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Episode 028: Moving from Assisting to Editing

Episode 028: Moving from Assisting to Editing

Episode 028: Moving from Assisting to Editing

This episode is the the panel Moving from Assisting to Editing that was recorded on October 16th 2019 at Finalé in Vancouver.

Moving from Assistant Editor panel

The assistant editor is the foundation that holds the edit suite together, and is to the editor what Robin is to Batman.

But you may not want to be Robin forever. How does one make the move from assisting to editing?

How does Robin become the Batman? 

Have a listen to this informal Q&A session with Vancouver editors Justin Li and Greg Ng.

Moderated by director Kaare Andrews.

Justin Li

Justin Li is a television and film editor based in Vancouver, B.C. His genre of work include drama, horror, comedy and science fiction. Notable projects include the television adaptation of the Douglas Adams novels, “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency”, CBC’s limited series “Unspeakable”, and historical horror anthology series “The Terror: INFAMY”. Justin enjoys long walks, standing desks and ergonomic mice.

Greg Ng

Greg Ng is a film and television editor from Vancouver, B.C., and though he doesn’t like being pigeonholed into one particular label as a multi-faceted human, he feels comfortable identifying as such for tax purposes. He is an alumnus of the UBC Film Program and the Canadian Film Centre, and has worked on documentaries, fiction films, and everything in between. In addition to these facts, he has won several awards for editing, which validated his professional insecurities and made him feel warm and fuzzy inside. Some recent credits include the VIFF 2018 People’s Choice winner, Finding Big Country, Viceland’s The Wrestlers, and Epix’s rock doc series Punk. 

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The Editor’s Cut – Episode 028 – “Moving from Assisting to Editing (Vancouver Master Class)”



Sarah Taylor

This episode was sponsored by Finale — A Picture Shop Company. Hello and welcome to The Editor’s Cut. I’m your host Sarah Taylor. Before we dive into this episode I have a message from DOXA. The 19th Annual DOXA Documentary Film Festival returns June 18th to 26th online. Committed to cultivating curiosity and critical thought. DOXA will present both short and feature films from across Canada and the globe representing some of the best in documentary cinema. The online festival will include live and pre-recorded conversations with filmmakers as well as industry specific events. More announcements including programming to come. Visit doxafestival.ca for details and further updates. Today I bring you the panel Moving From Assisting to Editing that was recorded on October 16th 2019 at Finale in Vancouver. The assistant editor is the foundation that holds the edit suite together and is to the editor what Robin is to Batman. But you may not want to be Robin forever. How does one make the move from assisting to editing. How does Robin become the Batman. Have a listen to this informal Q and A session with Vancouver editors Justin Li and Greg Ng. Some of Greg’s recent credits include the VIFF 2018 People’s Choice Winner Finding Big Country, Viceland’s The Wrester and Epic’s rock doc series Punk. And Justin’s recent credits include Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, CBC’s limited series Unspeakable and historical horror anthology series The Terror: Infamy. This panel was moderated by director Kaare Andrews.

 

Kaare Andrews

Well I think we should start. I’d like to just set the stage with like how you guys got into this where you were your background is are you from here. Are you from some other faraway land. Greg you grew up here and is that right. Or where did you how did you where were you born.

 

Greg Ng

I was born in this city. Yes. And then I went school Richmond. blah blah I went to UBC for the film program and that was very good. Very small kind of program. It’s still small. Then I went to the Canadian Film Centre in 2008.

 

Kaare Andrews

You’re from here as well.

 

Justin Li

I am from here. Yeah I was born here I grew up in Coquitlam just like a suburb outside of Vancouver for those not from here. And then I actually didn’t know films or want to get into. I watched a ton of movies growing up my parents took me every week to cheap Tuesday didn’t matter what the rating was probably not the best parenting but worked out for me. I went to SFU I studied Communications. Then I went to BC IT for broadcast actually and I used to work in sports and news just in various things shooting, graphics —

 

Kaare Andrews

Let’s back up a little bit a little bit. We’re racing ahead to education but really most people here their love of film starts at an early age. So Greg how did it start for you. What was the what was the what was the turning point for film and then how old were you when you realized that some could be an editor of a film. When did that. When did that happen. That’s secret information.

