CinemaEditor Magazine - Subscribe!

Just got informed of a pretty good deal over Twitter - US$5 for a yearly online subscription and US$25 for both online and hardcopy subscription over at CinemaEditor Magazine, the official magazine for the American Cinema Editors (ACE).

I really like reading about editing (even though in recent months, the Producing side has took more attention from the Editing side... pitfalls of a PrEditor) - both the bits about gear and about the craft. Actually, I like to read more about the craft. And it seems to be quite a niche subject so there's not much reading material out there.

So of course, I jumped at this opportunity!

If you'd like to get your hands on the mag, go on to http://www.cinemaeditormagazine.com

X Marks The Spot

Ahhhh... between my last post and this post, much has happened. Many projects have been completed, many edit hours churned out and I've added a few new clients to my company and freelance list. Haven't had a proper break for more than a year and a half (but finally, a short beach getaway is coming right up) but those edits ain't gonna edit themselves, are they? :)

In fact, I've been so busy with pre/prod/post that I've not had the chance to upload some of our latest works online.  Though I've managed to squeeze two more new videos online - both fun to work with, on shoot and in post:


TV Commercial for our long-time theater client, Toy Factory, for their "881 - The Musical" production. Heard the musical sold very well and was well-received by the audience - kudos!


Something fun for another returning client, OpenNet. Where do you get such nimble and expressive hands? HINT: Editing develops agility and a good sense of rhythm ;)

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BUT, the Biggest, Baddest, most Bombastic Breaking News of all broke a coupla' hours ago:

FCP X is (finally) here

It's only been a few hours and there has been a lot of online chatter about The X. I've seen the official intro video and read about the features, comments and hot-off-the-keyboards reviews (not to forget, the key omissions). Not being an early adopter of technology (but only staying ahead of the news without burning holes in my pockets), I'm going to adopt my usual 'Wait and See' approach.

Afterall, I am running a fairly stable (though sometimes quirky) FCP 6.0 system on 10.5 Leopard on a 2009 Mac Pro and... it works. I am very familiar with & fairly fast on it. I have more than a few current and pending projects - and lots more that I'll need to be able to tap into in case clients come back (a key omission in The X) - and clients have been coming back to update their videos recently.

The lack of OMF exporting feature in FCP X makes it a definite no-go for me as well. BUT from comments made by editors that Apple Dev team consults with, these "pro" features are currently omitted but not forgotten. Which suits me just fine - shall await a more stable and feature-complete package before making the switch. It's a complete rewrite, so surely, I'm not going to bank on it to be The One on first try (even though many people seem pretty upset by having their expectations shattered after waiting so long... as for me, I have too much patience. I can wait.)

In the meantime, I am grateful for the early adopters and FCP fanatics who had already started editing projects with FCP X mere hours after its release! For they will probably be the ones to stress the system and discover the 101 flaws and bugs that Apple will work on for its next update...

Moving to FCP X would probably be inevitable but does not have to be imminent for my shop. I can see FCP X potentially being very useful around here (once I get up to speed with the new.... almost-everything + the professional features get worked in and stabilized + all my paid plugins get their necessary updates) - we're a small shop and almost all our projects are short-form and not more than 20mins, we work with tapeless formats 70% of the time and deliver tapeless for majority of our clients as well.

I would be lying if I say I'm not equally thrilled AND spooked by the really low price point at US$299.99 - thrilled that for such a low price, I can get a whole buncha bells, whistles, SFX and templates bundled with a spanking new NLE; spooked because now really EVERYBODY can just get an iMac/MacBook Pro and be an editor/run a production house/set up their own internal post-production team. We're already experiencing some sort of stagnation of project prices despite high inflation... so this can be quite disconcerting.

Hardware and software-wise, the barriers to entry have really been dropped low. In terms of experience and expertise? It's probably going to remain difficult to explain the value-add of having an "education" (formal or usually, non-formal and in the "real world", supplemented by copious amounts of good, updated reading/viewing materials online).

In any case, I think many people are still reeling from the shock of finally coming face-to-face with the much-anticipated, spanking new FCP that looks and behaves so differently from its ancestors... hobbling along more like an iMovie Pro/crippled Final Cut Pro.

