Oscar editing explained

[Bill]

Editor Mark Helfrich, runs through the current Oscar nominees and talks about what editing is.

May be helpful for those moments when someone asks you what you do.

(hope this very long link works)

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid988327350?bclid=1037705321&bctid=1426312971

[StuR]

Worked for me. ;)

[Richard Clark]

BEST FILM EDITING
"The Bourne Ultimatum," Christopher Rouse (Winner)
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," Juliette Welfling
"Into the Wild," Jay Cassidy
"No Country for Old Men," Roderick Jaynes
"There Will Be Blood," Dylan Tichenor



No, No, No, how could they, who are these people :) people like me I guess. Members of something . . . anyhow I simply do not buy the shot gun editing as against the craft of Atonement. So there.

[Daz]

Great clip, Bill. Had to laugh at the snidy remarks about 'Bourne' seasick making editing.

[Adam_Jones]

i'll admit i was a bit surprised to see Rouse take out the Oscar. I thought the style would split the voters by alienating the older members of the academy and allow either Tichenor or Welfling to win.

I never believed No Country was in with a chance because i figured the academy members would take themselves more seriously than to award a fictional person. I'm surprised he was nominated to begin with. If anybody missed it here's the "photo" of Jaynes that was obviously supplied by the Coens.

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/02/roderick_jaynes_denied_his_osc.html


Funny stuff.

[LiamFx]

I too thought editing in Atonement was severely looked over.

Here is an old article about No Country editing

http://www.2-pop.com/artman2/publish/On_the_Trail_of_a_New_Post_Pipeline_I_No_Country_f or_Old_Men_I.shtml

[LiamFx]

http://www.2-pop.com/artman2/publish/On_the_Trail_of_a_New_Post_Pipeline_I_No_Country_f or_Old_Men_I.shtml

[E_Tedeschi]

Yet another FCP / No Country article:

http://www.videography.com/articles/article_15390.shtml

[Richard Clark]

aaah! A great link.
Like the Coens I started on a green film devouring moviola and the embraced Intercine and in NY it was KEM and in Hollywood it was Steenbeck, 1993 saw me embrace AVID at USC and then in 1998 took delivery of v1 FCP and I have not looked back. Edited my first full feature, Dogma17 aka American Reunion, on FCP in 2003, post produced on Flame/Inferno and then via Digibeta to a 2or3K Digital Interneg and then Film release. Awesome workflow. I was amazed how it looked on the screen. The clients were real nervous when I suggested this route but on the ArcLight Screen it looked awesome.
Welcome to the future. Still didn't help with ASE accreditation though, I guess it's not what you know it's . . . blah, blah, blah . . .

[Daz]

Great article on the Cohens work flow. I've gotta get me one of them bells!

I like the bit at the end about wanting to introduce a bit of 'randomness' into the equation. While I don't miss having my head at the bottom of a trim bin, I know what they mean about the wonderful moment of 'discovering' things that you weren't looking for... which just might happen to be what you need to make a scene perfect.

I think that there's a modern-day equivalent in the way we listen to music. In the era of CDs (and even LPs!), the stuff was all on a shelf and you would flip through it to find the thing you wanted - but in the process you might very well spot something else and listen to that instead. With iTunes, the browsing process leaves less room for error... and serendipity.

Mind you, programme designers are trying to address this problem: the 'cover flow' method of browsing is pretty cool. And the 'gesture' thingy they've got going on iphones, ipodtouch and the new macbooks is pretty cool. I would like to see that feature make it to FCP.

Like Richard, I had a go on FCP when it first came out, but I found it too clunky and horrid to begin with and I stuck with Avid. I've kept an eye on FCP over the years and had another crack at it 6 months ago when they came up with 'open format' timeline...and have cut four film on it since!

I still find FCP pernickity, clicky and mouse intensive. Trimming doesn't have a very intuitive feel. Media management is prone to F~C*@P. Music import is an unbelievable pain. And the thing needs more restarts than my old motorbike.

Having said all that, FCP is very flexible in terms of what you can put into it: various formats of video, stills, qt movies. The DVCPROHD codec looks great and I've FINALLY found a 3rd party video card that is reliable and can give me what I need: Kona. Decklink: I spit on thee. And, last but not least, FCP is cheap.

Well, mostly it's just cheap.

[Chester]

Originally posted by Daz
Great clip, Bill. Had to laugh at the snidy remarks about 'Bourne' seasick making editing.
I related very much to his comments towards the end about 'saving' a film!!! How often have we had to do that, only for the director to take the credit?

After Bourne, I walked out of the cinema bumping into walls and doors!!! ;) At the time I thought my disappointment, almost embarrassment, about some of the editing was purely down to the fact that I was watching it through an editor's eyes. But no, at dinner later that week the members of our party who'd seen the film all agreed that the editing was nauseating .......

.... and blamed me!!!