the almost first version

Soon I have defeated the enormously hard job of fixing the rough cut to first decent cut..but not yet, or almost. There is still some cut-fixing to do, but now the editing is much much more easier when the film is beginning to have some shape.

Few days ago I enjoyed one of the brighter sides of my work. Being at the Sputnik oy, Mr. Kaurismäki visits there occasionally and today I had a chance for a small chat with him. We briefly talked about editing and I whined a bit about this Steenbeck business, being so slow and all, to which he replied "It is much faster than a computer...or have they shot some extra material? If they have shot only what is needed and no more, Steenbeck is a much faster way to edit."

Funny man and very nice and supportive. But this made me think. When I looked at the raw material before I started to edit it, I thought "how nice, this material is really simple and clean". Meaning that it was easy to see what they had thought about in the shootings. Well, during the editing it did not appear so clear to me anymore. I could not tell by looking at the material what was intended and seemed like many shots were shot with out a clear idea where or how to use it.
Well, If I had worked with final cut it would be a clear material, but editing with steenbeck makes you think what you are going to do before you do it, and I noticed that not only is this a challenge for me as an editor, but maybe for the director and cinematographer as well..

It appears so that many directors have completely absorbed the working methods of digital editing. And why shouldn´t they? But it is seen in the material. My guess is, that if, for example all film schools made the directors edit their first film on a steenbeck, they might think an alternate way to shoot a scene, in comparision to being able to edit it digitally.
What I mean is that the knowledge of being able to twist the material to almost any form and try again and again in few seconds might give directors this feel of safety and putting the "decisions" for later, to the editing table.

So in a sense, with digital editing, the emphasis of editing has grown. I did not think like this before I edited with steenbeck. But editors now-a-days usually get all the material, eventhough the selection of shots is usually done with director, but we still have all the material and we can use bits and pieces from here and there and with digital editing the sound editing has become bigger part of film editing, being able to connect different lines to different shots already in the editing room and so on.

And I know, that all this has been possible before digital editing. But it has been much harder. Much slover. Like Kaurismäki said "If they have shot something extra, its slover". Like I assume that he is a man who knows how he wants his picture be framed and knows what he is going to use. That is the reason he often edits his own films. Cause he does not need an editor because he has done most of the editing already in the shoot.

Of course for me, this digital age with "indicisive" directors ( I don´t say this to insult any of the directors I´ve worked with, just pondering about this matter) is much more interesting for me as an editor. I guess I would not be an editor, had there not been this breaktrough in digital editing, about the same time I grew up.