Australians Lee Smith and John Lee talk about their work on Christopher Nolan's Inception.
“You never go onto a Chris Nolan film thinking, ‘Well, this one will be
easy,’ says John Lee, additional editor on writer-director Christopher
Nolan’s science-fiction mind-bender Inception, which opens in
North American theaters July 16. He could be talking about the workflow
challenges that face any editor working with a director who favors
multi-format acquisition, but the director of The Dark Knight tends to have an especially ambitious vision.
In the case of Inception, cameras were tearing through 35mm scope, 35mm VistaVision. and 65mm (five-perf) stock, and super-high-speed footage was being captured with cameras from Vision Research (Phantom digital cameras) and Photo-Sonics (35mm flat film). Not only did the editorial team have to be exceptionally detail-oriented to keep up with all the different formats, but it also had to remain flexible and mobile as production moved around the world, from Tokyo and London to Paris, Morocco and, finally, Canada. The whole project represented an opportunity for Lee, who’s worked with film editor Lee Smith for years, and got the job of keeping the whole process on track for the first few months of production, when Smith was away finishing up The Way Back with director Peter Weir.
In some ways, looking into Inception’s cutting room was like using a time machine to revisit recent Hollywood history. When editing started in earnest at the gigantic airsheds of Cardington in Bedfordshire, England, the cutting room held not just four Avid Media Composers, but also a complete film-editing set-up with a Steenbeck, editing benches, and a film edge-coding machine. That’s because, as usual with Nolan’s projects, the film did not get digital dailies or go through a digital intermediate. The editors were working with an HD telecine made from a film print (not a negative), and the director was screening dailies in 35mm scope every night plus Avid screenings of the evolving cut, through a Christie 2K projector, every Friday.
Film & Video got on the phone with Smith and Lee, the two top editorial personnel on the show, to find out more about a workflow that mixes the best of digital and analog technologies, the ins and outs of Inception, and Nolan’s reputation for always getting it right.
Follow this link to Film & Video Magazine to read more.
Ozdox: Wednesday 8 September, 2010
6.00pm: The Australian Film, Television and Radio School
This Ozdox session, co-sponsored by the Australian Screen Editors, will cover everything you ever wanted to know but were afraid to ask about the editor-director relationship. Discussion will be sought from directors in the audience and from a panel of editors up the front. And…. because editors never kiss and tell, the organisers will also read out anonymous tales of intrigue, salvation and magic – true adventures in editing never before revealed in public.
The following topics will be considered:
• For the director: How to choose an editor
• For the editor: How to choose a director (plus rejection without tears).
• For the director: What a great editor can do for your film and what you need to provide them with at the start
• For the editor: the care and feeding of the director – ten dos and don’ts
• For the Happy Couple:
- how to decide what your film is about and move forward together into bliss
- protocol in the editing room – coming on strong vs the waiting game
- ten fatal mistakes that can wreck a marriage
- turning creative differences into a brand new baby
• Healthy parenting – the mix and the grade
• The Sweet Smell of Success: the domineering partner – learning to speak up – giving credit where credit’s due
If you would like to contribute your stories:
Funny, Triumphant, Nail Biting, Strange or Bizarre.
Have you got any cutting room stories while working on a documentary?
We want to hear them all at our event The Perfect Match for the Perfect Cut.
We don’t need any names. All stories will be read out anonymously.
Send all stories to Gwen Sputore (ASE Committee): gsputore@gmail.com
read more...Members of the Australian Screen Editors Guild are invited to apply for Accreditation.
Accreditation is the highest honour the can Guild bestow on an Editor and is available to any Full Member whose body of work is considered to exhibit a consistently high standard of editing as judged by the Accreditation Sub Committee. Applicants will have at least five years industry experience as an Editor and they will have demonstrated their ability to advocate the role of Editors in the industry. Applicants must be current financial members of the Guild with a minimum of two years membership.
For Guidelines and Application Forms please follow this link to our Accreditation Page.
read more...
