Here's a short video sample of what I have been living with that no one else ever gets to see.
It's a very strange phenomenon that is a part of editing most people don't think of: the editor is not only in charge of finding the good stuff, but also watches everything else, including what happens when the scene is cut, but the camera keeps rolling. There is less of this when using "real" celluloid, because film stock is golden/expensive, but with mini-DV, we regularly (not constantly) let the camera roll. So I could not enumerate how many between-take semi-conversations I have heard the snatches of over the last few months -- R.J. perplexed by why he stayed up so late for no reason, Christine talking about her stigmata dream, Rachel O gushing about her love of doing the slate, Kevin giving Greg pointers about the lights. Mostly it's just the actors, because they're on screen and the mics are pointed on them, but occasionally I hear a voice from off, and I realize, Oh! Erin was there that day! or Sean! Or Cynthia! Jack's laughter is pretty clear in this particular clip. I'm working on an outtake reel.
To me, one of the funniest things about this clip is the dead pause
after RJ says "We should go ask," because no one knows what the heck he's
talking about (he's responding to something I believe the sound
recordist has said to him that is inaudible to us). The various
individual perspectives, moments and interpersonal dynamics are funny too, when looked at independently -- like
the fact that I can only barely smile at the explanation of the noise because
I'm trying to keep up morale, but I'm really quite bummed out, aggravated and embarrassed about the whole thing. And hot. Maybe "funny" isn't the right word. We were all hot here - does it show? But this is only 14B, so it's nothing compared to 14C, 14D, 14E, 14F, 14G... Christine eventually eschews an offered bobby pin because she can just stick her bangs to the side of her head with sweat. But here, we're still able to laugh -- at least they are.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Thursday, March 8, 2012
E, F(-ing), G
Hi!
So I have begun work on the first dinner scene. As anyone present for those few days of shooting will recall, Boston was enduring a heatwave, and we were in Somerville, far from the cooling ocean breezes we would have welcomed, and would have received, had we been shooting any of the beach-side scenes that week. Temps outside were near 100 degrees and the humidity was bizarrely high. We had lots of high-wattage (i.e., very hot) lights shining right on all the actors and turning our little un-air-conditioned apartment into an oven. It's really kind of a wonder that no one passed out. There was that one room with the window AC (referred to reverently as "the cool room"), where we had to send Kevin/Bill every so often to cool down and dry off because he'd start sweating through his shirt visibly, and we couldn't have this on screen. Poor RachelO/Amy was wearing a sweater [*appalled face].
I took a break from deciphering the notes I made in 2002 (when I logged all the footage) to draw you (whoever you are -- or aren't!) a little map of our scene:
I considered trying to figure out how to change the smiles to grimaces, but the truth is, everyone stayed remarkably good-natured and on task (if red-faced) through it all -- even when the food was clearly spoiling after a couple hours and actors had to sort of pick around on their plates for the rare item that they felt they could safely eat. In the long run, this was probably better for continuity, anyway: no sequences where somebody's plate contents jump around from full to empty to full again; no one saying their line with a fork at their mouth for one take, but not another. Then again, I haven't re-watched all the footage yet, so I guess I shouldn't feel too safe about that latter one. I believe it was the greenbeans that remained safe and that everyone began to gravitate toward.
Anyway -- I called this post "E, F, G" (or something like that) because I wanted to say something about camera angles.
Here we have a dinner scene with FIVE people talking. Shit! Whose idea was THAT?? Not to mention you had yourself a crazy Director who had refused to make a storyboard or a complete shot breakdown for the scene in advance, and who was actually acting in this scene (as "Sarah"), so her already very tired, very distractable brain was not...quite... uh -- what was I saying? My point was: multiple takes. She, the Director -- *I* -- made us all go through this scene over and over - in the blazing heat - from SIX different angles (actually eight, but more on that below), and doing several takes for each angle. I don't think I made us go back to the beginning every time (did I??!) that would have been Truly Nuts.
I'm sorry!
Here's what I will be combing through for the best moments:
14B: WS from kitchen door of scene's beginning (behind Bill on the map above)
14C: MCU-Sarah, over Larry's shoulder
14D: MCU-Marissa, with Bill's profile sometimes on screen-right
14E-1: MS-Bill from Larry's POV
14F-1: MS-Bill from Sarah's POV
14G: MS-Amy&Larry, over M&B's shoulders
...annnd..
14E-2: MCU-Marissa, from Larry's POV (I think)
14F-2: MCU-Larry from Marissa's POV (I think)
because for these two sets of takes, we were running Cynthia's second camera. Now, I write this based on my notes from 2002, having not actually looked through most of this footage yet. I'm a little confused/concerned/puzzled by how 14E supposedly has two cameras in one position. Is this really true?
