Editing
-
What Richard Stanley Learned from the The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Along with Sidney Lumet’s Making Movies and Andrei Tarkovsky’s Sculpting in Time, a book — an essay comprised of diary excerpts, actually — I recommend to all aspiring directors is Richard Stanley’s “I Wake Up Screaming.” It originally appeared in the 1994 third edition of the film anthology Projections, and it’s now published (with permission, the site claims) at the director’s unofficial website, Between Death and the Devil. “I Wake Up Screaming” documents Stanley’s attempt to make an ambitious Namibia-shot art horror-thriller called Dust Devil years after an earlier production fell apart. The movie Stanley went on to make instead, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 3, 2014 -
Autodesk Smoke 2013 – Super NLE?
Once life was simple. NLEs were NLEs. They did offline editing of conspicuously compressed picture with unmixed audio tracks and limited titling. Maybe it started with the MiniDV revolution 15 years ago, but over time low-end NLEs competed with high-end NLEs in tools and feature sets, becoming today’s desktop online systems and sealing the fate of many midlevel post facilities. Along the way several NLEs became suites of applications called “studios.” Back in 2005, for instance, Final Cut Studio arrived as FCP bundled with DVD Studio Pro, Motion, LiveType, SoundTrack Pro, Cinema Tools and Compressor. Two years later, Color, for […]
by David Leitner on Oct 22, 2013 -
Sony Vegas
I’ve been editing commercials and longform programs with Sony Vegas Pro since 2005. Our latest feature documentary, They Wore the Red Suit, was edited, color corrected and mixed totally in Vegas. Why Vegas? The editor I brought in for this project was experienced with Avid and FCP but had never used Vegas before. I asked him to try it for a few days, and if he wasn’t happy, I’d bring in the system of his choice. After a week, he said he couldn’t have made as much progress with either of his old “favorites.” My initial decision to use Vegas […]
by Larry W. Peter on Oct 22, 2013 -
Avid Media Composer
For many film editors, including yours truly, Avid’s Media Composer is the preferred software for cutting our work. It’s rock solid, powerful and once you really know how to use it, one of the most versatile tools for getting the job done. However, over the past several years the future of the Media Composer platform has been in doubt. Strong competitors moved into the marketplace, and Avid, once king of digital editing, seemed headed to the sidelines. But as fast as it seemed to fall, Media Composer may be making a comeback, due in part to major enhancements to the […]
by Todd Holmes on Oct 21, 2013 -
A Fresh Look at Apple’s Final Cut Pro X
Hard to believe, but FCP X is well over two years old and already into its ninth iteration. Its popular multicam tool arrived with version three in January of last year. In the past 12 months alone, no less than four new versions have been released, bringing dual viewers, a unified import window, support for native REDCODE RAW, MXF, Sony XAVC (up to 4K) and optional Rec. 709 display of ARRI ALEXA ProRes captured in Log C. Recent improvements also include a handy freeze-frame tool, chapter markers for QuickTimes and DVDs, better audio channel editing tools, and FCPXML 1.2 to […]
by David Leitner on Oct 21, 2013 -
What Elmore Leonard Can Teach You About Editing
Kylee Wall at Creative Cow has posted a good piece in which quotes from three writers (Elmore Leonard, Kurt Vonnegut and Chuck Palanhiuk) are applied to the film editing process. This first one, from the ace, and recently deceased, crime writer Elmore Leonard, touches on a pet peeve of mine: gratuitous, montage-y, B-roll-driven establishing sequences: “Don’t go into great detail describing places or things.” – Elmore Leonard In unscripted stuff particularly, I’ve seen a tendency for editors to use a whole bunch of b-roll at the beginning to describe a place. It’s kind of like the editorial equivalent of four […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 20, 2013 -
Six Essential Websites for the No-Budget Film Editor
Let’s face it. Being an independent filmmaker often means having to find unusual solutions to problems that most Hollywood filmmakers would just throw money at. You can’t turn around and hire a foley artist to replace those garbled or missing footsteps, or hire a 2nd unit cameraman to film a specific shot you missed, etc. In many cases, you are the one editing your film and so you’ve gotta figure out a way to make it right, and do it free or cheaply (and hopefully fast!) In my continuing quest to seek out the best resources for post-production goodies that […]
by Katie Carman-Lehach on Aug 21, 2013 -
David Lowery on Editing Ain’t Them Bodies Saints
David Lowery made waves last year in the independent film world with the news that Ain’t Them Bodies Saints — the follow-up to his $12,000 feature film St Nick (2009) — had attracted the stellar cast of Rooney Mara, Casey Affleck and Ben Foster. It quickly became one of the year’s most anticipated independent films, premiering at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and Cannes Critic’s Week, and set to open in the US on August 16. The contemporary Western about a young couple torn asunder by a robbery gone wrong features shootouts and other elements of an action movie, but […]
by David Barker on Aug 13, 2013 -
Adobe Software Moves to the Cloud: What Users Need to Know
Adobe Creative Cloud, the latest update to the Adobe application suite of programs, was released last week. This release marks a major change for Adobe away from a “purchase” model to a subscription model; if you want the latest versions of their applications you must now pay a monthly fee to use the software. You can license an individual application for $20 a month, or the whole suite for $50 a month. Clearly, even if you think you only need After Effects and Premiere Pro, you might as well spring for the whole set, and if you have a previous […]
by Michael Murie on Jun 24, 2013 -
Apple Announces New Mac Pro with Upgraded Editing Capabilities
Alongside a Jony Ive-helmed refresh of its iOS mobile software, a long-awaited update of Apple’s Mac Pro line was finally announced at today’s WWDC. Replacing the large cheesegrater floor model is a computer one-eighth the size that resembles the classic Braun KF 20 coffeemaker. From the Verge: The new Mac Pro will be one-eighth the size of the old 40-pound Mac Pro. The new desktop, which stands 9.9-inches tall and 6.6-inches wide, will ship this fall. When it does, it’ll feature a blacked-out aluminum exterior and be small enough that it can sit on most desks. Inside, it will make […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 10, 2013
