Trim mode

6 June, 2007
editing, final cut pro
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At The Manhattan Editing Workshop, we covered many things today – including the trim window. This is where you go once you have laid out a rough ‘Dragnet-style’ edit. Some editors like to keep their fingers on the keyboard. They select edits using the keyboard, go to the trim window, and use the J, K and L keys to set edit points (in dynamic trim mide).

I’ve avoided using the trim window over the years, but it’s time to be an old school editor for a while. Mac users who are used to directly manipulating media don’t usually bother with it. Those who migrate from other systems require a trim edit window. I suppose it’s best to use both to see which works best.

Gear down

6 June, 2007
final cut pro
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An FCP tip:

All you long-time FCP users may have discovered this one already, but being self-tought means that I never stumbled across it.

When dragging almost anything in FCP you can ‘slow down’ the effect of your mouse movement by holding down the Command key once you start dragging. This means that you can have many minutes of footage on display on your timeline, as long as you can click on an individual edit or clip, you can roll, ripple, slip or slide at single frame increments. For every couple of pixels to the left or right, you change the value by a frame at a time – even if normally those pixels would represent many frames change on the timeline. You can also drag audio and opacity overlays – even when your track height is small.

version 1 final final final

4 June, 2007
final cut pro
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Day one of my course with Jamie at Manhattan Edit Workshop. We started by introducing ourselves. Looks like people in the audio and TV industries want to get out of those fields and into editing.

The FCP shortcut of the day that I didn’t know, or forgot a long time ago: Control-W closes a tab in a tabbed window.

The ‘craft of editing’ thought for the morning was: ‘Try to imagine what the movie of your day would be like. What shots would you need to get to illustrate what you do, how you feel. How would those shots go together. Where would the jump cuts be?’ – That’s assuming the film would not be Andy Warhol-style 24 hours long.

A famous philosophizer

2 June, 2007
philosophy, screenwriting
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For the last few years I have been exploring screenwriting. I think that the more an editor understands screenplay structure and methods, the better the editor.

Part of understanding screenwriting is coming up with ideas for films. You can start with a character and work out an ironic situation they could find themselves in. You can come up with a ‘what-if’ high concept first, and find a character that illustrates the concept the best. Another method is to come up with a political or philosophical theme that you think an audience would like to see explored. Most good screenplays have all these elements, it’s just a question of at which point you start to come up with your idea.

Where the writer pokes their nose into the picture is when they realise what stories they feel they want to tell the the current point in their life. I’ve been looking at the film ideas I’ve been having recently and been trying to see if I can determine what stories I want to be telling right now. Knowing that will help me persue the most apposite idea.

I’ve been thinking about the dichotomy between freedom and love. You want freedom for yourself. On the other hand, you want to give up some of that freedom for those you love. The irony is that you do this so that the people you love can be free to do what they want.

I went to see Pirates 3 last night. The film was very odd: the screenwriters seemed to think that people will watch the film many times, and that it is OK for a film to only be fully understood once you have watched it more than four times. Wanting to understand their thinking about this, I found a (spoiler-filled) interview with them at Box Office Mojo . What should I find but the following quote:

…the rest of the story really is about Sartre’s [idea of] freedom—that if you enter into a relationship, you take on these obligations and limit your own freedom willingly and, if you objectify the [other] person, that can lead to sadism, whereas if you try to ensure that other person’s freedom as well as your own, that’s really the nature of love. To me, it’s such an inspiring concept.

Looks like I should have taken the time to do a little philosophy course…

Converting potential into actuality

28 May, 2007
editing
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I’ll write a bit more about this soon, but this is a quike note to say that part of my job is to bring a cold, hard dose of reality into the creative process.

As soon as I splice one shot after another, that’s when all the potential ways of building a scene start turning into what we’ll actually be able to produce. It’s tempting to put this point off for as long as possible, but someone has got to start making the film at some point. It might as well be me.

This is in the vein of the joke from ‘Shakespeare in Love’ when the actor playing the Nurse says that the play he’s in is “About this nurse…” We editors like to say that the film making starts when one shot is combined with another. The stuff before that is just preparation.

Knowing that directors and producers want to know if ‘it’ll cut toegther’ as soon as I know means that I have to be careful… but sure.

Trying again, a log of a freelance editor

28 May, 2007
Alex
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Hello, all. This is where I’ll be keeping us up-to-date with my adventures in editing and design and art and ideas.

To start with an non-sequitur, here is the first in a series of doodles I’ll be posting. Some new, some old: This one is called t-italic. Based on an object I fiddle with. It might keep the RSI away

T italic