 

Greg Ng

It’s Star Wars. I loved that. And I got a box set. So the making of and I was like holy moly these guys made aliens and spaceships. I want to do that.

 

Kaare Andrews

When did you when did you realize that there was such a thing as an editor do you remember? Was there a moment when you when it was like oh there’s a whole list of people here that have done different things.

 

Greg Ng

You know I can’t remember the specific moment but I do remember when I wanted to make a movie with my home video camera. I was like How am I supposed to get from this shot to that shot? But without you know they I just like you into the stop start movie making? So I was like there’s gotta be a better way to do this.

 

Kaare Andrews

Yeah. Your family had a handy camera was it a friend?

 

Greg Ng

Yeah my family had a handicam. It was cutting edge at the time and had a color viewfinder.

 

Kaare Andrews

And Justin how about you when did you get into it like wonder with the love or film one of that kind of emerge?

 

Justin Li

Love of film just came with watching a lot of movies with my family growing up. Yeah. It was always innately there. The first time I saw it as a career opportunity something that I would actually be interested in especially specifically editing was in SFU. I was in a class regarding technology and society and our final project for the class was to do a five minute video documentary on any subject related to the course so my group did online dating. No one knew how to edit, shoot, make anything. I was the most comfortable with computers so I took on editing, pirated some software. I taught myself how to use it I think Sony Vegas or something. That’s how long ago it was. But I taught myself to edit. I got all the footage for the project two nights before our final was due, stayed up for 48 straight hours and was very happy at the end of it and really enjoyed every minute of it. After that I was like Yeah I can do this and I kind of sort of sought those opportunities out.

 

Kaare Andrews

And Greg When was your first when’s the first time you edited something?

 

Greg Ng

I edited in school in elementary school. Doing the two VCR system was probably my first editing experience and I went overboard with like my favorite song of the time and there was some projects I don’t know what it was exactly. We had to remake a Shakespeare scene in modern day times and I took an entire song and had this huge build that only remember the band and it was magic because I was like Can’t you feel the emotion that’s happening right now. The music’s gone all these things and it was very complicated though to time the VCRs with the whole thing.

 

Kaare Andrews

And you been pretty tech savvy since I’ve known you that as it is that what did that lead into. What you liked about editing?

 

Greg Ng

Yeah for sure. I it was a big fan of tinkering with computers and recording devices played music and recorded it. I pirated some software as well. Now that’s not something I do, I’d just like to clarify that I subscribe to all my software. But yeah tinkering with all the gear and sort of knowing how to record things and sort of embellish them and play them back was always really fun.

 

Kaare Andrews

There’s a big connection between music and editing for a lot of people. Is there is there with you Justin? Were you into music at all?

 

Justin Li

I like music but I don’t think it related to editing for me. I like that you can take two images that were totally unrelated. Juxtapose them and just like infuse meaning into them. I think that was something that really caught caught my eye about it. Looking for meaning, creating meaning and I think and you know just empathy was something that was really interesting to me because you could take something and hold it for an extra second and it feels wholly different. Knowing that that’s how it would affect people. I think that that part of it was really interesting. Yeah it sounds like I’m super manipulative.

 

Kaare Andrews

But that’s the job isn’t that manipulative?

 

Justin Li

Yeah I think that’s what holds my interest in it.

 

Kaare Andrews

OK Now let’s get into the school. So Justin when you started school you weren’t initially I’m going to be an editor. In film. You were telling me you were gonna give me Give me the rundown of your school.

 

Justin Li

I went to school for broadcast after I made that discovery about editing. It was more that I also wanted just like work and like you know pay off debts and things like that. So going to BC IT was a quick way to earn a job because I would graduate right when the 2010 Olympics came here. But I knew that we covered production in the course. So I was using that kind of as a back door in and through that met a lot of the editing instructors and that’s actually how I got my first assistant gig.

 

Kaare Andrews

Through one of the instructors at school?