The release of the news came a little underwhelming but I guess life (and edits) will go on... to bed, I shall. Regardless of NLE, nothing can replace a clear mind when pressing them JKL keys!

ReelSpam [or 'What I Was Up To For The Past Few Months']

Been a while since I popped in but it's been a busy few months [and months to come]. Highly productive season working with new clients who've come our way. Doing pretty fun videos. Currently in the process of uploading the newly completed ones to our YouTube channel. Meanwhile, here are some of the latest works that I've edited.


This is a highlights reel containing footage from the 20 short vignettes I've cut for the 1-Altitude Gallery. Beautiful footage shot on the 5D. It was great fun cutting these 20 videos and giving each of them a unique theme/mood/rhythm. A little bummed I wasn't able to be on shoot since my crew had so much fun running about like tourists - but those videos weren't gonna edit themselves!


Client came back to us after we did a good job for them on our first collaboration - the first video really made the APAC office stand out among their global counterparts. So, they decided to take our concept further and commission a Part Deux using the same actor, animation style and premise. This one is on Cloud Computing and we worked with our animation partner to create something fun.




Finally uploaded the other Youth Olympic Games videos I've edited. I guess you could call these 'mini narrative-documentaries'. Worked with our regular freelance director on these and we pieced together the stories, while setting a specific mood for each piece. Because all these videos were screened at the same Olympic exhibition venue in Suntec Convention Centre, the last thing we want is all of them having the same generic treatment and style. Somewhat bucking convention, these videos were not LOUD and "MTV-ish" - as some might have readily associated with youths and sports. Instead, they're dignified and contemplative.

We're currently juggling 7 projects [and more KIV ones to come] through 2010 and into early 2011. Just wrapping up one for Sentosa... moving onto an overseas shoot next week... working with some old clients, clients who came back to us after moving to another company and new clients from new markets. A mix of branding, marketing, corporates, pro bono and TVCs; private, agency and government. Plate's getting pretty full... but we'll make it work. Somehow ;)

Also started working with PluralEyes on a recent project which we shot on the 5D, with audio coming from the Zoom H4N. Apart from some small workarounds that were needed, I was pretty impressed with the ease of syncing. We had more than 6 hours of interview footage, which was synced quite beautifully using PluralEyes. Kudos! Deep appreciation for that tool - good stuff at very reasonable price. Check it out at http://www.singularsoftware.com/pluraleyes.html

Meanwhile, I've also taken up small freelance gigs for a Microsoft vendor producing customer testimonials. Currently, it's been subtitling work - taking local versions and adding English subtitles for the international market. But as with ALL edit jobs, it's never "just" a "simple subtitling job". I've learnt a few new things along the way when it comes to versioning things since I had to work around updating text information on graphics and videos which are already mashed together, as they come to me in .WMV or equivalent files. Every video is different and requires its own set of troubleshooting. I'm a devout MacHead... but hey, like many others, I got my start in Microsoft. I just found something better and am sticking to it ;) Besides, this is strictly business!

Talking about professionalism, I came across an article which I thought was really good for professionals who are doing videos... professionally. Looking through the list, I think we've discovered all these points for ourselves through the years but this guy really covered it in a clear and succinct manner. Recommended Read for everyone who's in the business and is involved in any level of client servicing:
http://www.productionapprentice.com/tutorials/general/this-is-your-work-not-your-art-tips-for-working-with-clients-on-creative-projects/

Motivator Poster: Render Wisdom

Had Larry Jordan's ' Editing Truths — for Better Living (Contest)' [http://www.larryjordan.biz/about/contest.html] at the back of my mind while editing with my director.

We were doing our best to jazz up an otherwise humdrum video, using our arsenal of Digital Juice motion graphics packs. Since we've switched over from a 1GB Powerbook to a 4GB MacBook Pro for some of our editing, this is the first time we're really pushing the new Intel machine with multi layers of motion graphics and keyframing work.

I guess we were expecting a sound barrier breakthrough in terms of speed - but alas, we still had to wait *gasp* for rendering!

