequence and look for dialogue or sounds that don’t line up with the picture. Most NLEs indicate when the sync no longer matches the way the clip originally lined up. If not, you can check using the time code on each clip’s track. Note that Wendy may have intentionally thrown something out of sync—for example, if someone is talking with their back to the camera and she is trying to change the timing of the dialogue. Check with Wendy if any places look like they may be intentionally out of sync. In addition, you should fi ll any sound track holes. These are gaps where no sound plays on any audio track. Since it is easy to fill holes on computer editing machines, many editors do it themselves. But even when they do, you should check their work. You may find that, in their rush to move on to the next picture edit, the tone they chose to fi ll out the hole is not very good. You also may find places where words of dialogue are chopped off (often called upcut). To solve these problems, use the following techniques:

Upcut dialogue: Check the exact ending of the word (for example, is it “dress,” “dresses,” “dressed,” or “dressing”?). Chances are the dialogue is not usable, generally because another character was talking and overlapped that piece of dialogue. In that case, review the alternative takes of that setup to see if you can find another reading of the word or words without the overlap. If so, cut that word into the timeline to replace the upcut word.

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Filling holes: All you need to do is find a piece of very quiet audio near the area with the hole, copy it, and paste it into the hole. (Note that it’s better to use tone from outgoing sound.) This process is often called toning out the tracks. Sometimes you can use room tone that was shot for that scene though it is not normally as good as finding a piece from right around the hole.

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Room Tone Room tone is sound recorded on set when no picture is being shot. Normally, the sound recordist tries to get some background sound of general ambience for each scene. The hope is that this tone, because it comes from the actual location at the same time the scene is shot, will enable the editor to fill in places in the edit where the sound drops out.

The Avid Media Composer feature called ScriptSync links the footage to an actual

tip script. You can click the line of dialogue that includes the upcut word, and Avid plays back the alternative lines with the upcut word. This feature makes it much easier to locate adequate replacement words.

One more thing—confirm that no extraneous sounds are on the tracks. If you hear a director talking to an actor, or a low off-mic reading of a line, remove those unwanted sounds and replace them with tone. Avoid anything that will disturb the audience and make the screening experience seem less like a real finished fi lm.

CHAPTER 5 1 Moving on to Editing

Adding Temp Sound and Music

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With the ease of working with multiple tracks in NLEs, fi lmmakers are becoming accustomed to hearing more sophisticated sound tracks when they view projects in progress. As a result, they want to see projects with the sound track as complete as possible, including temporary sound effects and music. Wendy may or may not edit some of these sounds into her sequences. If a composer has already been hired for the fi lm, he or she may have supplied temp music, either from old scores or something quickly whipped up to give everyone a sense of what the music may eventually sound like. The same goes for sound effects—the sound designers may provide temp sound effects that you can use to determine a sound for the film. Wendy may ask you to put in temp sound effects that help tell the story—a car screech, a distant paging call (“Paging Dr. Hochberg. Paging Dr. Hochberg.”) and the like. You can get some of these from a sound effects library from the sound designers or your own collection. I bring a large hard drive and several boxes of CDs with sound and music with me to make this job easier. At times, you may need to record temporary voiceover or sound effects using the microphone attached to the NLE. I’ve recorded chair squeaks, the sound of a fist banging on a table, and many more common sounds. While these temp effects come nowhere near the quality you need in a final project, they can help the screening audience understand crucial story points so you should add them whenever possible.

Managing the Sound Files Earlier in this chapter, we discussed the bins or folders you need to create for these audio fi les (see Figure 5.1). If you receive material from a sound house that has a unique identifying number, make sure to preserve that number. I often copy the number into a comment column of the metadata, and then rename the actual file something more sensible for Wendy (“006-1345-16” makes a lot less sense than “Single 45 gun shots with reverb”). This makes it easier for the sound designers to find that effect when they are completing the fi lm’s final sound job. In addition to changing the fi lenames, you might want to color code music and sound fi les so you can tell what came from the composer or sound designers and what came from your own libraries. Note that virtually none of this material will have time code that you can use to uniquely identify the clips. This makes it impossible to re-create temp sound edits if you lose the data on your primary material drive. Therefore, it’s a good idea to back up anything that changes on the drive at least once a day—if not more often. I use ChronoSync for the Mac; you can find other programs to do this as well. As with footage, you need to create usable metadata for audio fi les. Add data for the name of the CD, track number, original filename, and more. If the material is stock footage or stills, identify the name of the company it came from as well. Saving this information with the fi le makes it easier to re-create the stock material or complete the rights permissions forms if you end up purchasing it. Be sure to give all fi les sensible names. Sound effects: Use a concise description—“Limousine start and away,” “Elevator bell,” “Phone rings,” and so on. Music cues: Use the source—“Braveheart 3” for the third cue on that film’s sound track, “Mahler 6” for the sixth cue on the demo CD that Gustav Mahler’s agent submitted, and so on.

Temp dialogue you record: Use the scene number and character name, as well as a few words from the line. Remember to note the source of the material (the sound effects CD or tape, for instance) somehow so any effect that Adam falls in love with is easy to find for the final mix.

Cleaning Up After the Editor At least once a day and sometimes more, Wendy may ask you to clean up her computer. This doesn’t mean that you should take a washcloth to it—although you should wipe down all of the screens with a proper screen cleaner every day. What Wendy needs you to do is make sure all her footage is up to date. This isn’t a problem if you are editing on a shared storage system such as Apple Xserve or Avid Unity, since everything performed on your NLE automatically updates on hers.

CHAPTER 5 1 Moving on to Editing

Stock footage: Use its description—“Star cluster” or “F-15 takeoff ”—along with the shot number the stock footage house uses to keep track of the footage.

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If you are working with hard drives instead of shared storage, however, you need to make sure that the new material you receive every day—the material that first exists only on your system—is the same as on her material drive. Also, confirm that the project fi les on your computer are in sync with hers. To do this, copy all the editing she completed on her machine to your machine, and copy any work you did (such as synching new dailies, importing sound and visual effects, and sound cleanup) to her machine. Of course, be sure you do this without destroying any of your work or Wendy’s work. To complete the cleanup, make copies of the sequences, sort them into their proper folders and bins, close any software windows Wendy does not need, and set up the next scene for her to edit. Finally, back up Wendy’s system.

As If This Wasn’t Enough As if you don’t have enough to do, you also need to keep a calendar to make sure everything runs smoothly, test your workflow, and create outputs for many people.

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Keeping a Calendar

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To keep yourself and Wendy sane, hang a calendar in the cutting room. When you receive memos from the producer with the latest version of the postproduction schedule, update the calendar. Write down the date and time for any screenings, mixes, meetings, and shoots. (The wall calendar is also a handy place to put people’s birthdays.) On some fi lms I’ve worked on, the assistant created a calendar on a large sheet of thick, clear plastic and wrote on it with a grease pencil. This made it easy to update the schedule with the inevitable changes. Using a dry-erase board is another alternative. Most assistants keep electronic calendars, either on the computer or online using a program such as Google Calendar. Electronic calendars are easy to print and share with others. The producers and postproduction supervisor may have a calendar that you need to update as well.

Testing Your Work As soon as some scenes are cut together, it is a good idea to check the system you established for the end of the editorial process. To do this, make film cut lists (FCLs) and edit decision lists (EDLs). FCLs and EDLs are instructions from the NLE that allow other systems to replicate all your edits. First, contact your negative cutters, online house, DI editor, sound house, and video facility to get their specifications for these lists. (Don’t worry about these terms—we’ll get to them as we move through the book.) Once you have the information, create a sample FCL or EDL for each contact. Send copies of your sound EDLs to the sound effects house, both in print format and on disc (if the project is finishing on tape). Send video EDLs to the video online house.

Ask these services to thoroughly check your work. The goal is to confirm that there are no problems with your materials—before you deliver materials for screenings, and at your handover (when the sound and music editing process begins).

Creating the Outputs As Wendy finishes cutting scenes, she probably wants Adam to watch them. She might want to take them home herself as well, so she can watch the scenes in a more relaxed atmosphere than the editing room. If she has an NLE at home, she may simply take a copy of her project fi le on the material hard drive. Or, she may ask you to output a DVD (also called a playout or a digital cut). You can output a DVD in two ways and each option has its own advantages. You can create a QuickTime movie that you can burn to a data DVD or use to create a playable DVD. On many NLEs, especially ones that do not work natively in QuickTime, it might take quite a while to create one of these files. You can speed up this process a little. To create a playable DVD directly from your computer, it is usually better to create a Reference QuickTime, in which new media is not created. Instead, the QuickTime fi le refers to the media already in use by the NLE. Since it doesn’t re-create the media, this saves bundles of time. However, if you plan to share the QuickTime fi le, the recipients wouldn’t have the media on their drives and would not be able to play the fi le. Instead, you need to create a Self-Contained QuickTime fi le, which re-creates all the necessary media within the QuickTime. You can upload QuickTime fi les via FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to the Internet or copy them to a server for other people to view. Your second option is to create a DVD by simply sending output from your NLE to a DVD recorder (press “Play” on the recorder). This is much faster than creating a QuickTime fi le, although it requires you to stand by the recorder and monitor it, since the likelihood of missing frames or an image that accidentally stops on a frame is higher than with creating QuickTime fi les.

Checking the Sound CHAPTER 5 1 Moving on to Editing

Before creating outputs, quickly run through the edit to confirm that it doesn’t need any sound adjustments. Most editing machines allow you to set sound levels and fades on a shot-by-shot basis, making it easy to wrap music around dialogue and mix sound effects in the proper relationship to the rest of the sound track. You can also set equalization to fi x dialogue problems and create much more interesting sound mixes. For example, you might change dialogue to make it sound like it’s coming from a television, a telephone, or the other side of a door. Most editors cut with up to 8 or 16 channels of sound—2 dialogue tracks, 2 to 4 effects, and 2 to 4 stereo music channels. Some editors work with 24 or more tracks. In any case, be sure to check how Wendy cut the tracks so you can make an output that is properly balanced. Wendy can give you details on what she wants. Some editors, including me, like to channel the sound through the sound mixing board during the output to the DVD recorder. This offers one last set of adjustments to levels and

77

equalization. Others want nothing to do with it. In that case, you will sit by the mixing board as the edit is playing out, adjusting the levels of all the tracks and watching the screen to be sure all the images are recording properly. Also check the sound level meters on the video deck to ensure that you are not recording the sound too loudly.

Checking the Full Output Regardless which method you use to create outputs, spot check the results by playing several areas. Make sure the volume is neither too soft nor too loud, and check the visuals to be sure there are no problems. In some cases, if there are a number of complicated opticals or a series of short cuts, the picture may seem to stutter, or freeze for a moment and then pick up a number of frames later. Once you are sure the tape is correct, you or Philip should label both the DVD and its jewel case with the fi lm name, the output date, a short description of the material (“Second Version of Sc. 21 for Adam”), your name, and contact information.

CHAPTER 5 1 Moving on to Editing

All At the Same Time?

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As you may have noticed, a lot of things happen simultaneously during shooting. Dailies have to be sunk and screened, logs maintained, footage readied for the editor, scenes prepped for screening, and more. All of this happens right now and that can be a problem. An assistant editor must be a good office manager to accomplish everything without forgetting anything. On Fame, every week or so we were required to send selected film prints of the dailies to MGM Studios executives in Hollywood for screening. I had to keep logs of exactly what the executives had seen and a record of the status of the footage at every moment. I had to keep Gerry Hambling, the editor, informed regarding exactly which scenes were completely ready for him to cut and which scenes were partially in Los Angeles. In short, there are always too many disruptions and never enough time. But, if the editing room system is set up efficiently, everything can flow very smoothly anyway. Gerry never lacked scenes from Fame to cut, the MGM executives always got their takes to screen, and everyone seemed happy. Everything depends on creating a system that functions so smoothly that any sort of kink doesn’t stop the work.

6 Special Cases All the editing room procedures I’ve outlined up to this point apply primarily to straight dialogue movies cut using NLEs in the United States. Many other types of movies exist along with many more ways to edit them. Let’s consider a few of them.

Synching Musical Sequences Silent Night, Silent Cowboy has a musical scene in it. It takes place on a saloon set where the lead cowboy in our movie-within-a-movie enters the town saloon and gets involved in a fi xed poker game. He walks around the room, amazed at the newness of everything. He sees two cowboys singing together, one of whom is playing a guitar (see Figure 6.1, on page 80, and Figure 6.2, on page 81, for the lined script pages). The director could shoot this scene in several ways. One way is to hire actors who can sing, and have them play and sing live on the set. This, however, creates two problems. First, performers can rarely sing at the exact same rhythm and pitch from take to take and from angle to angle, so it’s impossible for the editor to cut performances from different takes together and have them make musical sense. In addition, music recorded on the set is rarely as clean as music recorded in a music studio. A better way to shoot this scene is to record to playback. One clean audio track is obtained, either by recording it in a music studio (the way musicals are done) or by recording a wild track (a take recorded without picture) on the set before shooting the scene. This sound track is then played back over loudspeakers (or through tiny ear pieces called earwigs) to the actors on the set. The actors sing and play back to it, attempting to copy it exactly. Th is way, there is only one musical track, and each take is shot at the same rhythm and pitch. During the picture and music editing, variations in the lip sync can be corrected and any sync mistakes the actor or actress made during the shooting can be modified or eliminated.

CHAPTER 6 1 Special Cases

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Figure 6.1 The first of two lined script pages for the musical number in Silent Night, Silent Cowboy.

CHAPTER 6 1 Special Cases

Figure 6.2 The second of two lined script pages for the musical number in Silent Night, Silent Cowboy.

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Most feature fi lms use two recording machines on the set to handle the playback sequence. One machine plays back the master recording of the song to the actors. The output of this machine is also fed to the second machine, which records it in addition to any other sounds the recordist gets live on the set, including the slate sound at the start of the take. If earwigs are used to cue the actors, no music is broadcast out loud and a clean, live production track can be recorded. This tactic is often used when the director wants to get a live singing voice. If this method is used, you can sync the dailies as you normally would. Each take has a slate recorded live on the set. The sound track then segues into a direct feed of the song from the playback sound machine. In some cases, especially on lower-budget fi lms, a CD of the music track is used for playback. While this technically works, it doesn’t allow for changes to occur on set. On both Hair and Fame, we ended up adjusting the song to accommodate blocking on set (the actors’ action and movements), occasionally adding bars of the band so an actor could walk (or dance) across the room.

Synching Musical Tracks If production feeds the input from both the on-set microphone and the playback machine, you can sync the dailies normally since each take has its own track, separately recorded. Each take has a slate recorded live on the set. The sound track then segues into the direct feed of the song from the playback sound machine. If the production sound recordist did not feed the music track into his or her recorder, you probably need to sync up the on-set audio to the playback master (the copy of the music that is played back on the set to the performers), which your music editor, Nate High, should deliver to you no later than the morning of the dailies.

