I had an interesting day. I discovered that Ben and I are absolutely great at shooting very sharp, clean and interesting video footage (file-age?). We're also pretty darn good at getting clean audio in our video stuff. But I'm coming to grips with the fact that I just absolutely hate to edit video. Especially unscripted video. Most emphatically hate unscripted video. So much so that I stood up from the desk and went to the Blanton Museum in a fit of pure procrastination.
Here's how I wish every (commercial) interview would go: We'd set up cameras, lights and microphones and the talent would come into the scene. We would aknowledge, and they would agree, that we're aiming to get a specific message across in a set time. The talent would have memorized a script and practiced it. The script would be made up of perfect sound bites that all fit nicely together. Additionally, there would be a teleprompter synced up on each camera; just in case.
An interviewer would cue the talent (after we're all set) and the talent would do two or three perfect takes of each phrase, sentence or bullet point, pausing five seconds between takes to make it easy on me to edit. Every interview would take place inside an anechoic chamber and we'd add canned room ambiance later. During every critical juncture of the interview process all the extraneous people (anyone who is not the on-camera talent, the sound engineer or the camera operators) would be called away to deal with an emergency phone call, or emergency potty break, or they would just go outside to smoke a cigarette, or stand on a street corner and give every passerby their two cents worth on anything at all.
There would be wonderful craft service and the Champagne and caviar would flow. But most importantly the client would speak the magic words, "We have this great editor we'd love to use on this project. Can you just send them the footage? Can you send us the bill? Oh, what are we saying? I think this is enough..." as they pull wads of hundred dollar bills and gleefully shove it into our waiting hands.
But no..... it just doesn't work that way. At least not often enough....
People in front of cameras seem to have a super powerful ability to stretch out whatever answer they need to give from one simple sentence to an endless soliloquy. They help us fill up even the biggest memory cards and then, once the cards are full, they finally deliver the perfect one liner.
No matter when we film; even in the dead of night, there will be audio interference of the most profound and jarring nature. A fleet of chubby Harley riders revving up their hogs at the accounting firm's building down the street, at 3 in the morning. A cute couple trying out their his and hers chainsaws just outside the door of our location. An impromptu live fire exercise on the next block. Each mortar round hitting just as the talent finally gets the name of the product correct.....
The electrical power in the (client) chosen location will be iffy. The air conditioning will be about as effective as a small, slow fan blowing over an ice cube in a sauna; but as loud as a 747 taking off. The beautiful background? It generally turns out to be scared and worn wood panelling left over from the 1970's along with the orange shag carpeting which makes the custom white balance so.... special.
And the craft service? Whatever they have on sale at the local Seven/Eleven. Twinkies and Lite beer? Again?
But I'll gladly put up with all of that if I don't have to do the edit. Three cameras means three times the crap to wade through. I knew I should have studied harder and become a psychiatrist. At least I could take a stab at solving my own masochism....
Just random thoughts in the middle of an editing session. I'll get Ben in here. He'll fix it.
11 comments:
Hey. What happened to the comments? I'll give some slack to the French readers. It's too damn hot in Paris to type a comment. But the rest of you guys? Are you taking the Summer off?
I like the way you describe your ideal working conditions versus the reality from the convenience store. Have those hot dogs really been on the roller grill for two days?
Hey, Kirk!
Wow, reading your words as you described the editing process reminds me of a project I finished about two weeks ago. The difference is I don't dislike the process, unless there are tight time-lines..... But yeah, editing through minutes upon minutes upon minutes of run-on sentences, repetitive thought and pause-free word placement, and then turning it into what is hopefully concise, articulate, insightful, clever and on-point brilliance with a little flash is, well, I suppose this is where you earn your $$$.
I think the process is made easier if we are given (allowed?) an opportunity to lace together a story, which provides us a measure of discretion and choice in our position as one who captures and then edits. Obviously we cannot rewrite the story, but we can have some liberties in how that story is delivered. Hopefully its effective.
I've only shot three cameras on one occasion, which made me appreciate (and stop complaining about) having to edit 'only' my normal two. Appreciate your time in sharing the process. And I always look forward to hearing how you make it all happen.
Great work, sir!
After my first few attempts at filming interviews and just letting people ramble on thinking my George Lucas like editing skills would save the day I found I aged a further ten years with each edit. Something had to be done.
Now I speak with the interviewees (is that a word?) before hand and ask them to remember the best interviews they have seen on shows like 60 Minutes or Sunday Morning. I also explain to them that the average viewers attention span is somewhat less that a mosquito so if they take too long to get to the point people will tune out thus missing their wondrous wisdom, enthusiasm, talent, whatever it is they are selling.
In this case you were dealing with performers. People who love to hear their own voices and are trained to do extensive monologues. They are even worse than academics which is saying a lot!
Now I am not afraid to stop the cameras or at least stop the soliloquy and bring the subject back to earth. After you do that a couple of times they get the idea. Of course you must do all this with the charm of Bradley Cooper.
Once they realize it's a team effort and your goal is to achieve an outstanding product AND you know what you're doing things run much better.
You are not just the guy who brings in the technical photographic talents you are also the DIRECTOR. Even if they have their own "guy" you are still or should be the person in control.
Just my two Canadian cents which isn't worth navel lint.
Eric
Am so with you on that, Kirk. Can't tell you how happy I am when I'm hired to just shoot and hand over the footage. Of course then I can't clean up any small mistakes I may have made, but it's a tradeoff I'll taketake. The worst, though--and I don't do this much anymore--is editing other people's (often poorly white-balanced and recorded) interview footage. Can't tell you how many hours I've spent helping washed-out (or underexposed) green faces regain a semblance of human pallorpallor. Ugh. But, yeah, editing interviews is a bitch.
Kirk,
you make me think of
"Murke's Collected Silences"
(by Heinrich Böll).
The part with editing tapes is hilarious!
In case you haven't read it, there's a good synopsis in
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murke%27s_Collected_Silences
Enjoy!
You need a better interviewer and pre-production. No rambling allowed. Work like the local news: there’s no time for editing, so get it right on camera.
Re your "selfie" In-camera HDR? Is that why it looks weird?
I feel your pain.
When I started in TV news in the mid-60s coaching an interviewee to elicit a desired response was verboten. We took our journalistic integrity (and ourselves) very seriously. This being in the film era, physically cutting and splicing film on a tight deadline made vague and wandering answers even tougher to deal with.
By the late 1970s, having TV anchor hair, properly styled, was a larger priority than the ability to formulate an incisive question.
By the mid-80s, I was working for a Philadelphia station which featured a consumer reporter who would dictate to his interviewees what he wanted them to say. If they didn't perform as expected, he would shout at them and berate them until they coughed up a terse response, on-point and with a noticeably angry edge brought on by the rude treatment. Just what he needed. You probably don't want to try that technique.
"Re your "selfie" In-camera HDR? Is that why it looks weird?" MikeR
Naw. Just shooting into an incredibly dirty window....
And the Oscar award for film editing goes to...I guess it won't be Kt!
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