JohanWalters.com

Exclusive Profiles on South Africa's Film, TV and Sound Editors

[johanwalters-blog]

Documentary: Cutting "Mama Goema", an interview with Sara Gouveia. 

"Mama Goema" screened at the Encounters International Film Festival 2011 and the winner of the Best Feature Length Documentary at the Tri Continental Film Festival 2011.Sara Gouveia gave JW insight into cutting this film.

[johanwalters-blog]

Short Film: Cutting “The Fallen”, an interview with director/editor, Bauke Brouwer.

The Fallen is a one minute short film and South Africa's only finalist in the International One-minute Film Festival. JW chatted with director/editor Bauke Brouwer on his experience in cutting this film.

[johanwalters-blog]

Short Film: Cutting "Dirty Laundry", an interview with editor, Stanley M. Agnew.

Winner of three international awards, Stephen Abbott’s short film Dirty Laundry was screened at the SHNIT Short Film Festival in October 2011 and at London's Film Africa in November 2011.

JW spoke to editor, Stanley M. Agnew on his experience on cutting the film.

For more on the film, visit their website http://www.dirtyshort.com

JW: Please give us a brief synopsis of the short film.

STANLEY: Dirty Laundry is the story of Roger, a guy trying to do his washing late at night. All sorts of crazy characters come out of the woodwork, from randy teenagers to incompetent spies. Rog has to decide how to deal with a night of escalating madness!

JW

: How would you describe what makes editing a short film unique to other genres?

STANLEY: It's a different medium to write or direct, for sure. But I think that there's no consistent difference to cutting short films.

I think genres and stories are more important than the length of the film. Maybe you're a bit more constrained by time, though I'd like to think you cut a feature trying with the same attitude to every precious minute of screen time.

JW: In terms of cutting the film: the timespan it took to cut from start to finish.

STANLEY: I don't remember exactly, but it was 10 weeks from wrapping production to wrapping all post.

We didn't cut every day, maybe we needed the downtime. Also there were some interruptions. This was during the world cup.

And of course the cut was locked to allow for sound and grading. I think we had a first cut in 2 and a half weeks. Locked cut after 5 or 6 weeks.

JW: …and the format the footage was in?

STANLEY: Shot on the Red camera. I worked using prores HD proxies, then finished the film using Redcine to export to prores 4444.

JW: …and the shooting ratio?

STANLEY: Just over 5 hours of footage so thats a shoot:edit of about 20:1 .

JW: What edit system do you use?

STANLEY: Cut and onlined on a mac pro, using final cut. Redcine for proxy, colour correction and master output. After effects for touchups. Onlined in fcp. Sound was in Protools.

JW: Can you please describe your workflow? (assemblies -> rough cut -> final cut)

STANLEY:

Export proxies from Redcine (this happened on set)

Mark takes from continuity.

Rough cuts & lots of reviews

Final cut & picture lock

Conform from fcp back to Redcine

Colour correction in redcine

Exports from redcine

Touchups in After effects

Online in fcp,

Marry mixes

Outputs.

Make masters: Quicktime Prores, Quicktim web mpeg4, DVD, BluRay,HDCAM, Digibeta (all PAL and NTSC)

JW: Tell us more about your collaboration with director Stephen Abbott?

STANLEY: We worked pretty closely. He did some cutting, especially at the start.

He had shot the film pretty specifically, so there wasn't much wiggle room.

I would cut and then show Stephen and Ed from Stealth Donkey, we'd discuss and I'd go from there.

JW: Tell us more about your method/approach in cutting a short film? (story development, structure, characters)

STANLEY: I like to focus on getting scenes or beats right so often i work on sections in isolation. I choose these sections pretty much at random, based around what I'm excited about. The film starts to take shape like this, then I go back and string everything together properly.

There wasn't much freedom in this film for story development, structure or characters because it was shot so specifically.

The only real tweaking was the lead Roger's performance. Stephen had shot some key moments with a variety of subtlety, and in the edit we felt we needed to maximise what we had, to help make Rog as empathetic as possible. Since Roger doesn't talk, we were at first worried about this becoming 'eyebrow acting', but Bryan van Niekerk's performance was excellent, so it survived this stretching.

I often went for the biggest take I could find, sometimes looking for good smiles, laughs or whatever in the slate or after the CUT!

But this is relative of course! All the takes were pretty subtle and Bryan's performance is still nicely nuanced.

JW: Can you describe a particular challenge (story/technical) and the solution you arrived at?

STANLEY: Dirty Laundry is all one location, and is pretty much continuous. There's even very little exterior to the laundromat, I think we only go outside twice, apart from the top n tail wide shots. Stephen had shot it very carefully so that each scene has an in and out that worked with the next scene or beat, like a jigsaw puzzle. That was a bit challenging to get right, the transition between scenes, since it's essentially one long scene with different beats.

There were a few times when it nearly didn't work, and it's pretty exciting because you can't solve anything in the edit.

No re-ordering of scenes, no cross-cutting, that's a bit scary! In the end I think we nailed it and the continuous or linearity really works.

You start to feel like you're there with Roger.

JW: To what degree do you focus on sound during your cutting?

STANLEY: Quite a bit. I like to do a fair amount of sound design as I cut. On Dirty Laundry it was needed because it was pretty fundamental to telling the story, to telling whether the scenes were working. They'd recorded a lot of laundromat sounds on location, and then we added a whole lot more from some libraries. The sounds are pretty important to making the film work.

They help to sell the malevolence of the laundromat, but also the warm comfort of some of the machines.

Outside we can hear dogs barking but inside the laundromat its insulated.

Sounds were a big part of that linear jigsaw puzzle I mentioned earlier. Sounds often brings characters into the laundromat, we hear rather than see people arriving. I spent a lot of time lining sound effects up to accentuate performances and pictures.

I even lined up the flicker sound of fluorescents to sync with a character blinking!