I do thank Heaven that I already figured out that E and F were shot twice, simultaneously. The dumb thing was that we did not slate them differently. Let me say that again, just to strike a quiver of terror through any experienced editor's heart: we did not slate them differently. In other words, when I was first watching the tapes and making notes, I watched take after take of all the different angles, and then suddenly I was seeing a shot from yet another angle, that was identically slated with an angle I'd already logged. "I already did 14E! How can this one be 14E??!" I would have said to myself. Then I would have played it and seen a whole new angle and been totally flummoxed -- because it's almost ten years later, and I can honestly say that I do not remember anymore which scenes we did with a second camera or not, let alone which angles.
So here's your advice for the day: If you shoot anything with two cameras, give each camera a different slate, each angle a different modifier, and note on the slate that the audio is identical to whatever other angle is also being recorded. See? All the dialogue from 14E will be exactly the same, though the two angles are completely different.
Ugh.
My annotations are done (I meant "annotations," not "storyboards" in teh previous post - Duh), so I shall now start watching all the millions of takes of this scene, and - no offense to any of us - I am not looking forward to the singing.
Cheers,
REA
Lahh Diddy Da Diddy Da-Dahh....
So I have begun work on the first dinner scene. As anyone present for those few days of shooting will recall, Boston was enduring a heatwave, and we were in Somerville, far from the cooling ocean breezes we would have welcomed, and would have received, had we been shooting any of the beach-side scenes that week. Temps outside were near 100 degrees and the humidity was bizarrely high. We had lots of high-wattage (i.e., very hot) lights shining right on all the actors and turning our little un-air-conditioned apartment into an oven. It's really kind of a wonder that no one passed out. There was that one room with the window AC (referred to reverently as "the cool room"), where we had to send Kevin/Bill every so often to cool down and dry off because he'd start sweating through his shirt visibly, and we couldn't have this on screen. Poor RachelO/Amy was wearing a sweater [*appalled face].
I took a break from deciphering the notes I made in 2002 (when I logged all the footage) to draw you (whoever you are -- or aren't!) a little map of our scene:
Anyway -- I called this post "E, F, G" (or something like that) because I wanted to say something about camera angles.
Here we have a dinner scene with FIVE people talking. Shit! Whose idea was THAT?? Not to mention you had yourself a crazy Director who had refused to make a storyboard or a complete shot breakdown for the scene in advance, and who was actually acting in this scene (as "Sarah"), so her already very tired, very distractable brain was not...quite... uh -- what was I saying? My point was: multiple takes. She, the Director -- *I* -- made us all go through this scene over and over - in the blazing heat - from SIX different angles (actually eight, but more on that below), and doing several takes for each angle. I don't think I made us go back to the beginning every time (did I??!) that would have been Truly Nuts.
I'm sorry!
Here's what I will be combing through for the best moments:
14B: WS from kitchen door of scene's beginning (behind Bill on the map above)
14C: MCU-Sarah, over Larry's shoulder
14D: MCU-Marissa, with Bill's profile sometimes on screen-right
14E-1: MS-Bill from Larry's POV
14F-1: MS-Bill from Sarah's POV
14G: MS-Amy&Larry, over M&B's shoulders
...annnd..
14E-2: MCU-Marissa, from Larry's POV (I think)
14F-2: MCU-Larry from Marissa's POV (I think)
because for these two sets of takes, we were running Cynthia's second camera. Now, I write this based on my notes from 2002, having not actually looked through most of this footage yet. I'm a little confused/concerned/puzzled by how 14E supposedly has two cameras in one position. Is this really true?
I do thank Heaven that I already figured out that E and F were shot twice, simultaneously. The dumb thing was that we did not slate them differently. Let me say that again, just to strike a quiver of terror through any experienced editor's heart: we did not slate them differently. In other words, when I was first watching the tapes and making notes, I watched take after take of all the different angles, and then suddenly I was seeing a shot from yet another angle, that was identically slated with an angle I'd already logged. "I already did 14E! How can this one be 14E??!" I would have said to myself. Then I would have played it and seen a whole new angle and been totally flummoxed -- because it's almost ten years later, and I can honestly say that I do not remember anymore which scenes we did with a second camera or not, let alone which angles.
So here's your advice for the day: If you shoot anything with two cameras, give each camera a different slate, each angle a different modifier, and note on the slate that the audio is identical to whatever other angle is also being recorded. See? All the dialogue from 14E will be exactly the same, though the two angles are completely different.
Ugh.
My annotations are done (I meant "annotations," not "storyboards" in teh previous post - Duh), so I shall now start watching all the millions of takes of this scene, and - no offense to any of us - I am not looking forward to the singing.
