Post-production Editing

Published by Emil Abraham,


Post-production occurs in the making of audio recordings, films/movies, photography and digital art, videos and television programs. It is the general term for all stages of production occurring after the actual recording and ending with the completed work.
Post-production is in fact many different processes grouped under one name.
These typically include:
  • Editing the picture/visuals.
  • Editing the soundtrack.
  • Writing and recording the soundtrack music.
  • Adding visual special effects - mainly computer generated imagery (CGI) and digital copy from which release prints will be made.
Outline
In this article you will learn
  • Methods of Montage - an important term when it comes to film editing
  • Continuity - important aspect as well as a challenge in filmmaking
  • How, when and where to make a cut
  • Editing patterns (post-production routine)
  • Editing stages (from a decision making level)

Methods of Montage
In motion picture terminology, a montage (from the French for ‘putting together’ or ‘assembly’) is a film editing technique.
There are atleast three senses of the term:
  1. In French film practice, ‘montage’ has its literal French meaning and simply identifies a movie’s editor.
  2. In Soviet filmmaking of the 1920s, ‘montage’ was a method of juxtaposing shots to derive new meaning that did not exist in either shot alone.
  3. In classical Hollywood cinema, a ‘montage sequence’ is a short segment in a film in which narrative information is presented in a condensed fashion. This is the most common meaning among laymen.
Emotional versus Physical Continuity
Continuity is a film term that suggest that a series of shots should be physically continuous, as if the camera simply changed angles in the course of a single event. For instance, if in one shot a beer glass is empty, it should not be full in the next shot. Live coverage of a sporting event would be an example of footage that is very continuous. Since the live operators are cutting from one live feed to another, the physical action of the shots matches very closely. Many people regard inconsistencies in continuity as mistakes, and often the editor is blamed. In film, however, continuity is very nearly last on a film editor’s list of important things to maintain. Technically, continuity is the responsibility of the script supervisor and film director, who are together responsible for preserving continuity and preventing errors from take to take and shot to shot.
The script supervisor, who sits next to the director during shooting, keeps the physical continuity of the edit in mind as shots are set up. He is the editor’s watchman. If shots are taken out of sequence, as is often the case, he will be alert to make sure that beer glass is in the appropriate state. The editor utilizes the script supervisor’s notes during post-production to log and keep track of the vast amounts of footage and takes that a director might shoot.

However, to most editors what is more important than continuity is the editing of emotional and storytelling aspects of any given film—something that is much more abstract and harder to judge. This is why films often take much longer to edit than to shoot. Emotional continuity, and the clarity of storytelling always take precedence over "technicalities". In fact, very often something that is physically discontinuous will be completely unnoticeable if the emotional rhythm of the scene "feels" right. If you were to slow down scenes from many of your favourite movies, you could easily find many minuscule physical differences from one cut to the next, which are completely hidden by the course of the emotional events.
How, when and where to make a cut
Stanley Kubrick noted that the editing process is the one phase of production that is truly unique to motion pictures. Every other aspect of filmmaking originated in a different medium than film (photography, art direction, writing, sound recording), but editing is the one process that is unique to film.
The seven ‘rules of cutting’ that a good editor should follow:
  • Rule 1: Never make a cut without a positive reason.
  • Rule 2: When undecided about the exact frame to cut on, cut long rather than short.
  • Rule 3: Whenever possible cut ‘in movement’.
  • Rule 4: The ‘fresh’ is preferable to the ‘stale’.
  • Rule 5: All scenes should begin and end with continuing action.
  • Rule 6: Cut for proper values rather than proper ‘matches’.
  • Rule 7: Substance first—then form.

When it comes to film editing, there are six main criteria for evaluating a cut or deciding where to cut. They are (in order of importance, most important first):
  1. Emotion — Does the cut reflect what the editor believes the audience should be feeling at that moment?
  2. Story — Does the cut advance the story?
  3. Rhythm — Does the cut occur at a moment that is rhythmically interesting and ‘right’?
  4. Eye-trace — Does the cut pay respect to ‘the location and movement of the audience’s focus of interest within the frame’?
  5. Two-dimensional place of the screen — Does the cut respect the 180 degree rule?
  6. Three-dimensional space of action — is the cut true to the physical/spatial relationships within the digenesis?

Editing Patterns
  • View Rushes and Logging
    • As contemporary directors shoot more footage than a cinema vérité old-timer could ever have dreamed possible, the process of viewing and logging that footage has become more laborious. Distinguish between scenes in which something actually happens, and scenes that will primarily function as b-roll over voiceover (VO). In the scenes in which something actually happens, identify the actions that are relevant to the plot, i.e., to the protagonist’s quest. Note quiet moments and close ups of character’s faces.
  • The Paper Edit
    • When editing projects that are talking-head heavy, editors often employ transcripts that are cut and pasted into a paper edit. The strength of the paper edit is that it can help organize ideas, and it is excellent tool for an essay-style film. Traditionally, documentary scripts are formatted differently than narrative scripts. You can buy software to help script your film or simply use a two-column table in word processing software like Microsoft Word. In the left-hand column type a description of the visual content and, in the right-hand column, word-for-word sound bites and narration. Some people like to put the sound bites in all caps.
  • Assembly
    • An assembly edit is your first cut, designed to clarify the film’s structure. Construct an assembly edit after ninety percent of your footage is shot, digitized, logged and you have etched a structure out on paper. This could be a paper edit, an index card outline, or a simple, preliminary timeline of your three-act structure. The chief questions that the assembly should answer are "Is there a story here?" and "Is there a film here?" For this reason, the assembly edit should be no more than 40 percent longer than the final film. If longer, it becomes difficult to assess the film’s pace and rhythm. Therefore, for a 60 minute documentary, the assembly should be no more than 84 minutes. Again, the assembly is your best first guess at structure.