The framework, the broad strokes were all done by the time we felt we could lock the cut.

And then sound designer and mixer Guy Steer made everything a lot sweeter, and subtler. Guy was brilliant.

[johanwalters-blog]

Documentary: Cutting SAFTA award winning "Jammer As Ek So Bitter Is", An interview with Director & Editor.

" Jammer As Ek So Bitter Is"  won two SAFTA awards for Best Director: Documentary Film as well as Best Documentary Film.

Director, Rina Jooste and editor, C.A. van Aswegen, gave JW insight into cutting this award winning film.

JW: How would you describe what makes editing a docci unique to other genres?

CA: I think the biggest challenge for editing documentary, is that you are essentially writing the script as you cut. There is no real predetermined structure or script.

No solid guidelines or parameters as one would have in drama or film. This would be the most unique aspect of editing documentaries.

RINA: I see a documentary film as a work in progress, i dont use a script but do have a very focused and fleshed out treatment/shot list before I start shooting.

I also do very thorough research to inform my story/content and do very thorough planning for the interviews and know exactly what content I need to come out of the interviews (an art in itself).

I try to spend as much time as possible with characters beforehand as well, part of research and to become familiar with characters in order to get better interviews and footage.

The more comfortable characters are with me, the better quality content we get.

After filming, we end up with lots of footage that then has to be condensed into a story, without a script.

This is not an easy task and we work with real life charactes and situations, its reality and cannot be faked, although one do use manupilation of characters from time to time.

We always have to keep in mind: our characters vs our viewers vs our aim/objective of telling the story, keeping all these elements in mind makes it a complex, but interesting task.

JW: In terms of cutting JAMMER AS EK SO BITTER IS,  what was the timespan it took to cut from start to finish?

CA: As the film was a SABC commission, we had a lot of time pressure on this project. From starting the capturing process to final delivery of the broadcast master, we had a total of four weeks in post production.

JW: What format was the footage shot in?

CA: Most of the documentary was shot HDV (on the Sony V1). We also had some additional footage from the characters themselves - Rina had asked the girls to take their personal handycams to some of the parties and events they go to.

Integrating this footage into the film was more of a challenge as quality, aspect ratio and style was so completely different to the beautiful images created by our cinematographer - Natalie Haarhoff.

JW: What edit system do you use?

CA: I cut on a Quad-Core Intel Xeon MAC G5. I work mainly on Final Cut Pro 7 - and then the peripheral work in Final Cut Studio 3.

JW: Can you please describe your workflow?

CA: I work with an assistant editor who logs, bins and capture all the footage for me. From that point I prefer, especially with documentaries, to take over the project completely. As documentaries are so reliant on the post production process, and is such a collaborative journey with the director - I do think it is crucial for an editor to be hands on.

My personal preference in terms of workflow, is to keep the footage at the highest possible quality throughout the edit process - this means that I usually end up editing with my 'online' footage from the start. It is the only way to truly know exactly what you're working with.This projects' shooting ratio was about 12:1, which means that it was still rather manageable and contained throughout.

When I start on a documentary, the first thing to do is make sure I have a very clear understanding from the director of why they wanted to tell this specific story. If you understand the true intention and heart behind the story, it is often a lot easier to find it within the footage as well, because you know exactly what you're looking for.

I then do a very rough structure assembly, which is usually just the interview sections of the footage. I use title cards for montage or image sequence, but focus on getting the core narrative down first.

Once the core elements are placed, I start shuffling the structure around for overall rhythm, pace, character and emotional engagement levels.

After I'm happy with the content and the overall structure, I start laying down additional images and build montage sequences to further enhance the film.

Before we get to a final cut, I do like to take a couple of days away from the project to get some distance and clear my head. Usually when we view it again a couple of days later, I can see the film again and it is then also a lot easier to see if there are potential problem areas.

JW: Tell us more about the Director/Editor collaboration.

RINA: I am a fairly new filmmaker in the industry that only started making films in 2007, CA has edited all my doccies since I started. Because I see documentary filmmaking as a work in progress, I dont work from a script. I usually discuss the shoot with CA before I start filming, for his inputs and to ensure a common vision/output.

Before we start with edit process we again discuss the content and direction of the film, as well as the portrayal of our characters, and use / feel of music. We then literally go through all the rough footage together and he makes notes / markers as we continue. Once all the footage has been watched, we plan the structure of the story (Paper edit) we then place chunks of footage in our structure.

Once that is complete we cut it down until we reach our estimate duration of the film.

Once we have our rough assembly of story only, without cutaways, breathing space and visuals, I step out of the process. CA then continues to place visuals and music.

CA: I have been working with Rina Jooste for a couple of years now and we have done a lot of projects together. It is an incredibly important thing - the director/editor relationship. We have developed a type of short hand between the two of us, where I understand what she is looking for, sometimes before she would even express it.

This is a rare thing to have in a professional relationship, and a hugely important one - especially in the world of documentary filmmaking. I think her ability to find interesting stories, her lack of fear and judgement on those stories and her incredible compassion with people - which allows her to get amazingly honest interviews and opinions on camera, makes her an extraordinary documentary film maker.

JW: Tell us more about your method/approach in cutting a docci?

RINA:  Before I start shooting, I discuss with CA to ensure I capture as much as possible to make for a good docci. Also to ensure we have a common vision for the end product, since we work closely until we reach the end product. Before we start editing we again disucss the content/characters/direction and aim of film, we then watch through all the footage together.

CA: It is very important for me to understand the story, the characters and the background to the documentary before I start...

So I usually have a very long conversation with Rina to get a sense of the elements with in the story that excites her, the characters that she finds most interesting and the emotional tone that attracter her to this film. Once we have adequately cover that, we sit and watch through all the interviews that was shot. This is a very important thing to do, because the we both know exactly what was said, what was inferred and what the options for the film would be.