CHAPTER 6 1 Special Cases

Phasing

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Phasing sounds like a very slight echo, which I often describe as a “tunnel” effect. If the tracks are a tiny bit out of sync, there isn’t any phasing—instead, you hear a very fast echo. The further out of sync the tracks are, the longer the echo delay. If this happens, move the playback master a little bit at a time and listen. When you no longer hear this echo, and you do hear an eerie, hollow quality, you know the tracks are phasing and synched as closely as possible. It is sometimes difficult to hear the phasing, especially if the dailies tracks are poorly recorded. Phasing occurs more easily on instruments such as strings or on solo vocals than on drums or brass instruments.

To properly cut the playback master into the dailies tracks: 1. Sync the dailies as usual. 2. Put the synched dailies in the record monitor (called the Canvas in Final Cut Pro). 3. Put the playback master in the source monitor (the Viewer in Final Cut Pro). 4. Turn on the waveforms, so you can find a common sync point. To do that, choose a word in the song with a definite hit to it—a sound that is as sharp and identifiable as the slate. Good choices for this are words beginning with the letters b, c (hard), d, g, k, p, or t. In the song shown, a few good hits exist in the beginnings of the words “been,” “tryin’,” or “down” in the first line. 5. Listen to the playback master and dailies tracks and find the word you want on each. 6. Line the words up in a sequence (see Figure 6.3). Be careful that you’re lining up words from the same verse or chorus in the song. This is not always easy because the playback track usually has stronger waveforms than the dailies track (you can see that the waveforms are taller on the playback track). When you are close to the same word, look at the waveforms. In Figure 6.3, you can see a place where the track modulates upwards from a flat area to an area with spikes. This is the first modulation of that sound, which is usually easy to find on both the playback and the production sound tracks. Once you’ve found the matching spot on both tracks, you can line them up. 7.

When the words are lined up, play them together. If you’ve done your job properly, you will hear the two sounds phasing with each other.

Playback track

Dailies track

Figure 6.3 Here, the waveforms for the exact same word on both the playback track and dailies track are lined up. Note that the dailies track is not recorded at the same volume as the playback track.

Once the material is synched and Wendy is ready to edit the scene, another problem arises. Since every take of the dailies is at a different time code, how can she know exactly where each frame of the dailies is in relation to the song. If she wants to cut from a part of Scene 19-8 (the master shot) to the matching part of the song in Scene 19F-3 (the medium close-up of the singer), she will want to make the cut so that the outgoing frame of 19-8 directly precedes the first frame edit of 19F-3 in the song. But how is she going to know where those two matching frames are, since the time codes of the takes won’t bear any resemblance to each other. The answer is to create a set of time codes that do match the playback master.

CHAPTER 6 1 Special Cases

Preparing for the Editor

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First, you need to sync each take with the playback music to the playback master. If you had to sync the dailies to the playback master as described in the last section, you’ve already done this. If not, use the same method to exactly line up the playback master with the dailies audio track (which should actually be a copy of the playback track) on a separate track in your timeline. Once you’ve correctly synched the playback master and the picture dailies, go back to the first frame of each take. You can read the time code of the playback master at that point and then copy it to a new time code track. Most NLEs allow you to create additional columns of metadata. You can then paste this playback time code into that column. (In Avid, for example, use the Modify command to do this.) Wendy will be able to use this auxiliary code number to line up the picture to the playback master time code. Ian Slater, the assistant editor on the musical Dreamgirls, used a method to make it even easier for his editor, Virginia Katz. “We added a time code window when we telecined the negative so we could synchronize all the clips from one scene and relate them to the playback master. We then used the Media Composer system’s Group Clip feature to group every take from every camera and angle into one master group clip with the music playback. It’s nothing fancy, but for us it was the most efficient way to get through a massive amount of music-related footage,” says Slater.* By adding that visual burn-in, Katz was able to easily look at the picture and edit the picture in sync with the playback master. (Note that not everyone can afford to have the telecine house do the playback master synching.)

CHAPTER 6 1 Special Cases

Synching Multicam

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Many editors like to have all the setups that were shot at the same time sunk to each other in the dailies. This enables them to easily edit from one camera to another and match the action perfectly—if that is important to them; I’ve never cared about that. To do that, use the same Group Clip or Merge Clip commands discussed in the section on “Dailies Synching” in Chapter 4, “Shooting.” If every camera is fed matching time code, you can select all the clips in the folder or bin and merge them using a time code command. If they were not fed matching time code, then line them up in some other way (such as by the slate or a hand clap captured on all the cameras), mark that matching frame, and then group or merge them. You end up with a group of clips you can view in a split-screen mode. Wendy can then easily cycle through the clips from each camera.

Synching Unslated Takes Sometimes, through problems on the set or elsewhere, you get a take with no visible slate to mark for synching purposes. Sometimes, the camera operator misses the slate by either *“Dreamgirls: Integrated Sound and Picture Editing Underscores Musical Filmmaking” Avid Technology web site. www.avid.com/showcase/Dreamgirls-musical-fi lmmaking.asp

aiming the camera slightly too far up or down. On Hair, several shots during the song “Good Morning Starshine” were shot from a helicopter too far away from the action to have slates. In these cases, you have some tricky eye-matching to do, using the same techniques for synching musical takes. Once again, the trick is to find something with a definite hit to it. Often, you can use a door slam, an actor pounding on a table, or another sharp sound effect to sync things up. (You can usually find the exact frame where these effects happen.) Always be sure to watch the entire take again to be sure you really do have the proper sync. Sometimes, you won’t be able to find visual clues and you must use dialogue to eye-sync. (This often happens with actor close-ups.) Listen for the letters b, c (hard), d, k, p, or t. These usually have fairly definitive sounds as well as reasonably identifiable lip movements. If you need to, say the words of dialogue while holding your fingers over your lips to feel the lip shape to look for. As always, check your sync on the whole take before moving along to the next take.

Redigitizing Material At times during the editing process, you need to re-digitize material already input into your NLE. For example, you might have had a hard drive failure and lost material or Wendy might have accidentally deleted a take. You may also want to input material at a different audio level or with a different color balance than your original import. In some cases, you might want to re-import the material at a better resolution for a special screening. If Wendy hasn’t edited the material yet, re-digitizing won’t create any problems. But if she’s already been editing with that footage, you need to re-digitize the material in a way that automatically replaces the original dailies while preserving all the links to the various edits she already made. All the major NLE systems allow you to do this, although in different ways. Basically, you use the metadata associated with the missing take to find the exact same material on the same tape or file and re-import the material. This requires nothing more than a time code and tape number (in the case of videotapes). Highlight the clip you want in your folder or bin and capture it again.

During the editing of the fi lm, Wendy and Adam often need a shot that is either too expensive or not possible to get during principal photography. They need a helicopter shot of the North Pole. They want to see three New York City police cars pull up outside an apartment building. They want a shot of a bear looking away from the camera. On Trigger Happy, we needed shots of stars and galaxies to show our conception of the Big Bang at the beginning of the universe. You can usually get these shots from people who have already shot it. This type of material is called stock footage and the places that make it available for reuse are called stock footage houses.

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Stock Footage

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A staggering amount and variety of footage is available for purchase from stock footage houses around the world. Many houses specialize in old news footage, others deal in timelapse photography, still others have medical footage of operations. You can buy footage of old cars driving down streets, airplanes in flight, the Earth from outer space, and more. If you can imagine it, chances are good that some stock house somewhere has it. Much of the footage is in high-definition video, some of it is in 16mm or 35mm film. Nearly all the stock footage houses have a catalog of material online in a searchable format, so you can easily look for something like “Stutz Bearcat driving.” You can then download a low-resolution version of the footage to import into your NLE and try out.

Different stock footage houses may provide the preview clips in different formats,

tip such as MOV, MPEG, Windows Media, or AVI. Your NLE may not be able to play all

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these formats, so it’s a good idea to have a converter application such as MPEG Streamclip (Mac) or AVS Video Converter (Windows).

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When working with a stock footage house, find out the format of the footage you want to purchase. The material in stock houses across the world varies considerably in quality. If you are editing a project in HD, then be sure you can purchase the footage in a compatible HD format. If you are cutting film negative, you need to use stock footage that you can purchase in fi lm format. Generally, the preview clip has information burned into the video image that identifies its stock house. Some houses burn in a specific number, which can help you identify the exact piece of footage. Make sure to input this identification number into your NLE, either in the name of the clip or in a comment field in the metadata. This makes it easy to purchase the footage from the stock house when the fi lm is finished. You might also want to color code the clip to easily identify the footage in your timeline. You can name the digitized shots anything you want. I find it useful to assign names that identify both the shot and the stock house. A shot of a galaxy exploding from The Stock House might be called “GalaxyExplo1 (TSH),” for example. When Wendy finishes editing the fi lm, you will need to fi le an Outside Stock Footage Report (see Figure 6.4) and obtain high-resolution or film negative copies of the section you used in Silent Night, Silent Cowboy. Provide the identification and time code numbers to the stock footage house along with payment for the shot you are purchasing. Be sure to specify the precise format you want for the high-resolution footage. In the case of video, they either send you a tape for those specifications or a set of image fi les you use to create the clip in your NLE. If you need to deliver on film, they usually make an interpositive (IP) and sometimes an internegative (IN) from the original negative. (You’ll learn more about those terms in Chapter 14, “To the Finish—Ho!!”) Stock footage houses rarely send out their originals for you to make the IPs. The footage is how they make their money, and they rarely want to give up control of it.

Don’t be surprised if it takes several weeks for a stock house to send you an IP. In many cases, the house doesn’t actually Outside Stock Footage Report possess the footage—in Title: __________________________ Date: ________________________ fact, the stock footage house Prod # _________________________ Editor: _______________________ may not even be in the same Asst. Editor: ___________________ city as the lab storing the Fill out this form only after you have finalized your editorial process. footage. The stock footage Source Library ID # Time Code Description Length house simply has the rights to make copies of it for sale. On Trigger Happy, one of our stock shots had to be ordered from England. Once you have the stock footage, a little problem may crop up when you digitize it into your machine. Since the material is not digitized from a FLEx or similar file, no fi lm or time code information is NOTES: digitized with the image. As a result, if the footage is acciSigned: ________________________ Phone: _______________________ dentally deleted or damaged in your editing machine, you won’t be able to easily Figure 6.4 When editing is complete, you will fill out a form like this to detail what stock footage is used. re-digitize it back into your timeline. Make sure you have a backup of the digitized footage, either digitally or on tape.

Two weeks of shooting Silent Night, Silent Cowboy involve location shooting in a desert-like area. As mentioned, Wendy is not going on location. She is staying back in town, continuing to cut as the footage comes in. Adam and the rest of the crew, however, still need to see dailies every day. This complicates your life, but is a necessity. The first major change to deal with is the daily delivery of the negative and production sound to the lab and sound house. Depending on the distance between you and the location, the shot footage may be coming in anywhere from a half-day to a week late. On some foreign locations, the footage may come in once a week instead of every day.

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Location Shooting

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CHAPTER 6 1 Special Cases

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Obviously, this affects your schedule. In these cases, the best thing you can do is work closely with your production manager and production office coordinator to make sure the footage is transported when and where it is supposed to be. You or the production office coordinator should determine the best way to ship the dailies to the location. Prompt delivery is required, so the fi lm’s production assistants may carry the material to the airport or train. The dailies—which can be supplied as DVDs, Avid fi les, Final Cut Pro fi les, videotapes, or fi lm—then can be shipped by air, train, or bus. For delivery out of the country, hire a customs broker to prepare all the shipping papers the various governments require at the airports, both to get the fi lm to the set as well as to get it back to you. In any case, the production office coordinator will choose the fastest, most reliable method. The primary change in the dailies schedule is obviously the time. If the dailies screening on location is at 7 p.m. and the film takes six hours to reach the location, you need to finish synching and checking the dailies in time for the fi lm to make it to the airport by 1 p.m. If possible, try to allow yourself an hour or two of spare time for the inevitable delays. Send a copy of the editor’s notes to the set so someone can record Adam’s notes for the selected takes, just as you or Wendy would if the dailies were in town. At times, the editor is asked to come onto location, so it’s up to you to create a completely functioning editing room there—even if the location is in Bora Bora, Morocco, or Norway. Regardless of where you are editing, you need to make sure the editing room is fully functional at all times. This includes researching vendors in the area. When you need to supply DVDs to Adam and the producers, you can’t get away with saying, “We weren’t able to find a store that sold blank DVDs in town.” Find out where you can quickly get replacement supplies. Many rental houses can pack their digital editing machines into large wheeled carrying cases, such as Anvil cases, for easy transport. For a place like Bora Bora, make sure to take everything you could possibly need, including spare parts for the NLEs. Have the production purchase extra hard drives and bring all your original software discs. Order and ship all the supplies you might need for the entire time you will be on location. Work with the production office coordinator ahead of time to make arrangements for the dailies. Will there be a darkened room with projection? Will you be watching from a television? What are the electricity and video standards on the location? In countries that use PAL (Phase Alternating Line) as a standard, most video systems won’t be able to play back dailies created on NTSC disks. Oh, one more thing. I should warn you that being in an editing room in Bora Bora is not as much fun as it sounds. It’s not a vacation. You’ll probably be working every day that you’re there.

Film-Within-Film Several scenes in Silent Night, Silent Cowboy involve people watching projected film—dailies, for example. To set this up, you need to provide fi lm or video for the shooting.

If you are using video for projection on the set, coordinate all the technical details with the video playback person. If you are shooting on fi lm shot at 24 fps, the video needs to be projected at that rate or the audience sees roll bars in the dailies.

Roll bars are thick black lines that slowly creep up the moving picture, caused by

note a mismatch between the projection speed from the 30 fps of the video playback and the 24 fps film capture.

Be sure you create a tape or digital file in the same format to be used for projection. Often, the company performing the video playback on the set supervises the creation of the playback tapes. In these cases, all you need to do is provide the vendor with the fi lm and track that needs to be transferred (making sure that it is spliced and cleaned very well). Each roll should be properly leadered and identified.

Foreign Systems If you are reading this book from start to finish, you’ve noticed that the editing room organization is normally up to the assistant in consultation with the editor. As a result, almost every assistant has a slightly different way of organizing an editing room. It should come as no surprise that editing systems in other countries vary from those described here. If you ever assist an editor from a foreign country (as I did with Gerry Hambling on Fame), you quickly learn the differences. Always keep in mind, however, that editing is editing. Although there are differences between the countries, they are mostly on the surface. Film is still cut together by a person concerned with the aesthetics of editing. Differences in organizational systems found in editing rooms outside the United States include: •

If the scenes are labeled differently, create a separate column in your dailies bin or folder for the scene number. This makes it easier for you to create scene bins for your editor and to search for footage from any particular scene. •

Another major difference between countries is the video standard used for projection. The United States, Canada, and some South American countries use a system called NTSC (National Television Systems Committee), although this is gradually being replaced with the ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) digital standard. Most of Europe and some of Asia and Africa use a system called PAL (Phase Alternating Line). The rest of the world uses SECAM (Séquentiel Couleur à Mémoire, French for Sequential Color with Memory).