Cheers,
REA
Lahh Diddy Da Diddy Da-Dahh....
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Where Things Stand
OK, well:
I have so far cut together the following scenes:
1-13: Marissa leaves hospital and arrives at Bill's quietly; eventually she is welcomed by Bill, who brought raspberries; Sarah rejects Bill over ice cream in Davis Square; Sarah, Amy & Larry arrive at the first dinner - Larry's shirt has a blotch; Larry and Marissa accidentally see each other half-naked in turns, and then all reconvene for the dinner ("Get it while it's hot!" Bill says, and then we all look like we're going to pass out because it was 105 degrees).
23-27: Larry returns to "the piano room" after running into Marissa on the beach, daydreams about M and "the game," then converses with Amy about his father and his new job; meanwhile, Marissa hears a message in Quaker meeting about alone vs. not alone/crazy vs. trusting; then Bill and Marissa watch the gay comedian on TV.
32-37: Following their dinner, which didn't end well, M walks home and experiences her ESP in public for the first time; she then hurries home and writes, joined eventually by Bill (who does not call her "Miss Bat Ears" because I took out that line when, upon hearing it said, I found it unbearably stupid); the next morning, Amy wakes up alone and is soon greeted by an apologetic Larry, who proceeds to have his own ESP-sort-of-sensation connecting him to Marissa, which freaks him out, but not Marissa (what? did someone say "foreshadow"??).
All together, this amounts to about 24-ish minutes of video. 24 mins is probably too big a chunk of the target final run-time of about 100 minutes -- especially considering that none of these scenes is what I think of as one of the "long scenes" -- i.e., M&L Showdown, M&BCrying, first dinner including the recognition, the suicide scene -- nor the shorter-but-key scenes like M&L's private dinner and game experiment, Bill's coming out, and Marissa's Montage of Humanity, which culminates in the drunk stranger screaming at her. Not to mention all the other scenes, which also matter and take up screen time. I'm going to just cut each scene together and then see how long the first rough cut is. Hopefully it won't be more than like 110 mins (??!!).
One nice thing about the timing of the first 13 scenes is that the "inciting incident" (Larry arrives for dinner and thus meets Marissa - it is the event that makes the story happen) does seem to be falling around the 10th minute, which conforms to the "classic aesthetic" of narrative film. Yay! I think this bodes well for the rhythm of the script in general.
Next I am going to tackle the first dinner scene (14) and Marissa's recognition of Larry, which is technically the following scene (15) because they've moved to the living room by then. THIS IS GOING TO BE HARD. Man oh man. My plan is to go back to the script and actually make a storyboard sketch of theses scenes based on my ideal shot sequence (e.g., which moments should be shots of the whole group, which should be close-ups of individuals -- all these choices have "meaning," ideally, that contributes to the overall impact and purpose of the film). Did I do a storyboard in '02? No, I did not. Did I make all these poor fucking actors go through the whole damn scene over and over and over from a million angles even though it was 1,005 degrees? Yes, I did. And sometimes we had two cameras going at once. Mother. Of. Pearl. ... So, uh, I'll do the storyboards and then I'll look through the PEDL (see Glossary) I made in '02, then I'll look through all the footage, then I'll cut the scene as close to how I want it as the footage will allow.
Wish me luck!
Love,
Rachel
I have so far cut together the following scenes:
1-13: Marissa leaves hospital and arrives at Bill's quietly; eventually she is welcomed by Bill, who brought raspberries; Sarah rejects Bill over ice cream in Davis Square; Sarah, Amy & Larry arrive at the first dinner - Larry's shirt has a blotch; Larry and Marissa accidentally see each other half-naked in turns, and then all reconvene for the dinner ("Get it while it's hot!" Bill says, and then we all look like we're going to pass out because it was 105 degrees).
23-27: Larry returns to "the piano room" after running into Marissa on the beach, daydreams about M and "the game," then converses with Amy about his father and his new job; meanwhile, Marissa hears a message in Quaker meeting about alone vs. not alone/crazy vs. trusting; then Bill and Marissa watch the gay comedian on TV.
32-37: Following their dinner, which didn't end well, M walks home and experiences her ESP in public for the first time; she then hurries home and writes, joined eventually by Bill (who does not call her "Miss Bat Ears" because I took out that line when, upon hearing it said, I found it unbearably stupid); the next morning, Amy wakes up alone and is soon greeted by an apologetic Larry, who proceeds to have his own ESP-sort-of-sensation connecting him to Marissa, which freaks him out, but not Marissa (what? did someone say "foreshadow"??).