After we have viewed and assessed all the interviews we start brainstorming an overall structure based around the main elements in the film. This happens on paper and usually involves a lot of scribbling and many confusing spider-grams. Once we have figured a structure out on paper, we do a content assembly on the timeline. This usually gives you a very good indication of the overall structure of your film, your characters and the development of the story - it is at this point that we do our major structure shuffles.

I do not pay close attention to pacing and emotional engagement at the structure phase - but once I am happy with the final structure, story development and overall character progression in the film - that is when the focus shifts completely to rhythm, pace and emotional engagement.

This is usually, for me, one of the final steps in the edit process.

JW: To what degree do you focus on sound during your cutting?

CA: For me, sound forms an integral part of the editing process. Therefor it is very important to get the audio and video worlds to merge seamlessly. I do spend quite a bit of time on sound and especially music. I think a lot of people under estimate the impact of a decent sound edit and good score to support and enhance your edit.

JW: Are you involved in other post production aspects like grading, online ect?

CA: I am involved in all aspects of post production, up to final delivery. I prefer to do the online and grade myself. And where possible, I like to sit in on the final mix. I think the collaboration between edit and sound is a very important aspect of the final process.

JW: Rina, what is your approach to bring your vision for the final product together?

RINA: CA and I work togehter as a team to get to our final product, we discuss and treat our doccies as work in progress, i have a clear direction from the start but we develop it as we edit into the final product.

I have to mention that I sat in most of the time with the edit of all my films, which is not always good for time management, but since I am new in industry and on a steep learning curve, it was part of my "on the job" training, and learnt a lot from CA in the process.

[johanwalters-blog]

Wildlife: Ronet van der Walt on cutting "Shark Night".

Ronet van der Walt from Fathomm, is a finalist at this year's ROSCAR Awards (Wildtalk Africa)  for her editing work on Shark Night.

She gave JW insight into this project.

JW: Please give us a  brief synopsis of Shark Night.

RONET: Sharknight is a film about naturalist Mike Rutzen who spends as much time in the open water as possible in three different locations. The test is to see what will be the greatest threat to his life.The film wants to prove that the last thing that would hurt him are sharks. I co-directed the film with Joe Kennedy produced by Off the Fence.

JW: How would you describe what makes editing wildlife program unique to other genres?

RONET: Sharknight was quite special as it had a mixture of genres and characters, so it was very unique in itself. Speaking about wildlife specifically, I suppose you don't have humans who speak or show emotion.  Much of the reaction and emotion of your characters you need to create in the way you tell the story and the way you use the tools available to you ie speaking on behalf of your characters. I find editing wildlife very delicate.

JW: In terms of cutting Shark Night: the timespan it took to cut from start to finish?

RONET: The editing process was spread over 12 months. Edit time was approximately 18 weeks.

JW: What format was the footage and which edit platform did you use?

RONET: HDCAM 1080 25p, DVCPROHD 1080 25p + 720 60p, Sony EX1/3 1080 25p and HDV 50i + 60i.

I edit on FCP.

JW: Can you please describe your workflow?

RONET: We had three major shoots spread across 9 months. Majority of the footage shot on tape was captured at the end of each shooting day. The EX cards were downloaded on set as they filled up. At times there were six camera men shooting, so there were a lot of footage to get through. I lost count after the first shoot. After each shoot we did a two week assembly sifting through the madness to focus our story line and style.

After that process things got a bit simpler...

1st rough cut   - 6 weeks

2nd rough cut - 4 weeks

Fine cut   - 1 week

Pict Lock - 1 week

JW: Tell us more about your collaboration with director/producer.

RONET: Producer/Director Joe Kennedy is a very creative individual which was open to any new idea. Working with him enabled me do what I felt was right and he'd fight the cause with me.

Working with Executive Producer Ellen Windemuth was a tough but great experience. She has great vision and extreme energy and constantly pushes you to add a little bit more, a tiny bit extra, which not only makes a huge difference to the film but also defies what you thought was possible.

JW: Tell us more about your method/approach in cutting wildlife?

RONET:  Each edit has its own challenges. I don't think I have ever approached any film so far in the exactly the same way.

The greatest challenge is of course when you have all those hours but nowhere to put them.

No script or storyline. What I need is a beginning, an end and a reason for the film to be, even if it is just in my head and just for the time being.

After that I prefer viewing everything whilst lifting and selecting the key sequences.

When I have my key sequences the story has momentum and moving things around and playing with structure becomes fun and exciting.

I prefer working with music quite early on to help with pacing and rhythm since this helps give life and energy to the project which of course inspires all sorts of beautiful ideas.

JW: To what degree do you focus on sound during your cutting?

RONET:  I have found that a strong soundtrack at rough cut helps make a good impression. Music and key sound effects are very important at cutting stage but the pictures, structure and story needs to be the focus.

JW: Are you involved in other post production aspects like grading, online ect?

RONET:  If possible I prefer doing the online myself and I prefer sitting in on the grade and mix.

I'd find it hard to walk away after the cut is finished, I love seeing it through to the end.

[johanwalters-blog]

Documentary: Cutting "Odd Number", An interview with Liani Maasdorp.

Liani Maasdorp, editor of  Odd Number, gave JW some insight into editing this documentary film.

On the outside, you grow up with gangs. You end up joining a gang. You are good with a gun and become an assassin. They give you a target. You are betrayed, and they find you. You are shot twelve times, survive and end up in Pollsmoor Prison where the dreaded “number gangs” rule. Now you're on the inside, and you're fighting for survival.

Odd Number is a documentary film set on the Cape Flats. It is a story of redemption. http://www.oddnumberfilm.com/

JW: To start off with, what format was the footage shot on and what editing system did you use?

LIANI: It was shot on Sony XDcam EX which shoots onto solid state so we copied all of the clips from the memory card onto two duplicate drives, so we had complete redundancy at all times, so that if one of the drives were to go down, we would always have a back up.

