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“Jumping and Hugging When a Scene Suddenly Works Amazingly Is Always Much More Fun in the Same Room” | Alon Schwarz, Tantura
Journalist Teddy Katz appears in Tantura by Alon Schwarz. (Photo: Yonathan Weitzman) The last two years have prompted much contemplation and reconsideration of the reasons why we make our films as well as the ways in which we make them. What aspect of your filmmaking—whether in your creative process, the way you finance your films, your production methodology or the way you relate to your audience—did you have to reinvent in order to make and complete the film you are bringing to the festival this year?
I think the biggest challenge was the communications cycle with the offline video editors when not working locally.
I started working remotely as my first editor, Halil [Efrat], was in NYC and I was in Tel Aviv. We managed to build some beautiful scenes, but finalizing the rough cut was a huge challenge. Zoom is nice, but for me personally can not replace the experience of sitting in the same room with a team and collaborating. I then started working with Amir [Sevilla], a local editor in Tel Aviv, and spent 8 months trying to reach our rough cut; Halil was more of a script consultant in this stage. The last six months of the editing was a process where we worked both local and remote and developed a very nice technological workflow that enabled us, with Amir’s amazing management of it all, to see the updates each editor does in real time. It was challenging and more expensive to work this way, but ultimately we got used to it and hit the cut we wanted. For me, as a very hands-on director, it is still a challenge and I’m sure I will prefer to work locally with a team close by even though we have developed a workable multi-editor remote workflow. Human touch, laughing together, eating lunches, and jumping and hugging when a scene suddenly works amazingly is always much more fun in the same room.
