Daniel's Kite - Fine Cut Part 2

After I finished completing the changes brought to our attention in the previous screening of our film, my goal was to get it to picture lock so the sound designer wouldn’t have to worry about re-syncing sound constantly. I thought the best way to get to this stage would be to get some final feedback from peers and tutors so I exported the cut again to allow them to view it.

Written feedback received from Chris Cooke

Transcribed verbal feedback from Chris Hall

After receiving this feedback, I met with the director, Chris Kenward, to discuss it and try and implement some of the changes to see if we felt it worked or not. This was the stage where I collaborated with the director the most, as I previously did the majority of the edit on my own (minus the work on the headmasters scene) but at this late stage I felt it was important to get a second opinion on every single change that I had made over the whole process. I did this because the film is ultimately the director’s vision and should reflect that. “V: What is the editor’s job? W: I see the job as trying to get the best possible version of the film that the director wants. You always have to keep in the forefront of your mind that it is the director’s film.”^{[1; Pg 15]} I was mindful of this throughout the editing process by showing Chris the various cuts before anyone else to make sure he was happy with what I had done.

To begin with we went through the feedback Chris Hall gave us, as it was mainly to do with the actual cutting of scenes, pace of the film or sound design.

Implementing changes: Compositing parents out of background, before.

Implementing changes: Using the picture in picture effect to cut them out.

Implementing changes: Cutting out jarring close ups and replacing them with wides.

Implementing changes: Cutting 2nd shot in the film out completely.

After we made each small change we would watch through the whole scene, making sure it didn’t effect the pace or clarity of the narrative. The director and I tend to agree on most things due to our length of time working with each other so we were used to this process at the end of post-production, making it relatively smooth.

During this last fine-tuning process, I had to be as objective yet critical as possible to ensure the film still made sense, was engaging and was ultimately what the director wanted. We did these last changes over the course of 5 days so we didn’t spend too long editing the film at one time, enabling us to keep a clear head when making any decisions. This quote from Walter Murch summed up this final week of changes for me: “Film editing means aiming at a moving target. A shot length that feels appropriate today might not seem that way later when adjacent scenes and sequences have been changed or reordered. Every edit decision, no matter how trivial it seems or how few frames it involves, throws a pebble into a placid pond. It ripples all the surrounding material. That’s why there is a constancy and perseverance to film editing – viewing, reviewing, and rethinking.”^{[2; Pg 208-209]}

Bibliography

1. Vincent LoBrutto (1991); Selected Takes: Film Editors on Editing; New York: Praeger Publishers
2. Charles Koppelman (2005); Behind the Seen: How Walter Murch edited Cold Mountain using Apple’s Final Cut Pro and what this means for cinema; US: New Riders