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Takes are often labeled differently. Some countries start slating on the first day of shooting with Scene 1, Take 1. The first take of the next setup is called Scene 2, Take 1. If the last setup of the first day’s shoot is Scene 18, then the first setup of the second day’s shoot is Scene 19. There are no setup letters, such as 19A or 23R, and the slate doesn’t refer to a specific scene at all.

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•

There are differing frame rates and scan lines among all these standards. In addition, video prepared in one system will not play back on the others—except on a computer that does not use video projection, like videotape machines, television, and projectors do. This means the videotapes that telecine houses in different countries create may not be compatible with your equipment or the way you set up your project in the NLE. Be sure the system you use is compatible with the way you need to work in the country you are shooting in.

Plug-Ins You can add features to your NLE with plug-ins, little programs written by NLE or thirdparty developers. Some plug-ins allow the editor to create fantastic special effects or find and edit temporary music cues from pre-supplied tracks. Still others allow the editor to create subtitles or visual burn-ins. Make a list of the plug-ins that you and Wendy like to use, and make sure they are properly installed and kept up to date on the NLE. Make copies of any plug-ins you’ve downloaded from the Internet in case you need to rebuild your system. A word of warning: Not all plug-ins are compatible with all versions of your editing software. It is not a good idea to update your version of Final Cut Pro, Avid, or Premiere, for example, until you’ve determined that your favorite plug-ins work with the new software. You can find this information on the plug-in manufacturers’ web sites. User forums for NLEs and plug-ins are great ways to find out about compatibility issues as well.

Preparing Documentary Footage

CHAPTER 6 1 Special Cases

Editing non-scripted material requires a very different organizational system than scripted material. For one thing, most every take you shoot will be different. You rarely have more than one take of the same thing. Second, you won’t have a script with scene numbers. This means that you won’t be organizing dailies in the same way you’d organize a scripted film.

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Organization Figure 6.5 shows a very simple project folder for a documentary about several global rivers. The footage is organized in a way that makes it easier for the editor to find material. Some of the folders are set up according to the river and the date the material was shot. As usual, there is an Edits bin at the top of the stack of folders. In addition, there is a folder for Interviews in which the assistant organized the footage into logical categories in bins or subfolders. There is a bin called Scenery that contains two subfolders—City and Country. There is also a bin for Titles, and another for sound effects (SFX).

Transcription Documentaries usually have no scripts, so you need to create a transcript of all the interviews that were shot. This is a word-for-word written version of what each interview subject says. The transcript helps organize the editing of the documentary, as it is easier to review printed transcripts to find out what people said rather than go through hours and hours of the footage in your NLE.

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The beauty of an NLE is that you can use the same footage multiple times across multiple bins without using up additional drive space. The assistant on this documentary, therefore, didn’t need to worry if the same interview appeared in both the Interviews and Danube folders. The same footage of the Mississippi River rolling through the countryside could appear in the Mississippi 01-06 Summer and the z B-Roll folders as well as the Country subfolder. In this way, the documentary assistant can organize his or her editor’s project in the most flexible way for finding footage. If the editor is editing a montage of city scenes, he or she can look in the City subfolder rather than hunting through all the dailies folders looking for the proper material. It is a huge timesaver in the editing process. To do this properly, talk with your editor to determine what folders and subfolders make the best sense for the way he or she plans to edit the film. As the shooting progresses, you may need to add folders. As you receive the dailies, you digitize or import them into a set of folders and bins, one bin for each roll of dailies. You can examine each day’s dailies, thinking about how each scene fits into your folder structure. As you find the dailies that fit into other folders and Figure 6.5 A simple folder layout for subfolders, you can copy them to those areas. Always a documentary. Note that the Edits keep a series of folders with an exact copy of the dailies folder has two periods (..) in front of as they come to you, tape by tape. it so it sorts to the top, and the B-Roll and John’s Bin folders have the letter Many editors like to color code the takes as well. “z” in front of them, so they sort to For the rivers project we saw in Figure 6.5, you might the bottom. organize the bins so all the takes shot at any particular river display the same color. Other editors might want to organize it so that material shot by different crews are different colors.

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If the fi lm’s budget allows, it is better to send a tape, DVD, or audio CD of the footage to a service, where trained transcribers listen to it and quickly return an electronic file to the editing room. When you create the tapes for the transcription service, include a burned-in time code. You can create QuickTime fi les overnight or send the original production tapes to a tape duplication house to make copies.

Deciding What to Digitize

CHAPTER 6 1 Special Cases

A final consideration for documentaries, especially reality television, is that the productions normally shoot far more footage than scripted projects. It is not uncommon for documentaries to shoot 100, 200, or more hours of footage. Not only is that an amazing amount of material to screen and think about, but it takes up a very large amount of disk drive space. For example, 100 hours of footage in Apple Pro-Res 422 HQ eats up nearly 10 terabytes of space, even without considering music, sound effects, visual effects, and all the extra material you might accumulate during the course of editing. For that reason, many documentary editing rooms do not digitize everything that is shot. Copies of the original footage are sent out for transcription and then the producers or directors go through the written files and decide what to pull from the tapes. They often go even further and use the transcripts to prepare a precut version of the first cut, with lines of interview selected and placed in the order they’d like to see them play. This is called a paper cut, and is used often to minimize the amount of dailies that need to be digitized and streamline the editing process.

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7 The Editor Cuts Away Eventually, as the shooting stops and the director’s interest starts to veer to the editing room, you need to get the fi lm ready for its first screening—the editor’s cut. Although Adam may have already viewed many scenes that Wendy sent to the set on DVD, he can’t really tell how the movie plays without screening the fi lm as a whole. Usually, the editor’s cut is due for screening anywhere from two days to two weeks after the shooting wraps. This all depends on the budget of the film as well as the complexity of the footage. If you and Wendy are lucky, the biggest, most complex, scenes in the film were not the last ones shot. However, all too often, that is the case, and you are inundated with footage in the last week of shooting. Often, numerous pick-up shots and second-unit photography work all come in during the final days. (Pick-up shots are shots taken after the bulk of a scene is shot; second-unit crews often work at the same time as the main crew, taking pick-up shots.) Additionally, scenes shot at different locations that need to be cut together—such as two sides of a telephone conversation, or a chase sequence over many locations—cannot be edited until all the parts are available. All these factors, as well as the amount of footage Adam has shot, will influence how long Wendy takes to finish her cut. At some point, Wendy needs to finish cutting and screen the fi lm for Adam. Some directors simply sit down at the editing machine and watch the output, section by section. But most directors want to watch the movie projected on a screen. Regardless of how Wendy’s cut will be screened, you need to clean up her sequence and prep it for screening. Then, you have to deal with the recutting as a result of the screening.

Perfecting the Sound In Chapter 5, “Moving on to Editing,” we discussed checking sync and filling the sound track holes after Wendy edits each scene. This works fine on a scene-by-scene basis, but as she starts putting scenes together into longer sequences, she will be creating more complex sound and she will want temp music and sound effects, looking to create a more professional sound track.

If Wendy is following the naming conventions established in Chapter 5, you can take the version marked “v099” from the Outputs bin (or from her Cuts bin) and prepare it for a temp sound job. Most sound and music work is left until the end of the movie, when a sound editor corrects everything in preparation for the final fi lm mix (or dub). Sometimes there is work to do for earlier screenings (for the editor, producers, distributors, and so on). Then you will have to scratch mix (also called temp dub) the movie.

The terms mix and dub refer to the same thing—the process of combining multiple

note sounds into one smooth sound track. In the United States, the term mix is more

CHAPTER 7 1 The Editor Cuts Away

common on the East Coast and the word dub is used more often on the West Coast.

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The process of scratch mixing requires you to understand the process of final fi lm mixing. Basically, you perform a smaller version of the final mix. When a movie is being shot, the sound behind any piece of dialogue rarely matches the sound behind any other piece of dialogue—even if the second piece is from the reverse angle on the same scene. In a scene of two people talking, if the director covered it in a wideshot master, a closer two-shot, and close-ups on each of the people talking, the sound quality is likely different in each of them. This is not the fault of the sound recordist; it is the result of varying microphone placements as well as the inability to control the background sound outside camera range (for fi lms shot on location). When Wendy cuts these angles together, a different background sound is audible every time she cuts one sound to another. In a movie theater, an audience would be distracted by these differences. For the final fi lm mix, a dialogue editor comes in to correct these bumps (as the points where the background changes are called). The dialogue editor splits the dialogue tracks, which means he or she separates the pieces of dialogue onto two or more synchronously running tracks. Then, each sound can be controlled separately, with a separate volume control and equalizer. This way, when the tracks are recombined into one, the person doing the dialogue mixing (called, oddly enough, the dialogue mixer) can even out any disagreeable differences. Of course, nothing is as easy as all that. The dialogue editor must do a lot of trickery with these tracks to prepare them properly for the dialogue mixer. But that is much too complicated a subject for us to deal with here and now. I’ll leave that for another book (which, hopefully, someone else will write). However, you will almost never have a separate dialogue editor at this stage of the fi lm editing process. At this point, the task is almost always left to you.

Working from a Copy First, make a copy of Wendy’s sequence to work with. You should never work with Wendy’s timeline. At some point during your screening preparation, you are likely to accidentally change something Wendy did, and you’ll need to find your way back to her edit. You might inadvertently throw something out of sync from the location she positioned it, or you might accidentally delete a piece of audio. If you’re working with her original timeline, there is no way to go back to see what she did. But if you’re working with a copy, then you can simply go back and look at her timeline.

tip

When preparing for screening, always work with a copy of your editor’s sequence.

Adding Sound Effects

CHAPTER 7 1 The Editor Cuts Away

The sound editor also adds sound effects to the sound track. To have the utmost control of the dialogue sections in both the editing and the mixing, dialogue is shot with as few extra noises as possible. Phones ringing, radios playing, guns shooting, and so on, are all left out during the shooting and added into the final mix. Those sounds, however, can help a story along. So, before some screenings, Wendy and Adam may want to add those sounds to the screenings for a rough idea how the film plays. In fact, even if Adam doesn’t ask for it, it is good practice to create a smooth sound mix every time someone is going to watch the film, in a screening room or on a DVD. Sound can help tell a story—for example, most audiences are confused if a phone doesn’t ring before a character answers it. Often, at this point, there is no sound editor on the fi lm. You, Wendy, and Philip need to prepare the mix. Since this mix is intended only to give everyone a general idea of the film, you should create it quickly, without much detail, and with sound added primarily to tell the story. This is why it is often called a rough, or temp mix, or dub. Dialogue is almost never split in these mixes. Another purpose of the mix is adding sound effects to make the fi lm more intelligible and trying out some sample music. Go through the fi lm, using your continuity and your NLE, and note the sound effects and music cues you need for each scene. As you scroll through the timeline, note the effects and music that Wendy has already cut in. Also, note the areas she wants you to work on. She may have specifically told you, for instance, that one of the on-set scenes needs some fake gun clicks, but that she is otherwise happy with her effects work. It is always a good idea to review the scene, make a note to order gun clicks, see if she may have forgotten anything else, and order those items as well. Music is usually lifted from existing albums or CDs. If you are lucky, a composer might be working on the film already and you might actually have temp music to use (either recorded for Silent Night, Silent Cowboy, or from the composer’s library).

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Sound effects are available from sound houses and sound effects CDs. If you contact a sound house and say something like, “I need a very loud door slam, two different types of horse hoof beats, a series of gunshots, and a few modern phone rings,” it can usually deliver all those sound fi les via email, web site download, or CD. When you get the temp music or sound, digitize or import it into your project and then place it in the appropriate bins or folders, as covered in Chapter 5.

Sound Editing 101 Once you have the sound files, you need to do a little sound editing. Many editors like performing a sound edit themselves, so watch closely to see how they do it. In case the editor doesn’t want to do it, here is a brief explanation. 1. Load your copy of the v099 sequence into your Canvas or Record Monitor. 2. Roll down to the point where you want the sound effect to sync. 3. Put a mark or a locator at that point. 4. If the sound file needs to be adjusted, do that now. In the sample in Figure 7.1, you are cutting in the sound of glass breaking. The effect, as you received it from the sound effects house, has a bit of a pause at the top of the sound, before the glass breaks. You need to overwrite that effect onto the proper tracks (in the example here, you used both tracks of this stereo effect, and put them on channels 3 and 4).

CHAPTER 7 1 The Editor Cuts Away

5. Make sure the effect’s waveform (the visual representation of the volume level of the sound) is turned on. You’ll notice that the effect begins with virtually no volume level, but then you can see where the glass break sound begins. This is called the first modulation of the sound and, in this case, it is the point that you want to line up with the mark you’ve placed on the timeline.

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At times, you may not want the first modulation of sound as your sync point. If you are cutting in a car-by, where a car approaches a camera and then exits, you might want the loudest portion of the car-by to come at a specific point on the picture. So that is the sound you would find (both by listening to it, and looking at your waveform) and sync it up with the mark on your timeline. After editing the effect into your tracks, make sure it is at the proper sound level in relation to the dialogue and music tracks that may be running at the same time. You can set the volume level for each clip individually. Using key frames, you also can adjust the volume within a clip, allowing the sound to get louder or softer automatically.

Key frames are marks you put within a clip that let you set individual parameters

note for an effect that can change over time. If two key frames have different settings for a particular parameter (such as volume), the NLE then gradually adjusts that setting between them.

Mark

First modulation of sound

You need to align the sound and prepare the music for every scene in your film. This takes some time, so it’s better if you take the time to accumulate the sound effects and music cues during the individual scene editing. If Wendy doesn’t mind, you can also edit the sound into the individual scenes as you go so there is less work to do right before a screening.

Adding Audio Effects As you build the dialogue and effects, you and Wendy will find many instances where the sound quality isn’t exactly what you want. A voice may need to sound like it’s coming through a radio, or a sound may need to seem like it’s coming through a door. Or, you might want a sound to echo.

CHAPTER 7 1 The Editor Cuts Away

Figure 7.1 Line up the mark where you want the sound effect to fall with the crucial part of the sound effect (in this case, the first modulation of the glass breaking sound on the lower two tracks).

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You can add all these audio effects to the sound effect and control it very tightly. For instance, using the audio effects in most NLE applications, you can control the amount of echo on a sound so it appears to be in a large or small room. Another useful effect is changing the equalization of a sound. EQ, as it is called, is the volume of the individual frequencies of a sound, like treble and bass on a typical sound amplifier. The EQ settings in most NLEs give you much greater control, allowing you to adjust the volume across seven or eight bands of audio frequencies as well as how broad a spectrum is affected. Using these controls, you can easily make a voice sound like it is coming through a phone (by lowering all the frequencies except for the mid-range) or from the other side of a wall (by boosting the low frequencies and minimizing the higher ones). When adjusting every sound effect, in both volume and equalization, be sure to test it against all the other sounds running at the same time.