All together, this amounts to about 24-ish minutes of video. 24 mins is probably too big a chunk of the target final run-time of about 100 minutes -- especially considering that none of these scenes is what I think of as one of the "long scenes" -- i.e., M&L Showdown, M&BCrying, first dinner including the recognition, the suicide scene -- nor the shorter-but-key scenes like M&L's private dinner and game experiment, Bill's coming out, and Marissa's Montage of Humanity, which culminates in the drunk stranger screaming at her. Not to mention all the other scenes, which also matter and take up screen time. I'm going to just cut each scene together and then see how long the first rough cut is. Hopefully it won't be more than like 110 mins (??!!).
One nice thing about the timing of the first 13 scenes is that the "inciting incident" (Larry arrives for dinner and thus meets Marissa - it is the event that makes the story happen) does seem to be falling around the 10th minute, which conforms to the "classic aesthetic" of narrative film. Yay! I think this bodes well for the rhythm of the script in general.
Next I am going to tackle the first dinner scene (14) and Marissa's recognition of Larry, which is technically the following scene (15) because they've moved to the living room by then. THIS IS GOING TO BE HARD. Man oh man. My plan is to go back to the script and actually make a storyboard sketch of theses scenes based on my ideal shot sequence (e.g., which moments should be shots of the whole group, which should be close-ups of individuals -- all these choices have "meaning," ideally, that contributes to the overall impact and purpose of the film). Did I do a storyboard in '02? No, I did not. Did I make all these poor fucking actors go through the whole damn scene over and over and over from a million angles even though it was 1,005 degrees? Yes, I did. And sometimes we had two cameras going at once. Mother. Of. Pearl. ... So, uh, I'll do the storyboards and then I'll look through the PEDL (see Glossary) I made in '02, then I'll look through all the footage, then I'll cut the scene as close to how I want it as the footage will allow.
Wish me luck!
Love,
Rachel
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Honey Badgering
The only way I'm going to be able to do this on a regular basis is if I don't think of it as "writing," but rather as "updating" or "reporting" or maybe "thinking." And maybe, it occurred to me yesterday, I should not think about people reading it. This seems contradictory to the blog's very purpose -- I know that -- but I think I might be more likely to get stuff up here if I adopt the pretension that I don't care what y'all think (like "adopt the pretension" - is "pretension" used correctly here? "pretense" is wrong, I think - but if I stay here in this thought process I may never get out!). I mean, this not-taking-the-communication-event-seriously thing is actually one of my complaints about BLOGS generally, come to think of it: they are, as a genre, thinly developed, slap-dash snippets of thought. But maybe I should just "join 'em" for a bit, instead of allowing some misguided desire for perfection (??!!) stop me from writing at all. Hm?
So that, my friends (who may or may not be reading this - honey badger don't care!), is my apologia (is that the right word? honey badger don't give a shit if she uses the right word! Honey badger uses the word "apologia" - AND the word "nonplussed" - whenever she damn well pleases!), and it's the only one you're going to get. You may come and go and listen/read or not. I'm going to jot - JOT, I say - some things here about the editing and whatnots whenever and however it turns out that I do.
Now I have to go to meeting ("Quaker freak!" as Bill says), but if you want to amuse yourself with the honey badger, I'll attach a link on my way out.
Peas,
Rachel
Honey Badger (original narration)
So that, my friends (who may or may not be reading this - honey badger don't care!), is my apologia (is that the right word? honey badger don't give a shit if she uses the right word! Honey badger uses the word "apologia" - AND the word "nonplussed" - whenever she damn well pleases!), and it's the only one you're going to get. You may come and go and listen/read or not. I'm going to jot - JOT, I say - some things here about the editing and whatnots whenever and however it turns out that I do.
Now I have to go to meeting ("Quaker freak!" as Bill says), but if you want to amuse yourself with the honey badger, I'll attach a link on my way out.
Peas,
Rachel
Honey Badger (original narration)
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Yes, it's 2012
Well, well, well -- here we are again.
[tumbleweed blows by]
Yes, Sir.
I think I'm going to try this again. I've had a lot of, you know, thoughts about directing and movies and art and all those sorts of things since I started editing S&B again in December (2011). I don't know if any of them will be interesting to others or not, but many of them seem to be longer than a Facebook "status," and I have some friends who don't really use FB much, anyway, soooo... I mean, what the hay?
So keep an eye out. I've updated the layout and color scheme and I'll be back.
Rachel
[tumbleweed blows by]
Yes, Sir.
I think I'm going to try this again. I've had a lot of, you know, thoughts about directing and movies and art and all those sorts of things since I started editing S&B again in December (2011). I don't know if any of them will be interesting to others or not, but many of them seem to be longer than a Facebook "status," and I have some friends who don't really use FB much, anyway, soooo... I mean, what the hay?
So keep an eye out. I've updated the layout and color scheme and I'll be back.
Rachel
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