Snip, Snip.
Glendyn Ivin
The film in cards. Our new best friend.
Jack The Butcher boy.
My own POV for the next couple of months...
I love the editing process. When you are shooting the possibilities are endless. Where should I put the camera? What lens? Where are the actors? What are they doing? How are they doing it? Etc, etc... But when you are in the edit, even though there are still a whole bunch of possibilities, it essentially comes down to - this is what we have, how do we make it work. Simple. Kinda...
We are currently 2 weeks into an 8 week edit. So far, so good. On day 1, Jack sat me down to watch a 2 hour 40 minute assembly of the film (which he had been working on from day 1 of our shot). I really thought I was going to freak out. Assemblies usually do it to me. The film you see is just all the information, without any real attention to rhythm or pacing, story arch or selection of performance. But I think because Jack and I have cut for so long (here is the first thing I cut with Jack about 8 years ago, and another clip I'm really proud of that we did together as well, and this, oh yeah and this, not coincidentally all shot by Greig as well!) and are really good friends, I was amazed at how well it all seemed to fit together.
Jack and I share a very similar head space for film and story telling in general, so we are making the same film. Some sequences obviously looked as though they needed a stack of work, but others seemed to just sit really well on the screen. Kinda how I thought they would. Encouraging!
Then we went back to scene 1 and started to cut. And that's what we have been doing for the past 2 weeks. Curently at scene 151 of 190.
The whole process at this stage is cutting away whats not needed. Cutting lines of dialogue, shots, characters and scenes. I really like to strip things back. Regardless of the blood, sweat and tears it took to get the shot(s) it's so great to just cut it out. To constantly simplify so the viewer has as little information as possible. So they are left asking more questions than there are answers given.
It constantly surprises me how much you cut out of a scene and it still makes sense, or better still it makes MORE sense.
Outside the window at 4pm the other day.
It's been really cold and rainy. I love this kind of weather. Perfect for holing up and sitting in a dark room and cutting.
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