CHAPTER 7 1 The Editor Cuts Away

Color Correction

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Color correction is a tricky business. Unless perfect color is absolutely necessary to tell your story, it is generally unwise to do too much color correction in the editing room. For one thing, good color correction (or color grading, as it is called in the United Kingdom) requires precisely adjusted monitors. It is always unwise to color correct on computer monitors, since they don’t accurately represent the colors as they look in projection. In addition, to get true color reproduction, the lighting in the editing room—as well as the colors of the walls, furniture, and even your shirt—needs to be precisely controlled so it won’t affect your adjustments. In my experience, virtually no editing rooms are set up that way. As a result, any color correction you do is not going to look the same when you screen in a theater with Adam or an audience. Still, there are times when changing the color of a shot is helpful. You may want to adjust the way a flashback or a dream sequence looks so the audience can tell the difference between it and the scenes that represent reality. You might also find that shots from one particular scene taken across several days look so wildly different that they would confuse the audience. You can perform varying levels of color correction on a shot. The simplest is a color effect, where you adjust a small number of parameters to change the overall color or brightness of a scene. For more control over the look of a shot, all NLEs have more sophisticated 3-way color correction modes that allow much more sophisticated changes. Figure 7.2 shows the 3-way color correction window arrangement in Final Cut Pro, complete with a series of visual controls (at right) that let you determine exactly what visual frequencies exist in the shot in the center of the screen. More sophisticated color correction plug-ins and programs let you give the image an entirely different look and feel, such as Apple Color or Magic Bullet Looks. These programs are more complex to use, and are subject to problems with the lighting in your editing room.

Figure 7.2 The 3-way color correction mode in Final Cut Pro. The series of four screens at right are meant to duplicate expensive electronic scopes to accurately measure the physics of the color in the center frame.

Creating Outputs Until recent improvements in compression technology, the image quality Wendy edited within the NLE was not good enough to screen with in a large theater. The compression would cause annoying blockiness or motion artifacts in the images. With compression getting better by the year, you can now screen output from your NLE. It is still possible, however, for Adam or your producers will want an even higher-resolution version for your public previews.

Some screening rooms let you bring your hard drives into the projection room and connect them to an existing Avid or Final Cut station. You can then project directly from your fi les, as if you were looking at the film in your own editing room. To make this work, create a copy of your project file and bring it to the screening room on a FireWire drive. The project fi les store all the information that points to the footage on your material drives and tells the NLE when to cut from one shot to another. For this screening, make sure you’ve copied the latest version of the project folders before you unhook the media drives from Wendy’s or your system. Then, it’s a simple matter of copying the project folders over to the screening room’s system. Of course, you do need the media drives to make this work and there are several ways to do this. One way is to take the editor’s media drives to the screening. Most editors,

CHAPTER 7 1 The Editor Cuts Away

Screening from an NLE

99

understandably, prefer that you not remove their drives but rather make a copy of the media for screening. In the Avid, for instance, use the Consolidate command to do this. The Consolidate command lets you copy only the material used in the edit to an external FireWire drive.

Screening from an Output If you’re not screening from your NLE files, then you have a number of choices. The first one is to determine in what format you’ll be screening. It is possible to screen on tape or from a computer using a QuickTime or some other movie fi le. It is important to check with the screening room to see what formats they can screen. It won’t do you any good to show up with a great HDV/DVCam tape, only to be told that they only run HDCam.

CHAPTER 7 1 The Editor Cuts Away

Balancing Reels If you are screening from a QuickTime or a Blu-ray disc created from that QuickTime, you can probably screen the entire sequence without stopping to change tapes. However, if you will be screening from a tape, then you need to be aware that all tape formats have a limit on time length. If your project is too long to fit on one tape, you need to split the entire timeline into two or more sequences and let the projectionist change from one to the other during the screening. If you use a reputable screening room, they will likely have two tape machines to play back from, so the switch from one to the other will be almost seamless. The art of splitting the movie into individual parts for separate tapes is called reel balancing. Generally, you want to make the split at a point in the film with no continuous music or sound, since the projectionist can rarely line up the last frame of the outgoing reel with the first frame of the incoming reel (in which case, the audience hears the music bump). Choose a point with a clear change in the sound, normally at a scene change without music. Make sure the reel is not so short as to make it difficult for the projectionist to load and set up the next reel. It is also smart to confirm that there are no duplicate time codes between reels. I like to keep my reels under one hour and set the time codes so the first reel begins at 1:00:00:00, the second reel at 2:00:00:00, and so on.

Setting Up Reels Every production is a little different, but I generally set up my sequences in the following way (for the first reel): 00:58:30:00 00:59:30:00 00:59:40:00 00:59:50:00 00:59:52:00

100

01:00:00:00

Begin 60 seconds of bars and tone. Begin 10 seconds of black. Begin 10 seconds of identification slate. Begin 2 seconds of black. Begin 8 seconds of Academy countdown head leader. Note that this leader ends with 2 seconds of black and has a 1-frame pop at 00:59:58:00. Begin picture reel.

The slate should include the name of the film along with a lot of other information (see Figure 7.3). List the total running time of the film on that tape.

Figure 7.3 This is the slate for a film that needs to be cut into three pieces for output to DVD or tape with a one-hour maximum. If you output to a tape that is long enough for the entire film, you can leave out the “Reel 1 of 3” line.

At the tail of the program, add the Academy tail leader, which has a one-frame pop sound at exactly two seconds after the last frame of picture (called LFOA, for Last Frame of Action).

Performing Playouts, Digital Cuts, and Prints to Tape

CHAPTER 7 1 The Editor Cuts Away

After you clean up the picture and track, balance the reels, and set up the head and tail elements, you can output to a tape. You can output to a number of formats—ranging from HDV/DVCam tape all the way up to high-definition digital tape. The process of outputting your sequence onto a tape has different names, depending on the NLE you are using. Some of the most common are playout, digital cut, and print to tape. Once again, you need to know what formats your screening room accepts, but there is an additional wrinkle here. Since you are creating the tape, you need a videotape recorder capable of generating that tape. That means to screen HDCam tapes, for instance, you need to have an HDCam recorder in your editing room. These high-end tape machines are not cheap to buy or rent, so many editing rooms do not have them. Therefore, you need to rent and install an HDCam deck for the day of the output. This is not as easy as it sounds, depending on how your system was set up. If you anticipate outputting to a one-day rental machine during the course of a production, tell the equipment rental house to set you up at the start of your editing process so installing the deck is easy. Otherwise, you may find yourself crawling behind the NLEs and plugging and unplugging a host of video and audio cables into the patch bay, mixer, and NLE. It is then a simple matter to output directly to the tape from your NLE. You can send the video and audio directly to a free-running tape (by starting to record and then pressing “Play” on your NLE). But this creates problems if something happens with the output from your NLE, such as a frozen frame or a too-loud sound. You would have to stop, correct the problem, and then start the playout again from the beginning to provide a seamless output.

101

A far better idea is to output to a pre-striped tape, where the tape already has a time code recorded onto it that matches the time code of your sequence. In this way, you can insert edit the remainder of your sequence. If you encounter a problem, you can stop and correct it and then start recording again just a little bit before the problem occurred. To do this, you usually place an In mark at that point, so the NLE starts inserting the new recording exactly at that frame and not before. Make sure the tapes you are recording on are pre-striped with the correct time code (if you are editing in non-drop frame, then the tapes should also be in non-drop) at the appropriate hour.

You will not be able to use this technique if you playout to a Blu-ray disc or a standard

note definition DVD.

CHAPTER 7 1 The Editor Cuts Away

Exporting Movie Files

102

As more screening rooms become able to screen from computers, you may find that the best way to screen is from a QuickTime or similar movie fi le, such as AVI or MPEG. The important thing to remember is to avoid compressing the data, so that the quality Adam sees is the same as what Wendy is editing. QuickTime movies come in many flavors, most of which add compression and should be avoided. Use a .mov format that is the same quality as the source material; Avid, for example, has a QuickTime export setting called “Same As Source.” Create a “self-contained” QuickTime movie in the same aspect ratio as your project settings. If you use the alternative (a “reference” QuickTime), then the movie will not play on anyone else’s system because it will try to reference the material on Wendy’s material drives. Be sure your screening room has the same QuickTime codec (the fi le that assists QuickTime in compressing and decompressing the moving images) as you do, or the file will not play. Remember, not all QuickTime fi les are alike, so plan ahead. In fact, it’s a good idea to send a short test fi le to the screening room as soon as you book the room. That way, they can make sure it plays in the room. I prefer to have my assistants bring the file to the room themselves so they can watch it and make sure it looks correct. In addition, if my assistant accompanies the fi le, it decreases the chance of piracy. Programs such as Apple Compressor or Sorenson Squeeze can create movie files for the screening for you. While they let you compress files in any number of formats and compression rates, be sure to choose an uncompressed setting. Create this movie fi le on an external hard drive that you can transport it to the screening room. As a safety precaution, you might want to bring a second copy on a second drive.

When creating movie files, use a drive that spins at a minimum of 7200 rpm. Slower

tip drives may have problems playing back larger uncompressed files smoothly.

If you choose to view your movie in a digital fi le format, you do not need to break the project into reels. It’s just as easy to screen a 10-minute scene as a 4-hour movie from digital fi les.

Outputting to a Blu-ray DVD With the advent of cheaper Blu-ray recordable DVDs and the disc burners to create them, some productions are beginning to take a high-resolution QuickTime and make Blu-ray discs in Adobe Encore, Ulead’s MovieFactory/Disc Creator, or Final Cut Pro. It is also relatively easy to output directly from your NLE onto a Blu-ray disc, just as you play out to a tape without time code. In both cases, of course, the screening room must be able to play back Blu-ray discs.

Conforming to HD

CHAPTER 7 1 The Editor Cuts Away

For certain screenings, such as large audience previews, your producers may decide the video resolution in your NLE is not good enough. In that case, they might want you to take your NLE material and create a matching sequence at a higher resolution. To do this, you need to uprez (up-resolution) the material and conform (that is, precisely match) it to your NLE sequence. Every NLE works a little differently, but they can all take a sequence that was edited at one resolution, unlink it from its media while preserving all the edit instructions, and then relink it to higher-resolution media. Of course, this requires you to have the higher-resolution media, which you can get from several sources. Cameras such as the RED will record at multiple resolutions at the same time, allowing you to edit at a lower resolution and easily link back to the original 2K or 4K R3D fi les the camera created. (The lower-resolution files are often called proxies.) It is also possible for you to create higher resolution fi les from within your NLE, in a process called transcoding, either through programs such as Compressor, Red Rushes, or Sony Clip Browser, or directly on import, using your NLE’s import settings. Different systems create these proxies in different ways, and the trick is in preserving the metadata that lets the uprez work correctly. A third possibility is to ask the telecine house to create a high-resolution tape, such as an HDCam format, when they create the dailies. They can then create an HDV/DVCam tape with matching time codes for you to edit with. (This process reduces the resolution and is often called down resolution or downrezzing.) When you create the HD screening tape, you can go back to the high-quality HDCam masters and input just the sections you need in the sequence into your NLE from an HDCam deck. Because of the high cost of these decks, you

103

can either rent them for the day or take your entire project to a facility that has the decks and a compatible NLE. The process for creating this type of uprez is fairly simple. Most digital editing machines can consolidate footage. Start by creating a bin that contains a copy of Wendy’s v099 fi le. Then, ask the NLE to go through every cut in the film and create a list of only the material in that sequence. This process creates a new series of clips that include only the video material that exists in the sequence. Next, highlight all the new clips and batch digitize them at the higher resolution. This process allows you to re-digitize the material without entering new information into your NLE or creating new bins and folders. You need to sit by the HDCam deck and, periodically, insert a new tape, but the digitizing occurs automatically. As each tape is finished, you can actually see the newly digitized footage showing up in your timeline. When the machine is finished, you have a new edit with the higher-quality images inserted in place of the ones Wendy originally edited with. Because of the higher quality, more data is moving back and forth between the hard drives. As a result, the image may appear jerky in some places with faster cutting. This stuttering normally occurs when the computer is trying to shuttle the hard drive’s head over the drive faster than it is capable of moving. In this case you’ll need to output the material to an HD tape, which will not stutter on projection. When the consolidation is completed, you can then output to a fresh, pre-striped HDCam tape, as described earlier.

CHAPTER 7 1 The Editor Cuts Away

Conforming to Film

104

In rare cases, your producers or director might want you to conform to a 35mm or 16mm fi lm print instead of high-definition video. Note, however, that you cannot screen Super 16mm fi lm, so if you've shot in this format you won't be able to screen with it. The first thing you need to do is balance the reels into sizes a normal projection room can handle. In most cases, and because of the editing room equipment limitations, you should balance the film into 20-minute reels. You will then need to get a number of fi lm-specific pieces of equipment and supplies, as you can see in Figure 7.4. At the telecine session, you may remember the colorist/telecine operator created a FLEx fi le with all the video information as well as whatever film information was available at the time. If you telecined directly from the negative, this includes the camera roll and the latent edge key numbers. When you digitized the dailies using this log, this information should have been attached to every take you put into your machine. Now it is time to use this information. Any system that allows you to cut in 24 fps mode should be able to generate a series of Film Cut Lists. Quite simply, these lists take Wendy’s digital cut and translate the video numbers shown onscreen into the matching fi lm numbers. If the time code 04:02:13:12 on dailies tape A52 matches up with the code number KI 4827913956+15, the computer translates any cut occurring at that time code into a cut at that exact key code number.

Film, rolled up by take

Rewinds

Feed reel

Synchronizer

Splicing tape

Splicer

Takeup reel

Paper tape

Editing bench

Figure 7.4 A film editing bench.

Cautionary Notes About Conforming to Film A few limitations exist when working with film at this stage. For one thing, you cannot see dissolves, fades, or other visual effects. Also, you cannot reuse frames, unless you make second prints from the original negative. Most NLEs have a command for showing frames that have been duplicated. You can turn that function on, review the list, and ask Wendy how she wants to handles those instances.

CHAPTER 7 1 The Editor Cuts Away

The software command for making this translation varies depending on your system. However, no matter what it’s called, a number of options will be available. You can choose from a number of Film Cut Lists. The two most important are the Pull Lists (see Figure 7.5 on next page), which help you to tell the lab which pieces of film negative to make prints from, and the Assemble Lists (see Figure 7.6 on page 107), which tell you how to take the film prints the lab makes for you and assemble them into a spliced film that matches every edit Wendy made with her NLE.

105

Avid Cut Lists Project: Silent Night List Title R06v099

created at 22:18:2

R06v099 Picture 1 Pull List

15 entries, 0 dupes

7 Jan 2011

handles = -1

Footage

Duration

First/Last Key

Lab Roll

Cam Roll

Clip Name

Ass #

2.

12+00 23+02

11+03

KI 48 2791-3956+15 3968+01

00051

A52

74-1a

2

4.

25+13 28+03

2+07

KI 48 2791-3970+04 3792+10

00051

A52

74-1a

4

6.