We used XDcam transfer to convert the clips to Quicktime to edit in Final Cut Pro.

JW: How would you describe your workflow?

LIANI: The first thing to mention is that the shoot didn't happen all in one go. The 1st shoot, we digested the footage, had a look at it and listened to the interviews. Based on that, there was a 2nd shooting window and once that had been incorporated, there were several 1/2 day and 1 day shoots to pick up material that we needed.

So from an editing point of view, that was fantastic! As the edit progressed, I could request footage to make the edit work...that's quite unique and I was very lucky.

If I added everything up, post production came to about 40x days.

In terms of the technical workflow, we had the XDcam EX, but we also had a second HDV camera shooting at all times, but it was shooting behind-the-scenes. We could steal a couple of shots from this camera so combining footage from the two cameras were quite interesting as I had to up-res the HDV footage which I hate, cause if you upscale footage you can immediately see more grain and with video, it's not nice looking film grain texture.

JW: Tell us more about your collaboration with the Director.

LIANI: With the first shoot, I started looking through the material and simultaneously the Director, Marius van Straaten, was listening through the interview. When the editing phase began, we met and he gave me about 10-15 minutes of interview selects which we also used as a promo to show to the funders of the project.

I took the 15 minutes of interview and put it in the order that I wanted to tell the story and then I went to fill in the gaps with other interviews. Based on that, we had about 35 minutes on the timeline. Then we looked through all the footage for cutaways and see how they combined and then we made a list of all the missing stuff.

The whole team went back for a further shoot and they filled in allot of those gaps which I then put into the timeline.

The third phase, Marius and some crew members went out to get individual things for me. For example, there's a certain point where the protagonist talks about all the ammunition they got for gang wars and he then mentions all the different weapons.

So I suggested to Marius we find a suitable gun shop to shoot every one of those things the protagonist mentions. So the great thing was that we had the interview, we've cut the interview down to exactly what we knew we wanted to use - we basically had an audio lock - so he then went to go shoot exactly those things.

So these three phases of shoot-edit, shoot-edit, shoot-edit, Marius the Director had throughout the whole process Final Cut on his laptop so I would literally just send him a list of requests or we would view the film together and identify gaps, then he would go sift through footage till 2-3 am in the morning to find things for me.

So we had a very quick post production for a 48 minute film.

The film had a lot of different aspects to it: we had sit down interviews, cinéma vérité stuff where we follow our protagonist where he does stuff and we can't intervene, we're just filming, there are re-enactments of elements of his story, his past, there's guerrilla shooting stuff in his neighborhood and then some stuff that were more set-up - it was reality but we had a certain amount of control. So there's a lot of different type of footage and I think that the post production would have been allot longer and more difficult if I didn't have that constant collaboration with Marius.

JW: How would you describe what makes editing non-fiction unique and your role in it?

LIANI: The biggest contribution I make to an edit is problem solving. I am prepared to sit through difficult footage and try and find the story within it and that's very much the discipline from the cinéma vérité era of where you would have a concept, the director will go out and gather alot of material and the "story" will really only be found in post production. So the edit was challenging but very rewarding. And that's the challenge I love, how am I gonna make this footage interesting & compelling, ad after sitting with it for a while, reducing it, finding the essence of it you, you finally end up with something that really is the "Story" and engaging to an audience.

That's what I enjoy about non fiction cause I feel I can bring more to the edit, have more space to collaborate with the director, bring more of my own creativity to it.

JW:  Please describe your use of sound in your edit.

LIANI: Initially, I was just going to do the offline edit and a professional online editor would do the online and the grade and someone to do the final mix. As the production progressed, we didn't have the budget we thought we would have so the 1st thing that was cut was our time in final mix.

So I did all of the sound editing, which included the dialogue editing, adding ambiences, foley and sound effects. In most cases, when we had both cameras rolling, I would pick the sound that was the best.

We had two scenes where I knew we had sound problems. For those scenes, I gave the Final Mixer, Stef Albertyn, everything that I had.

In terms of music, Braam du Toit composed music for us. Some of the music he already had, and some of it he composed specifically for the film after viewing it.  We also sourced tracks from music libraries. So I did the music editing as well and I did it all in Final Cut.

JW:  What other aspects of Post Production were you involved in?

LIANI: Because I was not initially going to do the grade, I only graded scenes for the promo so that Marius can get an idea of what the look & feel could be like. I also designed looks for the different aspects, such as the 'current day' interviews, the cinéma vérité stuff and the 'past' sequences.

So as you watch the film, the grade changes from period to period. So these were all preliminary grades to give Marius an idea of what it could look like after it was fully graded. But then towards the end of the production we didn't have enough budget for an online so I just carried on along the path of my prelim grades.

I did it all in Final Cut as FCP gives you some powerful grading tools, you can save presets. Another feature I would use is that I would grade a clip and then use the 'find' function in the timeline to find other clips from the same source and then apply that filter and just tweak where it was necessary.

I also applied on some clips multiple 3-way color correctors and use the 'limit' effect so that I could do for example something to the reds in a shot and do something different to the greens in a shot. So I could manipulate colors separately.

There are a few things that I still want to do  - we're planning to do another 2-3 days of edit. We did a 48 minute film because we were hoping for broadcast, but in the end it looks like it will be going to more festivals, we used initially a very 'choppy' 1 hour documentary slot pace and I feel that the film needs a bit more breathing space.

So I've identified a few places in the film with Marius where we'd like to give some more breathing space  - we want the audience to feel the emotion from a previous scene, take a breath...this will add to build some tension as well.

[johanwalters-blog]

Documentary: Cutting "Unhinged - Surviving Joburg", An interview with Stephen Abbott.

Stephen Abbott, editor of  Unhinged - Surviving Joburg, gave JW some insight into editing this documentary film.

JW: What was your approach to the editing of 'Unhinged - Surviving Joburg’?

