Despite the fact that I am taking a little hiatus/Freelance paternity Leave from Post Production work, as I look back at the few projects that I worked on in the past year, it was an eventfull one. I worked on more French speaking projects and more Big Brand/Mega Corporation work than ever and I saw a webisode project flourish.
In the mist of all this, we had another child. Woooufff, what a year.
I freelanced for many cool projects and interesting companies in the past year. My new "BatCave" aka office space is almost up and rumning and I can't wait to jump on that horse again and dive into a great project.
Welcome 2013, now on to the Next Big thing.
** If your in Toronto Canada area and need some Post work done please feel free to contact me. I'm itching to end my Hiatus early!
My new Home office walls are up and painted. Starting to move in the gear and I am close to finishing my hiatus from Post work. Here's a look at the office/Batcave.
I might not be working it but some of the projects I have worked on in the year have been hitting the award circuit pretty hard.
The Guidestones Web Series has been nominated in a whole bunch of catagories and has gotten crital acclaim from wed and traditional media. Just this week they won the Digis 2012 Award for Best Web Series. Early this year won a Rockies Award for Best Web Series Fiction and Official Selection at the Geneva Internation Festival.
Also, it got nominated for Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Female Performance (Supinder Wraich) and Best Supplemental Content at the IAWTV Awards. Oh Yeah and it got a Nomination for Best Editing too. Still haven't checked it out. Whaaaat. It is on Hulu, YouTube and guidestones.org. Watch them all, it's a fun ride.
Some work that I did for ALP Communication, some mini-docs for BMW have been awarding it up. BMW: The Ultimate Driving Machine is a Silver Winner at the 2012 Summit Creative Award®and a Platinum Remi for New Media – Web Series at the 45th Worldfest International Film Festival
It is nice see that all the hard work that I put in to some of these projects are being recognized but the best is to know that they are being seen by an audience.
A few months into my postproduction hiatus and I have realized something that has change in me in the last few years. I'm really comfortable with being wrong.
So, as I stated in my previous post that I was going to pay the bills the old fashion film ways; union film lighting. As I rubbed shoulder with my union brothers and catch up on old times, as we move big gear on big movies, I realize that there is this weird pressure to hit "perfection" on the first attempt at something. Having not done Big Budget shooting for about 8 years and some of the lightning equipment has evolved; so, I was a little rusty. No major mistakes that you get a nickname over or anything, but little things, little mistakes were made by myself. My bad.
I was surprised how people were quick to try to locate the offender but I was even quicker with my hand up to take responsibility for my faux pas and confortable doing it. Sometimes I would get friendly ribbing from people that now that I was just getting back into the swing of things. But sometimes, I would get disapproving glares, comments that were intended to induce some form of shame or even the mini speech about how it is done from younger members that didn't know me.
At the beginning I thought is was comical, then I was annoyed at why are we wasting time breaking down the mistake, then I thought about how film works; it is all about mistakes and adjustments. And most of the time things that were made a "big" deal out of turned out to be something that changed in the end like most things in the film world. I started thinking about why am I so un-phased about making a mistake.
Editing is making mistakes many times on an hourly basis. And over the years, I have noticed that if I don't just start making mistakes or editing, I develop editors block. So, I make the mistake and know that I'll come back to fix it later. I have gotten very comfortable with mistakes. For example, I think I nailed the essence of the cut and/or the director or producer points out key plot point that's not in the screener. My bad, I cut it out when I was trying to make the edit air tight for pacing. Or even better, I am at a show and tell with ad agency and don't like any of the 12 versions of the spot, technically my mistake. My Bad. I got a millions of these... Feel free to comment with your mistake stories. To quote Deniro in Cape Fear, "... Reminds you your human"
Conclusion. If you can't deal with making mistakes, editing is not for you.
Sometimes you have to look back to go forward. Some wise words from Ferris himself.
Time to take a break from editing JOBS.
I have in the last year been involved in a few great projects but the volume of exciting/challenging projects has deminished. Leaving me a little "dry" creatively. Leaving me with just JOBS.
No, I am not retiring or moving on to greener pastures. I can't. Movies are the greenest pasture that I know but since my daugter has arrived, Laila, I have decided to take 6 months to really look back, rebuild and reasses my editing future's direction.
I have always been Boba Fett aka a Freelancer and after recently going on many job interviews in corporate/broadcast post. I realize that I will always be Bobba Fett; don't think that my creative energy fits in that box.
So, for the next little while I will be putting my Blaster up on the wall, rebuilding my Lair (office space) and keep my ears and eyes open for the next big Bounty (media project).
FYI. For the next little while my post will be updates on my rebuilding of my "BatCave", No Spoilers post and some of my regular film perspective rants about life on set since I will be doing some Film Union Lighting technician work to pay the bills during my Hiatus.
Any Tom, Dick & Harriette can continuity cut, takes a master editor/filmmaker to edit in a variety of styles. I stumbled on this great piece of filmmaking as I was digging throught the crates (aka DVD collections) as I prepare to re-design my home office and update my gear. POINT BLANK directed by John Boorman, edited by Henry Berman.
I won't pretend to remember all the different style names from my Film Aestetics Class I took in the 90's but POINT BLANK uses a mixture of techniques that should be watched again and again.
There is what I call a time-matchcuts that break the timeline of the film, smash-cut flashbacks and a great opening title sequence that echoes the main characters mood, imagine being in the mind of an angry Lee Marvin. My Favorite is the Time shifted editing; using dialogue or sounds from other scenes that span the movie timeline. Hard to describe but It's that Steven Soderbergh Limey style like montage sequences (which he admitily inspired the style of The Limey; haven't seen that one, that is another one to watch again and again)
I think this is one of the hardest techniques since it's like pig latin of filmmaking. It's a variation on the film language. So, you have to teach the audience the new languge code with limited time without loosing them. It is not for the faint of heart because your playing with fire. If you do it and it fails you lost your audiences trust and probably their interest. Point Blank succeds in not loosing you, as it jumps around aggressively, very echoing the protagonist.
I know your saying, this movie or that movie does that even better but this was before non-linear editing, made on a movieola or a Steinbeck. Imagine editing Momento, Pulp Fiction, The Limey... I takes a cetain determination and coincidentaly a Lee Marvin like resolve to introduce this style of filmmaking in those technical conditions.
I won't say that it goes on for the whole movie because it is doesn't. It is mostly a conventionally edited movie with strong composition and great late '60s style. Which is reason enough to watch this movie. However, watching how this type of editing techniques being used is like watching a tight rope walker, juggling, without a net. Bold.
PS. I haven't done one of these in a while but I have a feeling that I will in the near future, things are changing around the "old Republic" aka Gorilla Productions...
If your not listening to the Freakonomics Podcast your missing out on some interesting insight.
This recent episode of Freakonomics Radio was an interesting one about customer service which is what a good freelance editor delivers ontop of the technical and artistic skills. The Social scientist prove what most in our industry almost always fail to appreciate, cost and quality are related.
When I get request for a quote occasionally some potential clients will inquire, "why is your quote and rate higher than.." Then, I explain that it's usually a worst case scenario guestimate, factoring in some contengency time and trying to anticipate some problems that has occured in my past experiences.
About my rate, I use the analogy of a general contractor quoting for some work on your house. "Never use the cheapest quote, that guy is usually the problem/unexperienced craftsmen."
Unfortunatly, sometimes some clients don't take my advice and the outcome is usually not satisfatory and they inquire a few months later with a request for a Fix-this-mess-Quote.