42+08 49+08

3+11

KI 48 2791-3976+06 3980+00

00051

A52

74-1a

6

8.

42+08 49+08

7+01

KI 48 2791-3985+14 3992+14

00051

A52

74-1a

8

10.

56+07 62+05

5+15

KI 48 2791-3999+12 4005+10

00051

A52

74-1a

10

12.

67+04 70+11

3+08

KI 48 2791-4012+06 4015+13

00051

A52

74-1a

12

14.

75+06 82+00

6+11

KI 48 2791-4097+05 4103+15

00051

A52

74-1a

14

16.

87+07 97+08

10+02

KI 48 2791-4215+12 4225+13

00051

A52

74A-1

16

CHAPTER 7 1 The Editor Cuts Away

________________________________________________________________________________________

106

3.

23+03 25+12

2+10

KI 48 2791-4976+00 4978+09

00054

5.

28+04 32+00

3+13

KI 48 2791-4981+13 4985+09

00054

7.

35+12 42+07

6+12

KI 48 2791-4987+03 4993+14

9.

49+09 56+06

6+14

11.

62+06 67+03

13. 15.

B8

74-1b

3

B8

74-1b

5

00054

B8

74-1b

7

KI 48 2791-5000+14 5007+11

00054

B8

74-1b

9

4+14

KI 48 2791-5046+09 5051+06

00054

B8

74-1b

11

70+12 75+05

4+10

KI 48 2791-5054+15 5059+08

00054

B8

74-1b

13

82+01 87+06

5+06

KI 48 2791-5111+08 5116+13

00054

B8

74-1b

15

(end of Pull List)

Figure 7.5 A Pull List, which lists every piece of film needed to conform Wendy’s NLE edit into 35mm film.

Avid Cut Lists Project: Silent Night List Title R06v099

created at 22:18:2

R06v099 Picture 1 Assemble List

15 entries, 0 dupes 1 optical

Footage

Duration

1.

0+00 11+15

12+00

First/Last Key

2.

12+00 23+02

11+03

KI 48 2791-3956+15 3968+01

3.

23+03 25+12

2+10

4.

25+13 28+03

5.

Lab Roll

7 Jan 2011

handles = -1 total footage: 97+10 total time: 00:01:05:01 Cam Roll

Clip Name

00051

A52

74-1a

KI 48 2791-4976+00 4978+09

00054

B8

74-1b

2+07

KI 48 2791-3970+04 3792+10

00051

A52

74-1a

28+04 32+00

3+13

KI 48 2791-4981+13 4985+09

00054

B8

74-1b

6.

42+08 49+08

3+11

KI 48 2791-3976+06 3980+00

00051

A52

74-1a

7.

35+12 42+07

6+12

KI 48 2791-4987+03 4993+14

00054

B8

74-1b

8.

42+08 49+08

7+01

KI 48 2791-3985+14 3992+14

00051

A52

74-1a

9.

49+09 56+06

6+14

KI 48 2791-5000+14 5007+11

00054

B8

74-1b

10.

56+07 62+05

5+15

KI 48 2791-3999+12 4005+10

00051

A52

74-1a

11.

62+06 67+03

4+14

KI 48 2791-5046+09 5051+06

00054

B8

74-1b

12.

67+04 70+11

3+08

KI 48 2791-4012+06 4015+13

00051

A52

74-1a

13.

70+12 75+05

4+10

KI 48 2791-5054+15 5059+08

00054

B8

74-1b

14.

75+06 82+00

6+11

KI 48 2791-4097+05 4103+15

00051

A52

74-1a

15.

82+01 87+06

5+06

KI 48 2791-5111+08 5116+13

00054

B8

74-1b

16.

87+07 97+08

10+02

KI 48 2791-4215+12 4225+13

00051

A52

74A-1

Opt 1-000+00 OPTICAL #1 0011+15

Figure 7.6 An Assemble List, which organizes the pieces you’ve pulled using the Pull List in Figure 7.5 into the order in which they will appear in the cut film.

CHAPTER 7 1 The Editor Cuts Away

(end of Assemble List)

107

CHAPTER 7 1 The Editor Cuts Away

Adding Changeovers

108

When you balance reels, another term to know is changeover. These are cues that let the projectionist know exactly when to make the changeover from the reel on one projector to the reel on the other (projection rooms have two projectors). The cues are two sets of circles shown onscreen. The sets of circles appear to be a single circle, but to make them visible to the human eye, they actually consist of a series of circles that appear in the same spot on four succeeding frames. The first set cues the projectionist to begin running the other projector, although not to turn on its light and sound. It is called the motor cue because it cues the starting of the second projector’s motor. The second set, called the changeover cue, signals the projectionist to turn the picture and sound off on the first projector at the exact moment that he or she turns on the picture and sound on the second projector, which contains the new reel. Some assistants use a grease pencil to make a slash mark that extends from the upper-right corner of the frame a short way into the frame itself (see Figure 7.7, fi lm strip sample A). Others like to use a single hole-puncher to punch out little dots from a roll of paper tape (see Figure 7.7, fi lm strip sample B). Always make sure that your marks extend far enough into the frame to be seen, even if you are projecting in a 1.85 screen ratio. Whatever kind of changeover marks A B you use, there is a standard for where Figure 7.7 Two examples of they go on the fi lm (see Figure 7.8). changeover marks on film.

Providing Sound Track for Screenings

Figure 7.8 The placement of changeover cues in 35mm film. The motor cue begins 12'08 (which is 12 feet and 8 frames) before the LFOA. The changeover cue comes 1'08 (one second) before it.

This takes care of the picture for a film screening, but where does the sound come from? You can choose from a number of formats for outputting the sound track. To assure the best quality, be sure the original sound was digitized at 48Khz and output onto a good quality tape, such as a DA-88. This tape supports a stereo sound track, with a time code that matches your sequence. In this way, the screening room can sync up the separate picture and sound elements.

11 feet

24 frames

Preparing the Paperwork

CHAPTER 7 1 The Editor Cuts Away

At this point, create a list for the projectionist that shows every reel in the fi lm, along with the ending time code or footage (if it’s being projected on fi lm). This gives the projectionist another cue for when to make the changeover from one reel to the next. On recent fi lms, I used a continuity like the one shown in Figure 7.9. Scenes removed from the fi lm during the recutting (such as Scene A19) are listed in italics. Reel breaks are noted with thick lines between the scenes where the reel changes. You’ll notice that I included a crucial piece of information at the top of the continuity—the TRT, or total running time. The TRT is one of the first pieces of information Adam will want to know. If you are working on television, it is even more crucial. As you screen later versions of Silent Night, Silent Cowboy, everyone will want to know how much running time has been lost (or gained) since the last version, so keep a record of that as well. The best way to determine the running time is to go back to Wendy’s v099 cut (which should include all reels). Mark an In point at the first frame of picture (do not include the bars and tone, slate, or Academy Leader), and an Out point at the LFOA. Most NLEs report the duration of the selected material. Or, you can look at the last time code number of your sequence before the tail leader. If you set the time code numbers properly—and compute the time in drop-frame time code, rather Figure 7.9 This type of continuity helps the directors and producers discuss the film after the screening. than non-drop—then the time code at the LFOA should show the duration. First-cut screenings are always very tense for everyone involved in the film-editing process. Directors often get very insecure or irritable. Editors begin to worry about minutiae (like the number of people coming to the screening and whether the film has been rewound properly). Usually, no one wants the producer around because the film’s worst faults are all too visible at this point. Studio personnel are almost never invited to these screenings; they usually see the film only after the director has completed his or her contractually guaranteed cut.

109

You can minimize some of this craziness by ensuring that your fi lm is ready for screening. Take a few hours to screen the videotape, DVD, or NLE sequence prepared for the screening room to make sure that everything is correct. Arrive at the screening as early as possible, so you can run a test of your material. Bring along several copies of your continuity as well.

After the Screening

CHAPTER 7 1 The Editor Cuts Away

After the screening, Adam and Wendy are bound to meet. During the meeting, you should listen to what everyone believes are the fi lm’s major strengths and weaknesses. Take careful notes regarding proposed changes, including:

110

•

Which scenes to drop from the fi lm

•

Which alternative takes to use

•

Which scenes to move to different places in the fi lm

•

Which sequences need major recutting

Handling all these changes and the host of other suggestions that come up requires prep work from you. Be sure you understand what the director and editor want done and when they want it. Create copies of the film to be distributed as well. Producers, writers, the director, and studio executives (when they finally see the fi lm) need a copy of the fi lm to refer to when taking notes. Keep track of where all the copies go as there is always fear that someone will distribute copies to the public. In general, send the screening tape or DVD to a duplication house for copies. On the tape request order, ask for a burn-in that identifies the tapes as “Property of Big Time Picture Company.” Different studios want different things burned in; some even require that the initials of the recipients are burned in. Visual obstructions like these make the tape less attractive to bootleggers and decrease the chances of copies of the movie showing up for sale in Hollywood or Times Square. You may want to list the name of the cut (“Editor’s First Cut,” for example) and burn in either the time code or footage to help Adam identify frames for his notes. If the original fi lm was transferred in 1.85 format, you can use the black space (called letterboxing) at the top and bottom of the picture to burn in this information. If the picture is full frame, place the burn-in so that it covers up the least important area of the picture. The very bottom of the screen is the best place, although you can place some information at the top as well. Write all this information on the tape request order. It is also a good idea to talk to someone at the tape dub house to make sure the employees are aware of your needs. The better the communication, the fewer the errors. Finally, once you’ve sent the film out for duplication and organized your notes from the after-screening meeting, you can go home and get some well-deserved rest.

8 The Editor Recuts Away After screening, critiquing, and re-critiquing the first cut, it is time to begin recutting the fi lm. Some editors and directors love this part of the fi lm; others despise it. The recutting process encapsulates everything that makes editing what it is—attention to the most minute detail while still paying attention to the whole film. When I worked on the film Heathers, we continually experimented with the order of different scenes. I would re-edit the film for a week and then screen it again for the director. Sometimes, he would come into the editing room and work on scenes; other times I reworked the scenes with his notes. We then went back to the screening room for another screening. The process went on for months. On another fi lm, Trigger Happy, the director and producer spent most of their time in the editing room after the editor’s cut. After every screening, we had intense discussions about the relative weight we were attaching to a character, a scene, or an action. “It moved slowly in this part,” someone would say; if there was agreement, everyone would try to figure out why the sequence moved slowly and how we could recut to remedy the situation. As the assistant, your role in the recutting is keeping things organized, available, backed up, and more.

Keeping Your Editor Organized As an assistant editor, you must keep track of all the suggestions from the screenings and prepare to carry them out. Editors take their own notes at these sessions in addition to having an assistant take notes. Inevitably, the discussion moves so fast and covers so many different areas of the film that one of the two will miss or confuse something. In those cases, it is helpful to have a second, independent, set of notes to clarify what was really said. Be prepared to take thorough notes, scene by scene. If you have a copy of the continuity to refer to, it will make your job a lot easier.

You will also find it handy to keep a three-ring binder with a new date on each page, listing everything to be done that day and everything that was done on that day (rarely the same). You can keep meeting notes, special addresses, and other pertinent information here as well. This helps you plan what you need to do to prepare for the editor. It is also helpful to post an erasable calendar in a prominent spot on the wall. The postproduction supervisor (on Silent Night, Silent Cowboy your “post super” is Rina Gratis) generally keeps a master calendar that lists every step of the postproduction workflow. Keep a copy of the master calendar posted over your desk as well. Rina will have meetings at least once a week with you, Wendy, and perhaps Adam, to discuss the schedule. If the editing is moving slowly and you won’t make a scheduled screening, she wants to know so she can reschedule it. Rina is responsible for contacting all the vendors to keep them aware of the schedule. She is the person who hires extra people if you need them. (If you have good recommendations for people to hire, the two of you will work together to hire the extra staff.) If a company has been hired to create trailers and other marketing material, she finds out what they need and supplies them with the tapes, outputs, sound, and music. She helps expedite the transport of video, film, files, and paperwork between the editing room and the rest of the fi lm team. If you are working on a film without a post super, then it will fall to you to do all those tasks.

CHAPTER 8 1 The Editor Recuts Away

There Are All Kinds of Recuts

112

Before Wendy and Adam reappear in the editing room, ready to start recutting the fi lm, you need to prepare a few things. First, you save the version of the film they’ve just seen. Every NLE can make a copy of any edit you need. Make a copy of the screening version of the film (the v099 edit) then label that copy with a new name “v100.” If Wendy wants to keep the fi lm in reels, copy R01v099 and call it “R01v100.” Some editors want to use the version of the film with all your music and sound effects work in it while some want only the version they created. Still other editors want the version with your sound fi xes, but not the sound effects and music. Clarify with Wendy exactly what she wants. Place this newly numbered copy into a new bin, named v100, that is nested inside the Cuts or Edits bin. If you were at the meeting between Wendy and Adam after the screening, give her a copy of your notes before she begins recutting.

Lifts The first type of recut you are likely to face is called a lift. A lift is a scene (or a large portion of a scene) that is being dropped in its entirety from the film. Often, the director wants to see how the fi lm plays without a scene. Wendy is most likely to remove the scene herself. She may or may not make a copy of the scene and put it in its own bin. Since deleted scenes are popular DVD extras, make sure to collect all the lifted scenes into one place for possible inclusion on the DVD.

Keep the DVD production in mind the whole time the editor is recutting. It is handy,

tip for example, to create a copy of the version of the lifted scene with all the sound and music work in it. This results in less work when you need to supply the lifts to the DVD production team.

Make sure that you note that the scene has been lifted on a copy of the continuity. I like to format lifted scene descriptions in italics, so I can easily differentiate deleted scenes from scenes still in the fi lm.

Complete Recuts In some cases, everyone is so unhappy about the way a particular scene is cut that they believe it is better to recut it from scratch. In this case, Wendy will simply lift the scene out of the timeline and begin to recut it from the original dailies. You have very little additional work to do in this case, except to note that the scene is being recut. If you ever need to go back to an earlier cut, use the version of the film (v099) that contained the old cut.

Normal Recutting The bulk of Wendy’s recutting work lies somewhere between the extremes of completely recutting a scene and completely lifting it out of the picture. This is the slowest part of the process for the assistant. Because all the dailies are already digitized, you rarely need to input new material (except for the occasional music or sound cue, and any visual effects or stock footage that comes in). In addition to helping with recutting, you are still responsible for the smooth functioning of the editing room. This means that you need to speak with your vendors so they know of any changes in your schedule and needs.

During the re-editing process, you are faced with all sorts of questions. Many of the questions are related to organization—how should you log in this piece of music, when can you send the producers a list of actors edited out of the film, how should we handle this optical? All these questions need to be handled with some degree of foresight. In much the same way you attempted to create a system that functions all the way through the movie, you must learn to deal with exceptions to the system without ruining it or creating even more work for yourself. Let’s examine these exceptions one at a time.