STEPHEN: Well, this was a strange editing process! We cut for about 2 years, on and off. Director Adrian Loveland shot about 2/3rds of the film after I started cutting, so the film was constantly changing under my edit. I approached this in different phases. At first I focussed on getting some amazing music and visuals 'set pieces' right, with only a general structure to the film (as it was being written while I was editing). Later, I moved focus to telling a coherent tale with the interviewees and Adrian's voiceover.

JW: What editing challenges did you face?

STEPHEN: Working with limited, 'indie' footage. And working with lots of stills from the amazing press photographer Alon Skuy.

JW: How long was post production?

STEPHEN: I started in July 2008, so just under 2 years.

JW: Can you describe the working relationship between yourself & the director on a project such as this?

STEPHEN: I'd say we had a close collaborative working relationship. While I did all the FCP driving, we both worked on a great deal of things... script, edit. I was present on most of his shooting days, further tightening the collaboration.

JW: What format was the footage shot on?

STEPHEN: A big mixture. About 50% on DVCPRO HD. Otherwise: DVCAM, HDV, Canon 5D, XDCAM EX, RED ... and lots of stills.

JW: What editing platform do you edit on?

STEPHEN: FCP

JW: What was it that inspired you to become an editor?

STEPHEN: I think I got inspired by the joy of the true workings of film; lots of things lead up to the edit, but the cut is where the movie As It Will Be begins to take shape. Editing is probably where the most manipulation happens, and it's where you get to see how every technique and trick works. This is especially true in documentaries.

I was also pretty blown away when I saw Stacey Peralta's documentary "Riding Giants".

JW: How did you get started in editing?

STEPHEN: I met a producer at a bar. Seriously.

I also studied filmmaking as part of my acting degree at Wits.

JW: Would you say there’s noticeable differences between editing Docci’s and other genres?

STEPHEN: Of course! The whole process is more loose, and requires more shaping/directing in the edit suite than everything but an experimental film (and even sometimes then).

JW: Do you think there is a particular style to describe you?

STEPHEN: I hope not! I'd like my style to shift with each film's requirements. I suppose I'm quite music-centred: I'm always looking out for how to make cuts and music work in fantastic ways... I see this as one of the core joys of editing – and filmmaking.

JW: Do you have any words of inspiration or advice for someone who is interested in docci editing?

STEPHEN: Erm, I'm hardly the experienced professional! But from my limited experience I'd advise people simply to hustle. Hustle in every way you can, and watch as many films as possible. Ja.

[johanwalters-blog]

TV Drama: Cutting "4Play", An interview with SAFTA nominee, Melanie Jankes Golden.

4Play - Sex Tips for Girls is a drama series Produced by Curious Pictures for John's Hopkins and E-TV. Melanie Jankes Golden gives us some insight into editing this TV Drama Series.

The series is about 4 female friends and their lives.

What is great about the series is that it is not social realism - even though it deals with heavy issues it is set in a glamorous reality.

The series was directed by Amanda Lane, Catharine Cooke, Robyn Aronstam, Nonny Malete. What was so great is that other than Amanda, all these directors where first time directors.

I edited all 26 episodes of the series, which meant that once Amanda and I had set up the style it was easy for me to keep all the other episodes going in the same direction.

We edited the series on FCP. It was shot on the P2, and I edited in Apple Pro Res. I had an assistant who would log and transfer and set up all my projects.

For every episode I had a new project.

In a series like this, even though there are a few directors, once an overall style is set, all episodes need to be true to it.

Amanda set up a wonderfully glamours, cheeky world for the actors, directors and crew to have so much fun in.

The series has a narrator which meant we got to get cheeky with that too, using slow mo's to highlight moments, whether comedy or serious.

I had a great time editing this show because with the drama came the dry comedy. It meant that I got to have great fun in the edit suite and my cast were amazing!

The directors all brought some great ideas to their episodes. So even though they had to keep in the style of the series they each added their own flare.

I think we had the most fun with music in this show. I went for more Dramedy than drama.

I was given the freedom to get very cheeky with the music, and it added so much to the overall series.

We had a brilliant online editor Jordan Harland, he worked in the edit suite next me, but I don't think he ever really needed me!

Overall it was a great series, an amazing crew, fantastic DOP's, Directors, Producer's and the cast like a said made my life a joy.

Melanie is a Full Member of SAGE

[johanwalters-blog]

Feature Film: An interview with SAFTA nominee, Melanie Jankes Golden.

Melanie Jankes Golden, SAFTA nominee for Best Editor in a Feature Film for Hopeville, gives us some insight into her experience with this Feature. Directed by John Trengrove, produced by Curious Pictures

Hopeville was originally a 6 part drama series commissioned by Heartlines and SABC Education. Curious Pictures produced and John directed.

So the movie came from the series. Which sounds simple but is quite a challenge.

One has to keep in mind that in a series there are alot of sub plots and each character ends up going on their own journey.

For the film John had to zone into the main story beats and characters to put the story together.

Which again sounds simple in theory but plots intertwined or took a few episodes to be revealed fully which did not work for the features timeline. John did an amazing job of constructing the film.

I would like to point out that the series was edited by Karyn Bosh and Jan Botha - and they are credited on the film. As the movie comes from the original series their style is still very much alive in the finished film. I only came onto the film near the end.

By the time I came in we had just over 2 weeks to finish off the final edit.

We were editing in HD from the media managed online edits from the series., the movie was for digital release.

John constructed the story he wanted to tell with Bridget Fayhe Goldsmith. (Who is also credited on the film)

I was then asked to come in and take it to the next level.

So by the time I came on there was a full edit taken from the series.

John and I then sat down, watched it through a few times and discussed what was working, what was getting lost in translation from the series to the movie, what plot lines where not working and what really needed to be reworked for a feature.

I focused in on re-editing certain scenes to make them bigger and more emotional for a feature.

