First full day of real 35mm film editing behind. Before today I was just syncing the material and we watched trough with the director and my teacher came to give me some advices with the editing yesterday.
I tried to do something yesterday, but suddenly I realized the magnitude of work needed and the work being so slow that our timetables would not hold. I got really anxious and could not work at all. Luckily clock was something about 6´00 p.m. so I went home to cure my anxiousness with some jasmine tea.
Today I started fresh but it still seemed hard. It is hard to explain. People call me "a fast editor" or "a good editor". But the thing is, that like with writing, which I prefer to do on a computer because for me it is much faster and more pleasant to write with keyboard, cause with a pen I must concentrate to every letter, cause my handwriting turns really really bad if I write too fast, same thing applies here.
With Final Cut Pro, for example, I don´t need to use the program to edit. What I mean that I don´t feel like I am using some tool to shape the material. I am just shaping it. I feel like I have almost straight contact with the material cause all the versions of all different ways of cutting appear in front of me right a way, almost simultaneously when I think about them. ALMOST. Working with FCP is so fast, when you´ve learned it, of course, that just seeing the material, and with few clicks seeing the cuts, lets you imagine in a very concrete way.
People always talk about the different way of thinking. Well, that is true. But right now I am not convinced that the thinking method with steenbeck-editing is in any way better than with digital editing.
It requires that you visualize the cuts beforehand in your head. This you can do with a computer instantly. Here you look at the material, think that "this might work" then you do it, then you evaluate. The process is in its simplicity the same with digital editing, but at this stage, I feel that there is a machine between me and the material. This is of course present with all new instruments.
But the way I´ve learned to use digital editing, which enables me to work fast with it, I cut corners with some stages of thinking, editing with digital edit is more like feeling for me. I never think about my first versions. Or not that much, I just make what feels good, then I watch it, and see that some of it is good, some of it is bad.
This sounds bad, I know. "with digital editing you don´t have to think". But that is not what I mean. Or even if it was, that still would be a good thing I think, cause for editor, feeling is as much important than thinking rationally. Even more important and for me, it is good that feel comes before rational though and not the other way around.
What I mean is just that with Steenbeck, it takes a very long time to complete a single cut. So during that time, at least for a beginner, you have to concentrate on doing the right markings, keeping the sync and rolling the left over material to left-overs reel and do all the taping and cutting. All this time is away from thinking about the film itself.
So, it might be that this procedure becomes mechanic for me that I don´t have to think about all the stages, but still... There is some reason that I still write with computer and not with a pen. And I believe that it is not only because it is just easier.
This connects straight to one other thought I´ve had aboud editing. It´s about all the people that talk about the beauty and power of editing and use examples of Eisensteins´ montage. . . Yeah that is a cool thing.and interesting. But the real power of editing comes with the feeling of the material. The ability to evolve already shot scenes with actors to the next stage, only with choosing the right moments and what to leave out and what to show and editor also can think about how to show it. Emotional editing. And I don´t mean pictures connected with weird ways. Just a simple conversation scene for example. A really good editor is found through these kind of scenes.
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