CHAPTER 8 1 The Editor Recuts Away

Questions and More Questions!

113

Reprinting Takes Although the telecine house produced a general color correction of the tapes from your negatives, the director or director of photography might not be happy with how some takes look. Wendy may try to fi x the color in her NLE, but it is possible that the piece was timed too far away from the desired end product to make that work. The first thing to do is check the high-resolution masters if you have them. Sometimes, you can perform color correction on the masters that cannot be done in your NLE. If that is the case, you need to supervise the retiming of the desired takes. Order a completely new HDV/DVCam tape to be generated at the telecine house from the entire HDCam master roll with the exact same time codes as the first one. When you receive the new tape, pull the original dailies bin for that tape number (you can now see the value of keeping this bin). Select the takes for which the color correction changed. You can then re-digitze just those takes by having the NLE replace the old takes using the batch digitizing process discussed in the previous chapter. Look at each take from this bin to ensure that the import worked properly. Also confirm that any sequences that use the corrected takes were updated as well. Some assistants like to import the takes into a new bin rather than overwriting the old takes, in case something gets imported incorrectly. If that happens, you can always look at the old, badly timed takes and recut the new takes, one by one, eye-matching by time code burn-in or visual cues.

CHAPTER 8 1 The Editor Recuts Away

Computer Housekeeping

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Athough computers have changed our lives in many ways for the better, they are imperfect. The random computer gremlin will arise to test your patience. On a weekly basis, you will no doubt need to deal with a computer error or cataloging problem that would never occur in an all-fi lm world. One of the most annoying computer glitches is a take or an edit that, all of a sudden, refuses to show up on Wendy’s computer. Sometimes this renders the entire edit unusable, causing the machine to choke and stop running (or bomb out, as computer techies say). Other times, a cut that was playing fine suddenly shows with black or silent spaces. At times, these errors are simple to repair. If a note says “Media Offl ine” or “Media Missing,” the computer can no longer find the footage you digitized for the take. It knows the material is supposed to be there; it just can’t find it. Most of the time, the problem is that one of the hard drives storing the footage is off or disconnected from the main computer. If the drive is connected and working properly, you may have lost the ability to play back that take. You must then re-digitize it just as you re-digitized the newly color corrected material in the previous section. Unfortunately, there are usually a few times when the footage is just gone. Your machine has completely lost track of the original material. To solve this problem, you need to re-digitize the footage from the dailies tapes and cut it into the edit using one of your

early output tapes as a guide. Digitize the portion of the output tape you need, and lock it up with the portion of the edit right before and after the area where you need to find the frame.

B-Negative Wendy may ask you for some B-negative takes at times. This is footage that was not originally circled and was never telecined. To get the footage onto a tape you can digitize for Wendy, you need to retrieve the negative and original sound roll (if the take is not MOS) from storage. Your script supervisor’s lined script notes pages should have all the information you need—camera roll, sound roll, and date shot. Send the telecine house the negative, sound roll, and a work order (with purchase order number if necessary), giving them all the details for the telecine. Make sure the staff knows: •

Which take you want transferred.

•

Which camera and sound rolls the take comes from.

•

What tape number to telecine it onto (you might as well attach it to the end of a tape you already have room on; the same tape as the other takes from that same setup would be ideal, though it is not always possible, nor is it necessary).

•

The telecine specifications you used during production.

Telecine time is very expensive, and you usually need to book a minimum amount of time. Therefore, I try to accumulate a number of B-negative takes (if Wendy can wait a few days for them) and telecine all of them at one time.

Change Notes for Film

CHAPTER 8 1 The Editor Recuts Away

The most complicated part of electronically recutting a fi lm comes when you move out of the digital world and try to match the new version of the film to the already cut 35mm work print. From your editing machine, print a detailed list of all the changes you’ve made since your last conformed version of the film. This is one reason it is a good idea to list the final version number for each screening print in your continuity. If there are three different versions of a reel from your first cut, you need to know which version (v100, v101, or v102) was conformed for the screening. All the programs that work in 24-frame editing mode can create Change Lists, which document in excruciating detail all the changes made between any two versions of an edit. None of the programs, however, create perfect or easy-to-follow notes. Once again, the actual procedure for using the change list programs varies. However, they all require you to identify the old edit as well as the new one. You select the channels in which to scan for changes (video, audio, or both) and hit a button to start the computer thinking. The software spends a bit of time chugging through the edit lists, then creates a series of lists for you to print.

115

Like the Film Cut Lists we saw in the last chapter, there are two parts to these lists: a Pull List that tells you what pieces of fi lm to retrieve from the lab or from the rolls of film you’ve already printed, and a Change List that details step by step the changes you need to make in your already spliced fi lm (see Figure 8.1 on the next page). This list gives you the details about each change that needs to be made, where in the reel to make it, as well as providing enough data about the footage itself so you can choose the proper piece and cut it in (or, in many cases, cut it out). Some assistants like to include the date of the edit within its name. That way, it not only shows up at the top of the change list, but it is easier to track which version of the edit is sitting in a bin or a gallery.

CHAPTER 8 1 The Editor Recuts Away

Requests from All Over

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Once an edit exists for people to view, you start getting requests to see it. In fact, your editing room can turn into a video dubbing facility if you’re not careful. You start receiving demands from publicity departments, special effects houses, trailer companies, music supervisors, et al., for copies of the fi lm. In many cases, you need to output specific scenes of the film; at other times, you need to send out the master tape from your last screening for additional copies. Each time a tape is requested, be very aware of the needs of the recipient. A music supervisor generally needs the picture without the music track. Trailer houses need to see the latent edge numbers burned in. Some places need time code burned-in and on an audio channel, others may specifically demand no time code. Every tape request has its own specifications, so be sure you know exactly what you are expected to deliver. Create a form (see Figure 8.2 on page 118) to complete for each request, listing every possible variation of time code, burn-ins, tape format, and so on. Then, it’s a simple matter to check off the specifications for each individual order as you talk to the person making the request. Some studios, producers, and directors like to keep a record of who is receiving these tapes. At some point, they get the tapes back to prevent unauthorized copies of the fi lm from floating around. The Tape Request Log helps you keep track of where each tape is—and identify which have not been returned. You will probably need to adapt the form to your own needs.

Instructions for where to make the change and what the change is

Key numbers of film

R06 v299 Video 1 Change List – Reel

15 10 5

events insertions deletions

Film metadata

Old Duration New Duration Total Change

+

85+09 86+10 1+01

All Counts Are Inclusive (inside/inside)

At This Footage

Do This

First/Last Key

Cam Roll

Clip Name

Lengthen Tail

+

KI 48 2791-3968+06 KI 48 2791-3970+15

A52

74-1a

+

2+10

2. 28+07 29+06

Trim Head

-

1+00

KI 48 2791-3970+08 KI 48 2791-3971+07

A52

74-1a

+

1+10

3. 28.07 29+06

Insert Shot

+

4+05

KI 48 2791-4154+04 KI 48 2791-4158+08

A52

74-1a

+

5+15

4. 34+03 35+02

Lengthen Tail

+

1+00

KI 48 2791-3970+08 KI 48 2791-3971+07

A52

74-1a

+

6+15

5. 42+11 45+05

Trim Head

-

2+11

KI 26 1405-4987+03 KI 26 1405-4989+13

B8

74-1b

+

4+04

6. 42+11 45+05

Lengthen Tail

+

2+11

KI 48 2791-3980+05 KI 48 2791-3982+15

A52

74-1a

+

6+15

7. 49+07 63+05

Delete 2 Shot

-

13+15

KI KI KI KI

2791-3968+06 2791-3975+15 1405-4972+13 1405-4979+01

A52 B8

74-1a 74-1b

-

7+00

8. 49+07 50+11

Lengthen Tail

+

1+05

KI 26 1405-4993+15 KI 26 1405-4995+05

B8

74-1b

-

5+11

9. 50+12 53+01

Lengthen Head

+

2+06

KI 48 2791-3997+10 KI 48 2791-3999+15

A52

74-1a

-

3+05

10. 59+01 63+14

Delete Shot

-

4+14

KI 26 1405-5046+09 KI 26 1405-5051+06

B8

74-1b

-

8+03

11. 59+01 63+14

Insert Shot

+

4+14

KI 32 4557-4241+00 KI 32 4557-4245+13

A16

74E-2mos

-

3+05

12. 72+01 74+05

Lengthen Tail

+

2+05

KI 26 1405-5059+09 KI 26 1405-5061+13

B8

74-1b

-

1+00

13. 79+02 74+05

Trim m Tail

-

1+15

KI 48 2791-4102+05 KI 48 2791-4104+03

A52

74-1a

-

2+15

14. 79+02 81+00

Lengthen Head

+

1+15

KI 26 1405-5109+09 KI 26 1405-2111+07

B8

74-1b

-

1+00

15. Lengthen Tail 96+09 98+09 (end of change list)

+

2+01

KI 48 2791-4225+14 KI 48 2791-4227+14

A52

74-1a

+

1+01

48 48 26 26

Total Change

Figure 8.1 An example of a Change List that enables you to recut the conformed 35mm film to reflect Wendy’s new sequence, R06 v200. These are step-by-step instructions, listed in the order you need to make the changes.

CHAPTER 8 1 The Editor Recuts Away

1. 23+03 25+12

For This Length 2+10

117

TAPE REQUEST LOG Tape(s) Sent To:

___________________

Date: _______________________

____________________ ____________________ Name:

____________________

Phone:

____________________

From supplied: (include Name of Tape and format)

Tape Format (with number of copies): HDV/DVcam




DVD-R




HDCam




DVD+R




HDCam SR




DVD+R DL




Digibeta




Blu-Ray

CHAPTER 8 1 The Editor Recuts Away

SOUND:

118

Burn-Ins? What kinds?




Stereo


Where?

Dolby


5.1


SR


Track 1 _____________________

Track 5 ______________________

Track 2 ____________________

Track 6 ______________________

Track 3 ____________________

Track 7 ______________________

Track 4 ____________________

Track 8 ______________________

Tape Returned On: ___________________________

TAPE REQUEST LOG

Figure 8.2 An example of a Tape Request Log. Complete one for every tape request that comes your way.

9 Visual Effects The act of making the impossible possible is one of the things that makes watching a movie so interesting. Seeing the Red Sea part or seeing spaceships hurtle through space is an experience difficult to find anywhere other than in fi lms and television. In the old days, creating these types of fantastic effects, as well as a host of much less spectacular ones, was a chemical process. A copy of the film negative was optically reshot to introduce the desired effect. Today, however, nearly every effect is created digitally. All visual effects, however, involve manipulating the original fi lm image to create a new master (either fi lm or digital) with some changes. There are two types of visual effects—simple effects such as fades, dissolves, green screen work, and titles, and more complicated effects that involve creating entire 3D worlds. Simple effects are typically called opticals as an homage, I suppose, to what they were called when effects were primarily created on a film optical bench. More complex effects are called VFX, for visual effects shots, or CGI, for computer generated images. These two types of effects are often created differently and in different facilities. Therefore, they require different approaches to how you handle them.

Opticals—Simple, but Effective The simplest effects used in editing are the fade-in, fade-out, dissolve, and superimposition. In addition, creating titles is an optical effect. Let’s say that, at the end of a scene in Silent Night, Silent Cowboy, we want the image to fade to black. This is called a fade-out and is accomplished by darkening the image gradually until you see nothing but black. One way to accomplish this, of course, is to do it in the camera while shooting the scene. The camera operator simply closes the camera’s aperture slowly while the actors perform, so less and less light is thrown on the negative. You can see this effect in the dailies, with the image getting darker and darker until all you see is black. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

The problem comes if Adam changes his mind later in the editing process and wants the fadeout to occur two seconds later, or he wants the fade to be a little slower or a little faster. Wendy cannot make Adam’s changes because there is no image on the negative to play around with. By creating optical effects in the camera, you are limited to whatever comes out of the camera. The solution, for the most part, is to create the fade at the very end of the editing process when creating your online or digital intermediate (see Chapter 14, “To the Finish—Ho!!”). You then darken the image at the speed determined during the editing process, using the highresolution images. Voilà! Perfect control. A superimposition effect is an extension of the dissolve. In it, two images are run together at the same time. If one of the characters in the fi lm is reading a letter from another character, and you want to show that he is thinking of the letter writer, we might show a picture of the writer superimposed over a close-up of the reader. You run the closeup of him and the shot of the other character, exposing both at the same time. When projected, you see both images—one right on top of the other. All these effects are easily accomplished in your NLE, and they are easily replicated when you go to do your digital intermediate (DI).

CHAPTER 9 1 Visual Effects

Testing Opticals in the NLE

120

Wendy can easily create a sample version of any simple optical as she edits in her NLE. She and Adam can see a nearly exact approximation of what happens when the film is finished in the online or DI. They can tell whether the fades convey the right feeling for the scene, or whether the speed of a dissolve serves the story. There is a caveat to creating effects in an NLE, however, because you will finish the fi lm at a higher resolution than what you view in your NLE. For example, during a dissolve— which consists of one shot fading out while another fades in—the opening frames of the incoming shot (also called the B-side) will be so dim that Wendy can’t see the image. The same is true for the very last frames of the dissolve, where the frames from the A-side are also too faint to see. This may mean Wendy included a frame in the dissolve that she would not want anyone to see (for instance, if an actor changes facial expression or starts moving). To prevent this from happening, periodically check Wendy’s dissolves by match framing the image on the B-side (incoming shot) of the dissolve in the record monitor (or canvas) into the source monitor (or viewer). You can then lock the two images together and scroll backward to where the first frame of the dissolve occurs. The left monitor shows the first frame of the clip on the B-side. If the B-side shows anything you think Wendy might not want to see (such as a slate), she can adjust the dissolve. For Figure 9.1, you can do the same using the material from the A-side (outgoing shot) of the dissolve.

When you match frame in an NLE, you are automatically finding the exact frame the

tip editor used in the record monitor (canvas) and putting it in the source monitor (viewer). This makes it easy for you to find the clip’s metadata and see its head and tail trims.

Head extension of the B-side of the dissolve

Cursor at first frame of dissolve

First frame of the A-side of the dissolve

Center of dissolve

Figure 9.1 This is what you see if you place your cursor on any frame of the B-side of the dissolve (on the left), match frame that shot into the viewer, and roll back to the first frame of the dissolve while locking the two together.