I also spent time on the beginning and end of the film that needed to be reworked for a film.

Music was also a biggy for me - I wanted the score to go from TV to Feature.

One main story beat had taken the whole series to come out - and it had almost been a character of it's own in the series, which is not how we needed it to play in the feature. That took us a while to rework and introduce it correctly into the film

John was great through this whole process as he never held onto the series, he completely refocused for the film and was keen to try most suggestions I had on making it more "Filmic".

Melanie is a Full Member of SAGE

[johanwalters-blog]

Wildlife: Susan Scott (S.A.G.E) on cutting "Mother Warthog".

Susan Scott (S.A.G.E) won a SAFTA this past weekend for Best Editor: Wildlife Programme for her work on "Mother Warthog".

Susan gives great insight into cutting this film.

Picture from L-R: Tamsyn van Gelderen; Maria Valente; Bronwyn Köhler; Susan Scott; Billi-Jean Parker; Rachelle Keeling; Traude Gartner and Herbert Brauer.

JW: Susan, congratulations! Please give us a  brief synopsis of "Mother Warthog".

SUSAN: “Mother Warthog” is a one-hour HD natural history or wildlife documentary for the National Geographic WILD Channel.  As the title suggests, it is about a Mum who tries to get through a season without losing her babies to her three nemeses who share her home range: leopard, lion and cheetah.  It was Produced and Written by Billi-Jean Parker and Executive Producer was Peter Lamberti for Aquavision TV Productions Wildlife based here in Johannesburg.

JW: 

How would you describe what makes editing wildlife program unique to other genres?

SUSAN: Of course cutting different genres has unique challenges, but whether it’s drama or doc, you still have to find a strong storyline, clearly define your characters and use the best takes!  But I suppose cutting wildlife is different because the characters are not human, so apart from Baboons and Apes, there are no recognizable facial characteristics that we can relate to.  So with our Mum Warthog, we had to scour the footage to grab any reactions that we could understand, that would inform us as to why she is such a strong, credible character.

Picture Copyright Aquavision/National Geographic

JW:  In terms of cutting "Mother Warthog", how long did the cut take you?

SUSAN: “Mother Warthog” took 8-weeks to offline edit, and then two weeks in fine cut and online prep as there were complex transition cuts that had to be made ready for the online.

JW: What format was it shot in?

  SUSAN: The doc was filmed on Sony HDCAM, 1080i | 50

JW: Can you pls describe your workflow?

SUSAN:  There are two ways to work with HD in post - HD throughout or downconverting to SD for the offline.  Aquavision has a really good working model for the SD method.  As soon as the shoot tapes come in, a DVCAM copy is made and digitized into Final Cut using native firewire.  So no need for expensive BlackMagic or AJA cards to keep it HD, plus this uses up a lot less hard drive space.  This means tight control from the library side, ensuring that the tapes are labelled correctly and that we are always able to get back to the original shoot tape, so timecodes must match and tape labels have to be correct.  Obviously an assistant is really important for this, and I was lucky because I had Jamie Forbes as my assistant on “Mother Warthog” as well as Assistant Producer, Rachelle Keeling, who did a lot of digitizing and prep for my edit.

There are different ways of working with Producers (Directors in the Doc world), and I work a lot with my partner, Billi-Jean Parker, who is Creative Director at Aquavision.  She was Producer/Writer on “Mother Warthog” and the way we usually work together is that she gives me some time with the footage to make my scene stringouts, before we work on storyline.  On “Mother Warthog” though, she had gone through and had already made my stringouts for me, so I was incredibly spoiled on this production!  Plus she knew the footage well by the time we got to working on the storyline together.  On this one, we wrote out the scenes we knew we had onto cue cards and spread them around the boardroom table and worked out possible storylines.  This always takes time, and most Producers feel that this is a waste of precious edit time.  But it is so important because it immediately shows up badly connecting characters as well as unexpected scenes which turn out to be stronger than you originally thought.  I find that the cue card method really solidifies those gems that would’ve normally not been given life in the cutting room.

And then of course, once the storyline is sewn up, it has to be cut!  Scene by scene, it slowly comes together and it’s a fine line... as there is a deadline but you also have to be careful so as not to be tightly bound to your storyline that you are numb to footage that shouts out to be included in a new scene that might upset the flow.  You have to give everything a chance to find it’s way into the storyline.

JW: Tell us more about your collaboration with director/producer.

SUSAN: Producer/Editor collaboration is different on every production, even with Producers you’ve worked with before.  On “Mother Warthog”, Billi knew the footage very well and knew our shortcomings so she was able to schedule in pick-up shoots and order in stock footage that we needed. Before I even started on the project, she had a handle on all of that.  That was pretty unusual on this show.  I’m usually the pariah that has to tell the Producer that a scene is lacking because of footage, so it was nice to be able to walk on and have her go, “okay so I know we’ve got a problem here, here and here, but it’s been taken care of”!  As she was also the writer, she let me get to a first cut on my own.  We would screen the cut scenes, talk through changes that were needed, recut and so on.  It’s a real pushing back and forth relationship.  I sometimes find that I’m disappointed when the writer has finished with the script on a certain scene, especially one that I’m emotionally invested in, so it’s really great to be able to push Billi for more - I don’t usually feel comfortable enough to do that as openly with other Producers - which also means that she pushes me for more on scenes that I haven’t quite nailed!

JW: What edit system do you use?

SUSAN: The offline was cut on Apple’s Final Cut Pro and the online and color correct on an Avid Symphony.

 JW: Tell us more about your method/approach in cutting wildlife?

SUSAN:  Due to the nature of wildlife shooting, there is a lot of footage.  A lot more even than straight documentary.  Years ago when I was assisting, I noticed that documentary editors tackle the massive amounts of footage by ordering it into subject-specific stringouts… harking back to the old film days of housekeeping via reels.  This is something I now do on every production.  So on Warthogs, we had stringouts broken down into predators, the main character, locations, scenics, timelapses, etc.  I then broke those down further into selects which I cut scenes from.  So for me, I work from Stringouts, to Selects to Scenes.  It’s the only way with the crazy ratios in wildlife cutting.  And again, I was lucky here because “Mother Warthog” had a lower than normal ratio, only 80:1.