      Edit the assembly quickly. Sequences should be bulky—represented by two or three long unedited shots. Resist the temptation to finesse edits since fine cutting at this stage is a waste of time because you will probably change things. No need for narration, music, dissolves, cutaways, inserts, and special effects. Jump cuts are fine. It’s important to use cards for missing interviews, archival footage, etc. because those are important factors in judging structure.
      After viewing the assembly, determine what characters can be dropped. Whose role is not pertinent? Whose role is repeated by a better character? Which characters work well as foils and should be kept? If you film is talk-heavy, what ideas and themes can be dropped? What scenes are not needed?
  • Rough Cut
    • Unlike the assembly cut, your rough cut will be seen and evaluated by test audiences and stakeholders. For this reason, the length should be within ten percent of the estimated final running time. For example, the rough cut for a 60-minute documentary should be 54 to 66 minutes long. That way, viewers can accurately judge the film’s structure and rhythm.
      While J and L cuts (audio starting before video, or video starting before audio) with voiceover are alright, no need to finesse your edits too much. You’re likely change things and shouldn’t waste time fine-tuning scenes that may change. The rough cut is not a time to begin your audio mix but, by all means, lower distracting ambient sound. It’s very irritating to try to zone out loud ambient audio during a screening.
      Include a first draft of narration as either on-screen text or a rough track narration. Include temporary music, bought or borrowed from a sound library. If you have a composer in mind, try some of their tracks, but don’t worry about cutting beats to images at this point. Credits are also unnecessary at this point.
      Aim for the correct proportion of the materials that will appear in your final film: live action footage, archival, narration, reenactments, still photos, flat art, etc. If some element is missing, an interview that hasn’t been shot, for example, then use a text placeholder.
  • Fine Cut
    • Before composing the fine cut, re-screen your rushes if you have time, or at least reread your transcripts. Footage and sound bites that escaped your attention the first time around may jump out at you now that your know your structure and sequences. The film’s structure should now be in place, and for this reason the length of the fine cut should be within three percent of the final total running time. Now’s the time for including the film’s title treatment, temp music, temp narration, placeholders for every single forthcoming shot, graphic treatments, special effects (visual and audio) to make sure they work, and micro cutting.
  • Locked Picture
    • Locked picture means just that: from now on there will be no more changes to the video part of your film or to the length of your timeline.
      After you lock picture, you will overlay (incorporate) the following video:
      • master archival material
      • final graphics
      • animation
    • You will lay back (incorporate) the following audio:
      • final composed music
      • final narration recording
      • final sound FX
    • Once the fine cut is complete, you are ready for what used to be called "onlining", or these days, "finishing." That means adding the final audio mix and color correction. Films with adequate budgets will frequently phase out their editorial staff and move their project to a high-end editing facility where technicians finesse the EQ, brightness, contrast and color saturation, as well as output and transfer to various tape and digital formats.

Editing stages
Typically, the post-production phase of creating a film takes longer than the actual shooting of the film, and can take several months to complete. Other film production stages include (very broadly) - financing, pre-production, writing the screenplay, rewriting the screenplay (repeat), and the actual shooting.
The Editor’s Cut
There are several editing stages and the editor’s cut is the first. An editor’s cut (sometimes referred to as the ‘assembly edit’ or ‘rough cut’) is normally the first pass of what the final film will be when it reaches picture lock.
The film editor usually starts working while principal photography (shooting) starts. In the first stage of editing the film editor will usually work alone (save for his or her own team of assistant editors, associate or co-editors and/or visual effects and music editors). Likely, prior to cutting, the editor and director will have seen and/or discussed ‘dailies’ (raw footage shot each day) as shooting progresses. Screening dailies gives the editor a ballpark idea of the director’s intentions. Because it is the first pass, the editor’s cut might be somewhat longer than the final film. The editor continues to refine the cut while shooting continues, and often the entire editing process goes on for many months and sometimes more than a year, depending on the film.
The Director’s Cut
When shooting is finished, the director can then turn his or her full attention to collaborating with the editor and further refining the cut of the film. This is the time that is set aside where the film editor’s first cut is molded to fit the director’s vision, and before the studio and/or producers are generally allowed to have input. While collaborating on what is referred to as the ‘director’s cut,’ the director and the editor go over the entire movie with a fine tooth comb; scenes and shots are re-ordered, removed, shortened and otherwise tweaked. Often it is discovered that there are plot holes, missing shots or even missing segments which might require that new scenes be filmed. Because of this time working closely and collaborating - a period that is normally far longer, and far more intimately involved, than the entire production and filming - most directors and editors form a unique artistic bond.
The Producer vs. the Director
Often after the director has had his or her chance to oversee a cut, the subsequent cuts are supervised by one or more producers, who represent the production company and /or movie studio. At times, the final cut of films produced by the major studios is the one that most closely represents what the studio wants from the film and not necessarily what the director wants. Because of this, there have been several conflicts in the past between the director and the studio, sometimes leading to the use of credit signifying ownership.
Some directors are also the producers of their films, and, with the approval of the funding studio, have a much tighter grip on what makes the final cut than other directors. Independent directors who work outside of the ‘studio system’ are usually freer to have a final cut; thus independent films often take more risks and have more creative rewards than studio films.