Using Mattes and Green Screen

CHAPTER 9 1 Visual Effects

One more type of effect sometimes handled as a simple optical is a green screen, where a piece of an image is removed and replaced with a second image. Let’s imagine that one scene of Silent Night, Silent Cowboy shows a photograph of a church that Abby is looking at as a potential shooting location. The problem is that, at the time of the shooting, they didn’t know which church photograph they would be using. They decided to shoot the shot in such a way that they could replace the photograph of the church during the editing. An easy way to do this is to have the actor look at a piece of paper (rather than an actual photograph) and replace the image on the paper during editing. The best way to make that happen is to use paper of a particular color, say green (although blue is common as well). Later, in the NLE, you can electronically cut out every green pixel in the frame with an alpha channel (an electronic mask generated from pixels of a particular color). You can then superimpose that image on top of a photograph of the church you actually want to use in the film. When it’s time to shoot the still of the church, this technique might require some coordination between the editing room and the set. You need to create a frame clip (use the Export

121

command and select an image file format such as JPEG, TIFF, or GIF) and send it to the set so they can match Abby’s angle. If Wendy already edited the scene of Abby looking at the photograph, you can send a QuickTime movie of that section, so the production can match the lighting or movement. When you finally get both shots into the editing room, you create this effect on your timeline by stacking the two together and applying a matte effect to the top shot. Wendy might ask you to create this effect for her, or she might do it herself.

A matte effect is an NLE effect that combines two shots, normally using blue

note or green screen. Video Made on a Mac, a book by Richard Harrington and Robbie Carman (Peachpit Press, 2009), has a good discussion of green screen.

This, and the opticals discussed earlier, are all easy to recreate in your NLE, and they are simple to recreate later at the higher resolution necessary for completing the fi lm. You should be able to keep all these opticals to one or two tracks on your timeline, preferably V1 and V2. Many assistants color code these types of simple effects differently than they color code the more complex effects discussed in the next section. That way, they can immediately see which effects are created in the online session and which ones need to go to a visual effects house.

Complex Visual Effects Today, most effects require much more complex work, with characters and cameras moving in three dimensions, or multiple layers or shots with complicated movements. As a result, these visual effects (VFX) shots require a complicated workflow that you must monitor.

CHAPTER 9 1 Visual Effects

VFX Staff

122

Depending on the budget of the project and the complexity of the VFX shots, there may be a visual effects supervisor, whose job it is to monitor the creative, technical, and workflow aspects of the effect shots. This supervisor is the head of the visual effects department, which is often made up of personnel from a number of visual effects houses, doing a wide variety of complicated jobs. These people include compositors, rotoscope artists, painters, matte painters, motion capture artists, technical support, modelers, colorists, lighting artists, and (most importantly for you) visual effects editors and visual effects assistant editors. Whether you are working on a film with this level of support or not, your primary job is to supply these people with all the material and information they need to create your VFX shots. This means that you need to be highly organized and in constant communication with them.

VFX Process Overview In general, visual effects are created by taking the fi lm negative or digital video and converting every necessary frame to a computer image. A visual effects house can manipulate the computer images with their high-end visual effects computers and software such as Flame, Maya, Cinema 4D, Nuke, Shake, boujou, or After Effects. They can then output back into the format you need for finishing the fi lm. Let’s imagine a shot from Silent Night, Silent Cowboy. In fact, let’s take the simple green screen shot discussed in the previous section, with a shot of a church onto the green paper. But let’s imagine that Adam wants something much more complex—like he wants to zoom in slightly, remove a slight camera shake at one point, and then add a shot of a pen to the left of the photo. This shot can’t be handled simply in your NLE or in the online process. This shot falls into the VFX category and needs to be handled by a visual effects house. Let’s see how you handle that.

Scanning

CHAPTER 9 1 Visual Effects

The first step in getting the fi lm to a VFX house is creating the high-resolution image fi les they need to work with. Silent Night, Silent Cowboy is being shot on 35mm fi lm, so each frame needed for this VFX shot must be put onto a machine called a film scanner such as the ARRISCAN, Northlight, or DataCine from Thomson. Let’s say you are working with a scanning facility called Film Intermediate and a VFX house called VFXPeople. The first step is to get your negative and instructions over to Film Intermediate for scanning. Scanning is not cheap, so most productions don’t scan at a higher resolution than the visual effects house needs. Many fi lms scan at 2K resolution, which provides a raster size of 2,048 pixels by 1,536 pixels. This is being superseded by the larger, but more expensive, 4K resolution format (normally, 4,096 by 3,112 pixels). Due to the high cost, the project won’t scan any more frames than necessary to complete the VFX shot. (There is one exception, which I get to in a little bit.) Therefore, you need to send the scanning vendor an accurate list of which frames you want. To create the list of frames to scan, use a VFX count sheet (see Figure 9.2 on the next page). You can generate a series of count sheets from your NLE (including a list of what pieces of negative need to be pulled from storage—the same pull lists you saw back in Chapter 5, “Moving on to Editing”). Most assistant editors, however, find these count sheets lacking in information, so they end up creating their own lists in a program such as FileMaker Pro. This count sheet describes precisely the number of frames for both the shot of Abby and the church shot. The camera and lab rolls numbers as well as the shooting dates are listed here so you can tell the lab (or your VFX supervisor, if you have one) which takes need to be removed from the negative and sent to Film Intermediate. Note that the lab pulls the entire take, not just the needed frames, from the flash frame at the beginning of the shot to the flash frame at the end. This is called flash to flash.

123

CHAPTER 9 1 Visual Effects

Key numbers for paper shot

124

Handles

Key numbers for church shot

Shot length

Figure 9.2 A VFX count sheet for the church photograph shot, which includes all the detail in the key numbers and where the effect exists in the frame. Additional sheets are attached to provide specifics on any added elements requested (such as the pen).

Flash Frame As the camera is slowing down at the end of a take, it lets more light in. This shows up as a frame or two on the film where the image is very bright. Flash frames, as they are called, are handy for locating the beginnings and ends of takes.

Delivering Videos and Files The information in the previous section applies if you shot on film, but if you shot on video (either on tape or direct to digital fi les) then the delivery requirements are a little different. Either the original shot tape needs to be converted to the DPX files or the individual digital fi les captured on set need to be copied and, possibly, converted to a format that VFXPeople can use. Make no assumptions about what any vendor can work with. The fi le format you used on your last fi lm may not be one that VFXPeople likes. Get a spec sheet from them at the start of the project so you can expedite the delivery.

CHAPTER 9 1 Visual Effects

The lab then sends those takes over to Film Intermediate, and they scan the frames from KU-13-0397-6280+19 through KU-13-0397-6298+03, the only frames you requested for this effect. When the scan is complete, Film Intermediate ends up with a large number of digital files (in the DPX format), one for each frame of the effect. These DPX fi les are placed on a hard drive and sent to VFXPeople, your VFX house. If the same facility does the scanning and VFX work, they can expedite the file shipping. If you’re not using the same vendor, someone else (either you or your postproduction supervisor) is responsible for making sure the files get from one place to another. It’s a good idea to keep a shipping log to keep track of the fi les. Some assistants like to put the log on the same VFX count sheet created for each shot. In Figure 9.2, that information appears in the box labeled “VFX Shot History.” Earlier in this section, I mentioned an exception to the rule that you scan only what you need. After Wendy and Adam receive the shot, they might decide to begin the cut two or four frames earlier. If you only ordered scans for the exact frames necessary for the VFX shot, you would have to go back and, after scanning the additional frames, remake the entire VFX shot. To protect against that possibility, most VFX shots are created with a few extra frames at the head and tail of each piece of scanned negative. These extra frames are called handles. The number of frames in the handles is always up for debate—editors like more for protection and the people who control the budget prefer fewer. The count sheet in Figure 9.2 calls for four-frame handles on both the head and the tail of the shot. In conversation, these are referred to as four frame handles. Other productions may shoot eight frame handles. It is rare to get more than 16 frame handles on any project.

125

If you are delivering files from a tape, you won’t have key code numbers, of course, but you will have tape reel and time code numbers, as well as the date of the take. If you are delivering from tapeless digital fi les, then you should use fi le names and time code numbers in addition to the shooting date.

Delivery Requirements for the VFX House Once the negative is over at VFXPeople, you need to supply them with enough information to execute the shot without any waste of time or money. Wendy or Adam probably discussed this shot with Film Intermediate already. Every VFX house wants different materials and data from you, so talk to them about their delivery requirements before you send anything over. At this stage, Wendy has probably edited a temporary version of the effect on her timeline. In this case, Wendy has three layers: the church image on V1 (which was shot as take 85L-6), the green screen paper shot (take 85-5), and a temporary image of a pen that is resized and repositioned in the area of the frame that Adam wants. The slight zoom Adam requested is incorporated into her timeline as well.

Don’t let the phrase “temporary version of the effect” fool you. This means that

note Wendy has edited her offline version of the edit in her NLE. You need to wait to send your VFX out for scanning and its effects work until the shot selection and effect timing is finished (or locked). It is much more complicated and expensive to change these things later.

CHAPTER 9 1 Visual Effects

Take the three layers of effects for this shot and cut them into a new timeline, called SN128, which matches the count sheet you are creating for this VFX shot (see Figure 9.3).

126

Figure 9.3 After Wendy edits the VFX shot, create a sequence named according to the VFX number (SN128, in this case) and edit all the necessary visual pieces into it.

VFX Numbering Systems Every assistant and every VFX supervisor has his or her own numbering system. Some of them include the scene number in the effect, others label them sequentially in script order (leaving room for unplanned VFX created during the course of editing). The system you devise is completely up to you, but it should uniquely identify each VFX shot in the movie as well as provide an easy way to separate VFX shot 15 for one film from another film’s VFX shot 15. That is why I’ve labeled the shot in Figure 9.3 as SN128 (Silent Night 128).

Most VFX houses have their own NLEs, so you can submit an Avid or Final Cut Pro sequence for each effect along with the actual NLE media used in the shot. They can then generate whatever lists they need directly from the project. In addition, some houses ask for an edit decision list of the VFX sequence. Much like the one discussed in Chapter 5, this EDL provides a detailed description of each shot involved, including the shot name, tape number, time code location, and what happens at each frame of the sequence. Whether VFXPeople is looking at your NLE files or a QuickTime movie output, it is important to provide explicit instructions about what Wendy and Adam want the effect to look like. It is very helpful to provide screen captures of frames from the effect (the position of the pen, for instance, or a photograph or drawing of what the pen should look like). Sometimes, the temp edit of the VFX shot Wendy creates in her NLE gives the wrong impression to VFXPeople; she needs to discuss with the VFX supervisor what Adam really wants, no matter what the temp version shows. If that happens, it is helpful for you to rework the shot, perhaps in a program such as Adobe After Effects, to give a clearer sense of what Adam and Wendy want. Adam and Wendy can bring output from your temp edits to VFXPeople when they meet with them. The goal is to get to an acceptable VFX shot with as few attempts as possible. It helps both your schedule and your budget.

After VFXPeople completes its first pass on the shot, which may take a few days or several weeks depending on the complexity, they send you a low-resolution QuickTime movie of the first attempt. If everyone did their job properly, it should be exactly the correct length, including handles. This shot is typically posted on the house’s FTP site, a server with a password-protected area where files are uploaded for you to download.

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After Shooting the VFX

127

Organizing the VFX Bin When you import the effect’s fi le into your NLE, you or Philip should put it into its proper folder and bin using the system you worked out. Figure 9.4 shows one common folder structure.

Figure 9.4 This portion of an Avid project window shows a sample structure for the VFX folder, containing subfolders for VFX elements coming and going from your VFX house, VFXPeople, as well as various more specific bins.

Once the effect is in the proper bin, color code it. Assistants use different systems, but the idea is to choose one color for shots that are not yet approved and completed, and one color for those that are.

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Organizing VFX Versions in the NLE

128

Next, take the optical (the effect) and put it in the source side of your NLE at the first frame of the shot. (Remember to adjust for the handles you requested.) In the record side of your NLE, run down to the first frame of the cut where the effect is supposed to go. Then select the entire length of the effect on the record side and cut the actual VFXPeople effects shot onto the next higher open track, usually V2 or V3. At this point, Adam and Wendy screen the effects shot in the context of the entire film. Chances are, they will have issues with the first pass on the effect. They can discuss with the VFX supervisor or the supervisor at VFXPeople what they would like to change for the next pass. Occasionally, this requires some more work on your part—if, for instance, they want to use a different part of the church shot. However, those times are rare. It is much more likely that the next time you deal with this shot is when a revised version of it is delivered to you from VFXPeople. Import the second version and cut it onto the next higher track available, usually V3 or V4, depending on how many tracks Wendy used to build the effect. This leaves the original components of the shot on V1 and V2, the first pass from VFXPeople on V2 or V3, and the

second pass on V3 or V4. Adam and Wendy probably want to compare all three versions, so it is important that they are aligned properly and stacked over each other on the timeline (see Figure 9.5).

Figure 9.5 The various versions of each VFX shot are stacked, with the latest version on top (such as “041BED-310-comp” on V4). Those effects display in a different color from the approved version.

It is cumbersome for Wendy to work with too many video tracks, so many assistants keep no more than three versions of VFX shots stacked. They rotate the shots so the latest three are always stacked and the latest is always on top.

Creating Post-Viz

CHAPTER 9 1 Visual Effects

You may need to preview your film before some of the VFX are complete—for example, if you haven’t sent a shot out to the VFX house because Wendy isn’t finished editing the scene enough to lock those shots. In many cases, you need to use an effect that was temporarily mocked up inside your NLE. (You might mock up a wire removal, where you need to paint out the wires an actor hangs from to create the illusion of flying, for example.) In some cases, you can create an even better temp effect using After Effects. If you can’t get the effect to a level appropriate for the audience, create a QuickTime movie from your NLE and send it to the VFX house. They can create a temporary effect for you. This effect is not of the higher resolution necessary for your finished fi lm, but is good enough for screening. This type of temporary effect doesn’t have an actual name, but it is increasingly being referred to as a post-viz effect, because it is rough, like a pre-viz, but uses the actual footage that was shot. You still need to create an optical count sheet for the VFX house. However, you won’t have any key numbers or film information on it; everything is handled strictly by time code numbers.

129

Finalizing the VFX Shots At some point, Wendy and Adam approve the shot and you receive a QuickTime movie of the approved effects elements. I like to color code these shots green (for “go”), although every assistant has a different system. Then, cut this finished effect into your V3 track, removing all the temp VFX shots. The reason to use track V3 is simple. When you create your digital intermediate (discussed in Chapter 14), your tracks need to be organized in some straightforward manner. I like to organize it so that every shot that comes from the original photography is on V1, every shot that needs optical work is on V2, and everything shipped from the VFX house is on its own track—V3. VFXPeople ships you the finished fi les in a form that can be sent to your digital intermediate house right before you create the digital intermediate. Usually, you receive a sequence of picture files (often TIFF images) that use a consistent naming convention that includes the VFX number followed by the frame number. In this case, since SN128 contains 201 frames (including handles), the fi les are named SN128-001.tif through SN128-201.tif.

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Adding Titles

130

The term titles refers to type superimposed on top of the film. This includes the main titles, the end titles that crawl up the screen, and subtitles that display in the lower part of the picture (often called lower thirds) to translate a foreign language or state someone’s name and title. Depending on the kind of titles you are creating, these consist of either a simple optical effect or a title sequence created by a titles designer, who handles everything just as VFXPeople did for your visual effects. When working with a titles designer, you handle the titles just as you did SN128—assign the titles a VFX number, get QuickTime fi les as the titles design is progressing, and cut them into the final version (to track V3 for your online or digital intermediate). The titles designer needs the VFX count sheet, a printed or digital list of all the titles in the fi lm, and copies of all the legal details involved (including relative size and time allowed on screen). For the opening credits to a film, also called head titles or head credits, the legal details are very specific. Often, an actor specifies that he or she must receive a single card (meaning his or her name must appear by itself onscreen) with the type size at a specific percentage of the main title of the film.

