After we shot A Day in the Life of Sarah Jane, I drove to Tyler, Texas to meet with my DP/Cam Ops/Sound Recordist, Andrew T. I grabbed us some food on the way. We sat in his editing bay and went over a rough cut of the film. It was my first film editing experience with an editor and it was the first short film project for us both.
Andrew received my directions well and it was like it understood the direction I was going in with the movie. We went take by take. The rough cut looked nice but there were some areas that didn’t flow together because we didn’t get enough b-roll. I have a whole story about shooting this short in preparation and will tell you all about it.
For now, Andrew edits well, his forte is cinematography and camera operations so I had to hire a more experienced editor and filmmaker friend, another Andrew C. (lol) who’s based in Canada, to do a fine cut for the festival submission.
Going back I now know to provide “selects” or my favorite takes and a more cohesive deliverables submission so he has something to work with, but he was able to pull scenes together over gaps and missed b-roll by reversing shots, or cropping in etc. He also started the moving in a different place. He started the movie with my character kidnapped with a blindfold.
As an experienced editor he was able to make a suggestion, although it seems small, it really was a huge thing to me. It was like starting in media res, in the middle and then working back to the beginning.
I can’t believe my short film is finally happening. I’ll touch on that in a later entry as well. Next up, sound design!