JW: To what degree do you focus on sound during your cutting?

SUSAN: I focus a LOT on the sound cut.  By the time I hand over to the audio dept, there are anywhere from 14 to 30 tracks.  The Warthogs Picture Lock OMF had 18 audio tracks.  Most wildlife is shot on really massive telephoto lenses, so the camera audio is usually NG.  I’ve always found that it helps my cuts pass Rough Cut if there is a really comprehensive sound edit.  Nowadays, the broadcasters insist on a good sound edit at Rough Cut.

JW: Are you involved in other post production aspects like grading, online ect?

SUSAN: As a general rule I’m involved in both the online and audio of the films I cut.  On this one, as the Warthogs were pretty staid characters... either eating all the time or moving like hell to get away from predators in like seriously... 5 frames!  We introduced crash zooms to pep it up a little.  I usually avoid flashy peppy edit wherever possible but crash zooms really worked in this film and helped to carry us through footage issues and emphasize character drama.  We had some great footage coverage from the cameramen who had set up really nice wides and then of course matching close-ups with their super lenses.  And as natural history is usually cut very conservatively I have always wanted to experiment with matching up these perfect cuts as crash zooms rather!  And it worked a treat on “Mother Warthog”.  So, I asked Danny Dreyer, the online editor and colorist at Aquavision if I could handle the online effects because we were moving the offline from FCP to an Avid Symphony, so the effect templates would not match up.  I learned to cut on Avid so it’s always great to be back on the system, and this time was no different.  What one has to remember, is that the colorist is an artist and they are looking at the frames with the best tonalities and color balance in mind... I’ve been looking at the frames for several months with story in mind... so as the Editor, obviously I’m a lot closer to the film which means some give and take between the Colorist's point-of-view and the Editor's approach to the film.

Same goes for audio.  I’m very involved in the whole post-production process, but always working for the Producer.  If the Producer makes a call that I don’t agree with, I have to check if I’m uncomfortable because I’m emotionally involved in the scene or if it’s genuinely going to affect the cut.  If I’m reacting emotionally and it’s a matter of authorship, it’s the Producer’s call.  If I want to argue on a sound call because it’s going to help the cut, I will certainly put my view forward.  I always feel that as Editors, we are the ones who know the footage better than anyone in the team, so we must do the best we can for the footage, so it lives the strongest it can.

Susan is a Full Member of SAGE

[johanwalters-blog]

TV Drama: An interview with SAFTA nominee, Maryke Kruger.

Maryke Kruger (S.A.G.E) has been nominated for Best Editing: TV Drama Series forHome Affairs at this year's SAFTA's.

JW: What makes cutting a drama series unique from other genres?

MARYKE: When we were doing Home Affairs,  it was 26x 48 minute episodes and that kept us busy for about a year. The way Penguin Films were shooting it to keep costs down, they would concentrate on location, basically breaking down the series into two parts. They would concentrate on the first 13x episodes and shoot location specific. So you've got scenes coming in for all 13 episodes across the board for six months and you start to edit scenes only in the beginning and putting them together as the footage comes in.

The interesting thing about Home Affairs though was that we had multiple directors. So, multiple directors over multiple scenes shooting one episode. In terms of pulling the episode together in a style, it was down to the edit suite, the producer, Roberta Durrant, and myself.

JW: Gives us some insight into your workflow.

MARYKE:  We were shooting on the Sony EX which we've been doing now for quite a while so we've had our workflow locked by the time Home Affairscame. My assistant, Ambonga Mfundisi, and I have been working together for 4 years, he knew exactly what to do.

In terms of an assistant, it's very tricky to keep track of all these scenes. It's his job to get it transcoded, put them in the right episodes so that I can just cut them.

We would do a viewing somewhere near the middle of the production, so we would make a selection of scenes that have been cut, and we would probably rework those scenes completely for the final episode, because you can't really put the scenes together until you have the whole episode.

I've find that when you look at scenes you've cut six months ago, usually you need to re-cut them. They're either too slow or you're concentrating on the wrong subtext at that point in time so you really can only put it together at the end.

JW: How long does it take to cut a whole episode?

MARYKE: I concentrate on cutting about 10 minutes of screen time a day, and that's pushing it really hard to meet my deadline. So we could get a completed 48 minute episode within 10 days. That includes grading it, online & final mix.

JW: Do you have a particular method/approach in cutting Drama?

MARYKE:  This is where editors work differently. Some editors go through all the takes, put the best on the timeline and work with what's there. When it comes to drama, you've got your script which is your guide, it tells you exactly where the sub text needs to go. Very often you'll find very slightly varying performances that a particular character will give to it which might shift it slightly.

You as an editor must decide if you're going to go with the new flow or you're going to stick to the script. You can only really pick up on this when you're putting your whole episode together.

What I do is in the beginning I cut according to the script and depending on the footage, that can be fairly quick.  I know of editors that do a rough assembly first, then they do a second cut and they trim and then they swop things around. I try not to over analyze when I cut, I go purely on instinct.

When I cut, I cut as close to a finished cut as I possibly can. It sometimes happen that the scene is very difficult and you get stuck on a section that doesn't quite work, then I usually just back away from it completely, do something else and next day come back to it and it usually just comes to me. So by the time I'm finished with a scene, it's pretty much a final cut on that scene.

How I approach performances and subtext? When I read the script I have a picture in my head.

So in terms of how the scene needs to build in terms of emotional intensity, I've got that in my head.

