After I got eight or nine different scenes assembled, I could see that most of them were working well. On their own, at least. I was anxious to get enough footage together to start putting the scenes down in order, to see how they flowed from one to the next. We were shooting out of sequence, and, wouldn't you know it, the stuff I needed for the movie's first scene was the last stuff we shot.

We finally finished shooting, and I finally got down to "serious" editing, starting with that first scene. And I wasn't happy with the way it was coming out. The scene is nothing fancy, just a guy working at a video store, talking on the phone. But it's supposed to be funny, or at least interesting. And it just seemed kind of... blah. Not a very auspicious way to start off my first feature film.

Then I got an idea. I'd planned to keep the opening credits in the movie to a bare minimum. I'm still scarred from the 20-minute (it seemed at least that long) credit sequence in the 1978 SUPERMAN movie. Since the opening scene wasn't working, though, I thought I might insert some credits and break the phone conversation into short snippets.

So I lifted some PLAN 9 music and put it under the phone conversation snippets and opening credits. The music is very creepy and dramatic, in a 1950s b-movie sort of way, and I liked the way it contrasted with the very un-creepy and un-dramatic dialogue.

The few people who have seen the rough cut of HIDE AND CREEP seem to have enjoyed this opening sequence, so I think I went in the right direction with it. It just happened to be a totally different direction than I'd originally planned.

Parameters

There are many ways to edit a movie. In fact, a more experienced editor than me could probably write a whole column about all the available options and how to decide which one is best for any given project.

Familiarity Breeds Contempt

HIDE AND CREEP is supposed to be funny. I wish I could tell you that, after watching each scene over and over (and over) during the editing process, I still laugh my ass off at every joke. But I don't. And I'll bet that scary movies aren't as scary and dramatic movies aren't as dramatic after you watch them 40 or 50 times.

So when it comes to the humor and drama and suspense, you have to trust that whoever directed the movie knew what he was doing. In my case, I'm not sure I knew what I was doing, but I remember laughing at the material while we were shooting it.

Going on faith that the material is still funny, I've been trying to make editing decisions based on rhythm. Not musical rhythm, though some people like to edit to music. I just try to make each scene feel natural. An organic rhythm, if you will. If I'm editing a conversation between two people, I try to make sure it sounds like they're really talking to each other and not just reading their lines to no one in particular. I'll close my eyes and just listen to the dialogue sometimes, to see if it sounds right.

With an action scene, the visuals tend to be more important. I'll ask myself, "Is the scene moving too fast or too slow? Does it make sense? Is it clear to the viewer what is happening?" One of my pet peeves with action scenes in many movies is that a lot is happening on the screen, but it's just motion. Half the shots are so vague, you can't tell what's going on until the smoke clears.

Aside from finding the rhythm to a particular scene, you have to look for the movie's overall rhythm, how each scene flows into the next. If the movie seems to move quickly for a half hour, then to drastically slow down for ten minutes, you might want to look more closely at the slow ten minutes and see if it can be tightened up. Or, maybe the first half hour is moving too quickly. Maybe it needs to be padded out a bit.

Be Ruthless

If a scene isn't working, you have to fix it. If you can't fix it, you have to cut it. Simple as that.

Many times, though, you can't cut a scene. In the example I mentioned at the start of this column, the first scene of HIDE AND CREEP wasn't working. I couldn't cut it, because it sets the tone for the whole movie and introduces one of the main characters. So I had to get creative to come up with something that worked.

There have been a few cases where I couldn't cut a whole scene, but I was able to trim it down substantially. The easiest situation for trimming a scene is when you can take something off the beginning or end of the scene. I've managed to take pieces out of the middle of a couple of scenes, too. If I'd written a tighter script, I probably wouldn't be trimming as much. But I never realized how loose the script was until I started editing.