Which reminds me of one of those to-be-classic 'quips from a client', which was related to me by my AfterEffects guru [paraphrased by me, due to me having the memory of a goldfish]:
'I don't see why you need to render... rendering is only for the editor to slack off and have coffee!'

So, while twiddling thumbs with my director, staring at the rendering bar, I came up with the "If it's not instantaneous, it's not 'fast enough'" quip.

In order for me to 'get over' the fact of [still] having to render, I've decided I'm gonna find the time to put the Powerbook and MacBook Pro side by side, then let them both render a similar clip... and appease my soul when I get to SEE the difference. Theory of relativity ;]

Julia Juaniz Quotes from 'Fine Cuts: The Art of European Film Editing'

Technology neither makes the technician nor the artist... The true editor will always exist, but perhaps in the future most people will only look for someone to stick the shots together. That's the way things seem to be going.

Julia Juaniz, Page 137

An editor believes that you have to be modest and humble enough not to want to make your own film with the material.

Julia Juaniz, Page 138

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Just like a ship can only have one captain [but also many many other able hands], so is a film? At this point of my life/career, I still see myself as a better regenerative creative collaborator [editor's role] than a generative creative instigator [more of a director's/writer's/producer's role].

This afternoon, I was browsing through the latest Creative Cow forums email alerts and clicked on an editor's showreel. There's always this niggling problem I have when it comes to an editor's showreel: how can you show how 'good' you are as an editor with a [generally short] reel? A DP can show his shots - composition, movement, a captured moment... but as an editor, when and how do other people how much of that reel is 'yours'? How much of it was the director? How much of it was due to you being a creative collaborator rather than an 'edit operator'? How much of it was impressive due to you getting cool rushes, rather than crap shots you had to rescue?

In comparison, I'm always slightly jealous of motion graphic designers' reels - wham bam kaboom - from the first frame onwards, it usually impresses right till the very end.

On another thought: I happened to catch 2 local programmes of vastly different quality today. One's a kids' drama, which had mediocre acting and uninspired shots/editing. Later at night, I was captivated by a Chinese infotainment which was quite nicely done, with obvious aesthetic considerations [nice color grading going on there]. Haven't had the chance to really work on the aesthetics of editing much, when it comes to color grading... tendency/priority of corporate clients is to get content covered, so there's usually no time and budget allocated for all the fancy-pantsy stuff like color grading - which isn't something many clients pay much attention to anyway, methinks. In an ideal world, I'll always have time to do proper 'finishing' - which gets appreciated.

That said, I had the pleasure of doing some color grading on the TVCs I've worked on. Something like this one for the 'Shanghai Blues' TVC we did for Toy Factory:

This was a draft grading... overdid the soft focus initially, I mean, it's supposed to look like 1930s Shanghai but not THAT dreamy. Could possibly be more nuanced - next time, next time.

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R.I.P Anthony Minghella - director of 'The English Patient' and 'Cold Mountain'. One of the most memorable books on editing I've read is:

'Behind the Seen: How Walter Murch Edited Cold Mountain Using Apple's Final Cut Pro and What This Means for Cinema', in which Murch mentioned quite a bit about his creative relationship with Minghella while working on the film.

The Oscars: Which Editing Is a Cut Above?

EVERY year, when the members of the editing branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences sit down to watch movies and choose the five nominees for film editing, they try very hard not to look at what they’re supposed to be looking at.

“When do I notice the editing? When it’s bad,” said Craig McKay, a nominee for “Reds” and “The Silence of the Lambs.” “You sit there and think, ‘Why is the camera on this character’s back at a pivotal moment?’ But if it’s really well done, I just surrender like the rest of the audience.”

The “invisible art,” as many of its practitioners call it, has been an Oscar category since 1934, when Conrad Nervig took home the first editing statue for “Eskimo.” Yet editors acknowledge that even after 70 years assessing excellence in their field sometimes comes down to guesswork. “Everything else — music, cinematography, costumes, design, acting — can be judged at face value,” said Christopher Rouse, a nominee last year for “United 93.” “But when you’re looking at editing, you don’t know what the totality of the material was, and you don’t know the working dynamic between a director and an editor — whether the editor was micromanaged or given free rein. It’s very difficult.”

Continue reading over at the New York Times