And everything I need to do to make that scene work the way it's in my head I will do. If I have to cheat cuts, cheat emotions, cheat reactions or swop lines around, that's the way I do it. Sometimes the footage doesn't allow you that much to vary off the original script or the intensity or direction doesn't allow you that much scope so I do the best I can. I'm not talking about changing the meaning of the script.My first priority is telling the story in a way that makes sense to everybody that's watching it. I have to get the story across to as many people and not confuse them, so what that scene is trying to convey emotionally, that is what needs to come across. If it means dropping a line, or swopping lines or stealing reactions from somewhere else then that's what I do.

I might not get it spot on the first time, but when I put all the cenes together and go through the episode as a whole, then those things become apparent and I focus on that.

JW: Are you involved in other post production aspects like grading ect?

MARYKE: In terms of Home Affairs, yes. Editors in Cape Town have had to become a little bit of everything. I do the offline, the online, I check the sub titles, I do the grade, small VFX like removing booms, correct the framing, basic intro sequences, the only thing I don't do is the music:)

JW: What editing platform do you use?

MARYKE: I've read an actual advert for AVID the other day...which advertised it as the fastest digital editing suite in the world, not necessarily the best, but most definitely the fastest. And I have to agree with that:)

With our crazy schedules, delivery dates, limited budgets. When it comes to editing drama, I will definitely not do it on any other system than the Avid. Avid allows me to concentrate on my cutting without me having to worry about the media management, or rendering, swopping projects and worry about resetting settings. These little things add up at the end of the day and if you take them out of the equation, you have so much more time to focus on your actual job.

JW: What makes a really good editor?

MARYKE: In terms of being a really good editor, you have to be able to read people's energy.

Everybody has an energy on that set, the director, the actors, the camera person, and that energy all gets funneled through the camera and that all gets funneled through the editor.

That's a big responsibility. If you're very in tune with energy, you can pick up if something on set is not entirely "lekker", or if one of the actors are having an off day and you need to decide can I use this to the benefit of the production or do I need to avoid this.

So filter through all these emotions, but not getting stuck on them as I'm an emotional person too, I've got my own ideas as well, but I have to be able to distance myself from that. Get involved to the level where I can see, "yes it works" on an emotional level but at some point I also need to look at it objectively.

A good editor is somebody that can turn that on or off. The only way to get good at it is with experience.

Maryke is a Full Member of SAGE

[johanwalters-blog]

Documentary: Cutting "My Beautiful Game", An interview with SAFTA nominee, Nikki Comninos.

My Beautiful Game is a 13 part documentary series that explores African football within its broader historical, cultural and anthropological narratives. The show covers stories across the entire African continent. There is a kaleidoscope of geography, politics, and national characteristics as one traverses the continent from Cairo to Lagos to Cape Town.

The specific, SAFTA nominated episode, Fish Out of Water, is an exploration of the challenges facing African footballers lured over to Europe by lucrative contracts. It looks at the issues of acclimatizing to a foreign environment, the loneliness and the alienation.

Directed by Marc Rowlston and produced by Jason Hoff.

JW: How would you describe what makes editing a docci unique to other genres?

NIKKI: I think that documentary editing is unique because of the amount problem solving that goes into it. You need to think about narrative, about mood, about pace and about structure – and often you find none of that has been planned, or can be planned. It all happens in post.

JW: What was the timespan to cut My Beautiful Game?

NIKKI: My beautiful Game is a 13 part series, of which I edited 9. I worked on the series for 4 months.

JW: What format was it shot on?

NIKKI: It was shot on the Phantom camera, Bolex and the Sony XDCAM.

JW: How would you describe your workflow?

NIKKI: The work flow for this project was quite interesting. The crew and directors went all over the continent and the world getting interviews with the biggest players in the international soccer community. In total there were over 200. I worked closely with an assistant editor, Joanne Fencham, who sorted the interviews according to question into various bins for the 13 different episodes. I then spent time listening to all the interviews and trying to create a meaningful story and structure for each programme. My narrative flow was very dependent on the interviewees. I soon discovered my favourite interviewees and would often return to their raw interviews when I got stuck.

JW: Tell us more about your collaboration on the project.

NIKKI: I worked closely with Marc Rowlston who was the director of the documentary, but all the D.O.P. It is always interesting and rewarding working with people who have crossover skills, because the blend of various crafts always lends new insights and a nice edge.

JW: What Editing System do you use?

NIKKI: Final Cut Pro.

JW: How would you describe your method/approach in cutting a Docci?

NIKKI: My approach tends to differ from project to project. But what I like to do is watch all the raw footage without making any cuts or ordering it. I just make notes on paper. I then let it rest in my head, I give myself some space and in that time figure out what narratives started to form while I was watching the visuals, what were the most compelling aspects. I then work out a structure, it may be linear or completely temporally experimental. I try to work out a narrative flow that draws one in, gives some arcs and keeps you enthralled. I look at the character, or the narrative thrust and plot the development points. Depending on the director, this could be where we begin discussion and take about what the vision is for the film, and how best to achieve it. I also try to work out what kinds of visual motifs exists in the story, and of course in the footage and so begin thinking about a style for the film. Then slowly but surely I start refining my ideas by experimenting with them in the actual edit. Only after several breakdowns, recuting, uncutting the recut, and then cutting a new cut do you get to the final piece.

JW: To what degree do you focus on Sound during your cutting?

NIKKI: Sound is a very important part of editing. Depending on the project audio can be a very fun aspect to play with in the edit. Creating a good sound design has raise the bar of a film. Like everyone, I just watched Black Swan, and the sound design was something that stayed with me.

This project had many montages cut to the beat of music, so a lot of time was spent choosing that music. Dialogue editing is also important, and one needs to pay close, close attention to audio. Not just the flow of the words, but the delivery.

JW: Are you involved in other aspects of Post Production?

NIKKI: I often collaborate with the online editors and brainstorm ideas. But I leave the actual work of online to the pros.

Nikki is a member of S.A.G.E