Make Snap Decisions with No Regard for the Consequences

I love the "undo" function in Final Cut Pro. It lets me edit kind of like I shoot -- fast and loose. I can take a scene and chop it to bits and put it back together in a different way and, if it comes out worse than it started, I can hit "undo" a few times and go back to square one, no harm done. Please note: this is not a particularly viable option for people in the "linear" editing world.

Getting From One Shot to the Next

At a more basic level than finding a scene's rhythm is deciding how to cut from one shot to the next. As with many aspects of filmmaking, these decisions are a matter of taste to a large degree. However, I've found a few methods I seem to go back to again and again.

Cut on motion - my absolute most-used editing trick. In your first shot, find a place where the actor is in motion (pushing someone away from him, for example). Find the same motion in the second shot. Now, assuming the actor was fairly consistent in his movements, you can let half of the action play out in the first shot, then cut to the action continuing in the second shot.

The audience tends to be distracted by the actor's physical motion. If this cuts cleanly, they probably won't notice any other discrepancies between the two shots.

Obviously, this method comes into play most often when editing action scenes, but it can help out in dialogue scenes, too. Actors are rarely completely still.

Conversations - when editing conversations, it often feels natural to let the edit lag behind the actors. Say a scene starts with Actor 1 talking. He gets through, then Actor 2 starts talking. Instead of cutting to Actor 2 right before his first line, hold the shot on Actor 1 for a second or two while Actor 2 starts his lines, then cut to him.

It's also nice to cut away from a speaking actor to get a reaction shot of a listening actor, particularly if:

• something dramatic is said and you want to show its impact on another actor's character;
• the actor has been talking for a while and you, as editor, are getting bored with that same shot; or
• you have to piece two takes of the same dialogue together and need something to cut to so you can hide the "seam."

Cut on a look - Your actors' eyes are very expressive. So, if you're cutting from a shot of an actor looking at something to a shot of... well, what he's looking at, make the cut right after he shifts his eyes toward the object.

Audio transition - another of my favorites. At the end of a shot that leads into a new scene, the audio for the next shot begins early. So, we see shot "A." Then we hear the audio (dialogue, music, effects, whatever) from shot "B." Finally, we see shot "B." I find this one works when used sparingly.

A game of inches - when you have a scene that feels almost perfect, but not quite, don't be afraid to nitpick. Start looking closely at the different cuts in the scene. Add a few frames, remove a couple of frames. Experiment. Sometimes shortening or lengthening a shot by one frame can make a big difference.

Transitions

I mentioned NORTH BY NORTHWEST earlier as an example of a well-edited movie. I was watching it the other night and noticed there were quite a few dissolves used to transition between scenes, as opposed to hard cuts. It seems to me that dissolves aren't used in movies as much these days as they used to be.

Fades are especially popular at the end of scenes, especially at the end of a movie's last scene. In fact, most film scripts end with the words "FADE OUT" or "FADE TO BLACK." Just remember you don't have to fade to black. A fade to (or from) white works well on occasion. And I often prefer a hard cut to black instead of a fade. Taking a little time to experiment usually reveals the best solution for a particular situation.

Lastly, we have wipes, wacky cousins of the dissolve. They're called "wipes" because, when executed in a film, it looks like one shot is wiping over the previous shot. These are fun, and always bring to mind old B-movies and the STAR WARS films. The only problem with using them is you might get accused of ripping off STAR WARS (when you're actually paying homage to an old B-movie).

If you'd like to see some examples (in QuickTime format) of different transitions, check out this site.

As we get closer to completing HIDE AND CREEP, I've been thinking it might be a good idea to get a mailing list together, to let folks know about screenings (assuming we can find somebody to show it), what VARIETY has to say about the final cut (yeah, right), what our next project is (if we ever recover from this one)... stuff like that. So, if you'd like to be "in the loop" on all things Crewless and HIDE AND CREEP, e-mail me, and I'll hook you up.

See you in fourteen...

E-MAIL THE AUTHOR | ARCHIVES