The contracts for many directors, writers, and stars require that their names be no

tip smaller (or the same size) than a certain percentage of the title of the film, so be sure to list the relative sizes of the credits (as you can see in the last column in Figure 9.6 where each title’s size is listed as a percentage of the main title).

Your producer is generally responsible for sending this material to the titles designer. As you receive the titles from the designer, your job is to send QuickTime movies of each version to your producers so they can verify that the titles adhere to the legal specifications. How long each title displays onscreen is also crucial. The producer may ask you to measure how long each name appears onscreen, something that is much easier to do on an NLE than on a QuickTime.

Adding Titles as Opticals Often, your titles consist of no more than type over picture or a colored background, which is easy to accomplish in your online or digital intermediate. (These items are discussed in more detail in Chapter 14.) If this is the case, mock up the titles in your NLE, so that your online editor knows exactly where to place each title. To do this, first get the titles list from your producer. The titles list includes a breakdown of all the credits at the beginning of the film (see Figure 9.6 on the next page). It shows which people share space onscreen (or share a card) and which get single card credits. Each card is assigned a number. Thus, the first title is MT1, meaning main title card number one (“Big Time Pictures presents”). Create temporary versions of each title using a typeface Wendy and Adam select (or as close as you can get using the fonts available on your system). Sometimes, you may want to create the titles in a program such as Photoshop or After Effects. You then import the titles into your NLE with an alpha channel so they can be burned-in on top of the picture. Put all these titles into their own bin, labeled with the proper number and name on the producer’s list (“MT2-Adam Free Film” or “MT8-Sean McKinley”). I like to keep the main titles in a separate bin from the end titles.

Alpha Channel

Wendy needs to determine where the titles fall in the timeline. She does this by cutting in the titles you have created into the next higher track (usually V2) over the places in the picture where she wants them to be. Do the same thing if there are lower thirds or subtitles in the fi lm that need to be superimposed over action or a color. Put them in a separate bin from the main titles.

CHAPTER 9 1 Visual Effects

An alpha channel is a separate video channel that contains information about how to display the other three color channels (red, green, and blue). This is often used to overlay titles or other images. It is also called a matte channel since it is used for matting two images, which is a way of blocking out and replacing an image with other material..

131

“Silent Night, Silent Cowboy” Main Titles March 28, 2011 MT1

Big Time Pictures presents

100%

MT2

an Adam Free film

100%

MT3

Silent Night, Silent Cowboy

100%

MT4

Starring Carol Lestial

100%

MT5

Enid Gaseous

100%

MT6

Reed Birney as “Doc”

and

100%

with

MT7

MT8

CHAPTER 9 1 Visual Effects

Silent Night, Silent Cowboy

132

Alice Wannabee Philip Striving Bob Robert Sean McKinley Gene Shepherd Hut Yabbo

MT Page 1

60%

60%

March 28, 2011

Figure 9.6 The first page from the Main Titles credits list. The number in the third column is the legally required percentage of the main title’s size (the size of Silent Night, Silent Cowboy).

Many issues need to be considered regarding titles, including: Crawl or cards: Wendy, the director, and the producer determine whether the end titles are in crawl or cards format. These terms refer to the manner in which the mass of names at the end of the film display. Some fi lms roll the credits up on the screen slowly (a crawl) while others present them as cards that fade in and out sequentially. Other fi lms combine the two approaches. Placement: Once they decide on a format, they can determine how the end titles are placed onscreen. If the names are to be on cards, they need to be divided logically (usually by job category) without making the individual names too small to be read.

Legibility: Usually no more than seven or eight names are readable on any one card. If the names are to crawl, it may be wise to separate job categories with a few extra lines of space to make them easier to read. Legal issues: Be aware of the legal requirements various actors and unions have in their contracts. Although the producer’s office should deal with all these questions before giving you the list, often someone just plain forgets to check. Overall look: It is nice, if you are aware of what credits normally look like, so you can spot anything that looks out of the ordinary. Title time onscreen length: Someone needs to time out the length of the titles. I generally leave about one second for each name, except in cases where there are so many names as to make this ridiculous. NLEs provide various methods for creating temporary versions of end title crawls. Get a text fi le of the end credits that you can import into your NLE, so you can see how they look in the time Wendy has allotted for them. Keep in mind, however, that the end titles list generally is not complete at the time you need to finish editing the fi lm and hand it over to your sound and music editors. In that case, the important thing is to make sure that Wendy decides on a definite length for the end credits and places a title card (which may say “End Title Crawl Here”) of that exact length into the timeline at the end of the project. It is crucial that the length is specified and the tail leader is adjusted to reflect that, so that the composer knows the proper length for the end music and the sound editors know how long to keep their last reel for mixing purposes.

Checking the Work

CHAPTER 9 1 Visual Effects

It is very easy to misspell someone’s name on the credits—or leave someone’s name off. You cannot control mistakes made on the producer’s list, but you might be able to catch some anyway, such as the spelling of people’s names in the postproduction departments. If the producer agrees, make sure everyone you know needs to be given credit is listed. It is embarrassing to explain to your apprentice or the person helping you out at the VFX house that his or her name was left off the end titles, even if it wasn’t your fault. You’ll be working with these people time and time again, and you should look out for them. The best way to check the credits is to sit down with Phillip as soon as you have a copy of the online or a QuickTime file from the titles designer. One of you should take the producer’s credit list, and the other should sit at the NLE. Read through every single name on the credits, spelling each one out. This is much more efficient than checking them yourself, because it is easier to make a mistake by yourself than with another person. It is also a good idea for the producer’s office to perform its own independent check of the main titles and end titles. If there are any mistakes, it is up to you to notify Wendy, your postproduction supervisor, and whoever else needs to correct the error.

133

Adding Logos as Opticals Every distribution company and every production company has its own logo. Twentieth Century Fox has the large letters with the meandering klieg lights. MGM has Leo the Lion. Columbia has the friendly torch lady. These are opticals created by each company’s advertising department. Get a fi le of the logo (and any sound track that goes with it) as early in the editing process as possible. Cut the logo onto the head of reel one just as it will appear in the film. Be sure to cut it in before the sound and music editing departments begin working, as it affects the length of the first reel. If you receive this material as a tape, treat it as originally shot material and edit it into V1. If you receive it as a TIFF sequence, treat it as an effect shot, assigning it a VFX number and color code. You should do this because the online editor expects to receive material from an outside source in image fi le formats.

Moving On to the Finish

CHAPTER 9 1 Visual Effects

Once all the VFX shots, of all kinds, have been completed and the fi les sent to the DI house, and all your simple opticals have been properly set up and prepared so they are easily replicated there, you can move on to the finishing process. However, before we do that (in Chapter 14), let’s take a detour to examine the other facets of the fi lmmaking process that need to be finished—sound and music. These parts are normally done simultaneously with the VFX and DI with the goal of completing all of them at approximately the same time, so your project can be finished efficiently. So, onwards to the sound editing process—ho!

134

10 Handing Over to Sound After many months of cutting and recutting, the day will come when you are nearly finished editing the fi lm. Now, it’s time to hand the movie to a sound crew, who will prepare the film’s sound track for the final film mix (or dub). We call this momentous event the handover. Things never seem to work out this smoothly, however. Mixing time is usually booked months in advance, far before the fi lm is ready to be handed over to the sound crew. A fi lm’s release date is often planned well in advance of its shooting—and that date sets the postproduction schedule rather than the needs of the editorial process. As a result, it’s rare that a fi lm is really locked when it is turned over to the sound crew. Locking a film simply means to finish cutting it. It doesn’t mean you’ve finished working on it, only that the picture edits are not going to change. Unfortunately, I have rarely worked on a movie that did not need to be reopened after the lock. That is why I prefer to call this part of the process latching the film.

Preparing for the Handover Before you even think about creating materials to give to the sound department, you need to arrange the reels and tracks in a way that is helpful for sound. If the movie is releasing on fi lm, you make sure the reels are the proper length (called reel balancing) and arrange the tracks within those reels to make it easier for the sound department to work with them.

Preparing the Sequence If the project will be released on film, you need to divide up the fi lm into chunks that are no more than about 1,900 feet (about 20 to 21 minutes) so they can be printed in the fi lm lab. Finished fi lms are shipped on reels, which are no more than 2,000 feet, including all the lab-added material (hence, they are called 2,000 reels or lab reels). The reels are assembled at the movie theaters into the full fi lm.

This means that you need to break up your fi lm into individual reels, each with its own sets of bars and tone, a slate, and an Academy Leader at the head of the sequence. You need to reset the time code on your NLE so that each reel has a unique time code and the picture start mark falls “on the hour.” If you are working on reel three, for example, the time code at that picture start mark frame falls at 3:00:00:00. A single frame tone of 1000Hz (called a pop) will fall at exactly 2 seconds before the first frame of picture, or at 3:00:06:00. The first frame of the picture will start when the 8-second countdown ends, at 3:00:08.00. On the other hand, if you are working on a television or web-based show that will not be finished on fi lm, you can ignore reel balancing. Normally, you can submit your entire project on one long timeline, even if it is broken into acts with breaks for commercials. The timeline for these needs to be set up so the “on the hour” time code (normally 1:00:00:00) falls on the first frame of the picture after the countdown leader. The “pop” will come at 00:59:58:00. Also, you need to add a tail leader to the end of the timeline. Line it up so that a frame showing the word “FINISH” (upside-down, if you are using an official Academy tail leader) falls at exactly 2 seconds after the last frame of picture. Another single frame of 1000Hz tone, called the tail pop, occurs at this “FINISH” frame. In addition, whether you are working on a film or web/television project, be sure to include the precise amount of time for head and tail credits. Both the composer and the sound editors create their work according to these timings. It is important that you let them know the final length of the credits by placing a mock-up in your timeline. You can simply cut in a single title that says “End Titles Here” and runs exactly the length that Wendy (or your titles designer) has calculated.

CHAPTER 10 1 Handing Over to Sound

Cleaning Up and Assigning Tracks

136

At this point, you also need to clean up and organize your tracks. During the editing process, you or Wendy probably cut some sound effects and music cues into your tracks. These sounds need to be separated on the sequence’s tracks so they can be handled differently. I like to move all the temp music down to its own set of tracks, often A9 though A12. Move any temporary sound effects to a completely different set of tracks than the production dialogue tracks. In addition, if Wendy used sound effects that were recorded on set (called production effects or PFX), integrate those into the production dialogue tracks (usually A1 through A4) or put them on their own tracks, separate from the temp effects (often A5 through A8). If any temporary voiceover or added/corrected lines were recorded and edited into the timeline, put them on separate tracks as well. Sometimes, you or Wendy did the temp looping. At other times, the actors themselves may have done it, either on a looping recording stage or in the editing room. Keep your looping on a separate track from the actors’ looping.

To separate these tracks properly, create new tracks below the ones Wendy has been editing as follows: 1. Create a copy of Wendy’s sequence and label it with her version name and a unique designation (such as “**LOCKED V1499 Sound Handover”). 2. Determine the tracks for which you need to assign different sound types and sources. 3. Review the entire duplicate timeline, dragging sounds from Wendy’s tracks to their assigned tracks. 4. Make sure you don’t change the position of the sound in the timeline, so it still occurs at the same exact frame as in Wendy’s cut. The idea behind all this separation is simple—at various times, someone will need to create a DVD with a specific audio configuration. Your composer may only want the dialogue and sound effects on his copy of the film, so he can play back his music as he writes it without the temp music getting in the way. On the other hand, he may want the dialogue and sound on one track of the DVD, and the temp music on the other (so he can listen to it if and when he needs to). Grouping all the tracks by their sources like this enables you to fulfill the many different requirements from each of your vendors. One final dialogue editing wrinkle remains. In some cases, Wendy may have cheated (that is, slid dialogue from one take into another) non-sync dialogue into characters’ mouths as a temporary fi x for screenings, knowing full well that the actors would come into the studio and loop the lines for the final mix. If this is the case, it might be helpful to have the actual sync track on the ADR tape as a guide during the looping session. Check with your supervising sound editor for specifications, but a common way to handle this is to keep the cheated dialogue where Wendy cut it, find the actual sync production audio, and put it onto its own clearly labeled track.

Most NLEs allow you to rename tracks so not everything is labeled the standard A1, A2, A3, and so on. This comes in handy when you rename each track with its assigned function (such as Prod Dial 1, for “Production Dialogue 1,” or “Temp ADR 2”). Because of the way many NLEs work, the lists you hand over to the sound department usually don’t have these new names. You can send over a screen shot of that part of the timeline or a simple list of the new names.

CHAPTER 10 1 Handing Over to Sound

Naming Tracks

137

Handing Over Materials In the next chapter, we discuss the various members of the sound editorial department team. Your main point of contact with that team is the sound assistant, who is hired by the supervising sound editor. In this case, Chuck Lone is the sound editor and he has hired Liz Clear as his assistant. At some point, usually way before the actual handover, Liz will provide the delivery requirements to you in writing. At the very least, you will need to supply a series of audio tracks as they were edited by Wendy and a QuickTime copy of the film with all the burn-in numbers on your original dailies. You should add another burn-in that lists the reel’s time code throughout the reel. Sometimes, the sound house asks for an extra burn-in that lists the sequential number of 35mm feet and frames from the picture start mark. Confirm the codec that the sound house wants (Motion JPEG A or Photo JPEG are two possible standards) as well as their frame rates and sizes. Figure 10.1 shows a sample video delivery spec sheet. Note the level of detail involved in delivering proper video fi les.

Exporting Audio Files

CHAPTER 10 1 Handing Over to Sound

In addition to the video, you need to send a number of digital sound files to Chuck and Liz. First, include the original sound as recorded on the set. These may be on DVD-ROMs or digital audio tapes (such as DAT or DA-88 tapes). Also, send a file for each edited reel that contains all the audio tracks, adjusted so they can be imported directly into the sound editor’s digital audio workstation (DAW), usually something like Digidesign Pro Tools or Apple Logic Pro. The two main fi le formats sound editors use are OMF or AAF. Once again, get a detailed spec sheet from your sound house for this audio delivery requirement. A sample audio spec sheet is in Figure 10.2 on page 140. Be sure there are enough handles attached to each audio fi le so the sound editors can create the extensions they need to smooth out the sound track, or create the pieces of room tone they will use in their editing process.

138

Handles Similar to the VFX handles discussed in Chapter 9, “Visual Effects,” sound handles are extra frames added to the head and tail of each piece of audio sent to the sound department. Handles are essential to the sound editing process, so the Export command in most NLEs lets you create them automatically.



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