 

Justin Li

Yeah. So he is a post producer in town and I kind of just asked him after this they have these conferences with all those staff and you can ask them questions as students and stuff and try to improve the program. And I went out to him afterwards and I asked him if I could take his course at night or anything in addition to my broadcast course. And he let me audit it for free. At the end of that course they had everyone apply for jobs to be a first assistant on one of his pilots that he was doing. And the editor chose me and that was my first gig.

 

Kaare Andrews

Oh that’s cool. That’s great. Greg how did your first job come along?

 

Greg Ng

I actually had a similar story… UBC. Yeah I went to the film program there when I finished the program one of the teachers knew somebody who is a post supervisor and was looking for a post P.A.. And so right out of like I graduated and started working at Bright Light Pictures where I learned a lot about you know how movies actually got made.

 

Kaare Andrews

Yeah. Now let’s say what that first job were you prepared for that job. Was it overwhelming and was it easy when was that what was it like to see.

 

Greg Ng

I mean the first one being a post P.A. it was like just being a production assistant you know for post-production and was pretty it was pretty light. There was you know getting lunches. I built a lot of spreadsheets a lot of I built a database a lot of sort of that sort of stuff I procured certain things for certain people that are now legal. There was not part of the description but it was something that fell upon me.

 

Kaare Andrews

And Justin how were you when your first job what was that what was that experience like?

 

Justin Li

It was good. I mean it is you don’t really learn too much about syncing and dailies paperwork and all that stuff in school. So you know you go there and you lean on another assistant if they’re there or you know they train you in afternoon and it’s kind of trial by fire it’s sink or swim I didn’t delete all the footage my first night — everything got sunk I was ready for everyone in the morning you know it’s like yeah it’s kind of it you just get thrown into the deep end. But yeah thankfully it worked out for me. I was just comfortable enough with technology and computers and stuff that I think I was able to muddle through it.

 

Kaare Andrews

And what about what about the first time. You you’re now working started your your your career working as a lower position. The first time you started you were you editing your own material on the side or how did that. Did you have time even. I mean it’s very busy.

 

Justin Li

Yeah I think for me once I made the jump fully into film you grab anything you can edit I mean you’re not getting paid for it. I think that’s probably what everyone needs to understand is you can’t get a editing job that’s going to pay you right out of the gate. You need to build credibility and also prove yourself to people. So for me while I was assisting assisting was great it paid the bills and it gave me a real a real life like opportunity to learn from masters of the craft and people that I consider like the best editors in town. And then on the side I’d be cutting everything I could shorts, reels… like whatever people will give you and let you mess with. And I think that by far accelerated my learning and my ability to do so.

 

Kaare Andrews

And how did you how did you get those little things. How did you get those shorts and those reels?

 

Justin Li

Word of mouth. There you go. You go network. I think we didn’t have the VPA back then. That’s something that we have here now that you can go to networking events for. It’s talking to people in other departments on shows that you’re working on I think you know at your entry level there’s someone at an entry level in Camera, in ADing, whatever and they all need editors particularly free ones so there’s opportunities there. I think it’s just making it known that you’re interested in those opportunities to anyone that will listen and eventually someone will ask them and they’ll pass your name on.

 

Greg Ng

When I’m on set. It’s. Like it’s like everyone’s always making their own projects. Yeah I guess it’s just finding those people that are making their own projects and to make things with.

 

Kaare Andrews

And Greg, what about you? When you were at Bright Light and were you cutting shorts and things like that Bright Light?

 

Greg Ng

Yes I was. I was cutting things on the side and then I would do all this sort of fast film competitions that were happening. I did a lot of 48 hour competitions a lot of the 24 hour all the hours. Crazy eights. Yeah. And so that was kind of like I met new people and did fun things on the weekend and lost a lot of sleep. Working on short films Yeah.

 

Kaare Andrews

How long did you spend at Bright Light and doing these shorts and stuff on the side. And then when did you leave. Like what what was what happened next.

 

Greg Ng

I think I was there for three or four years. Kind of post P.A. working and then eventually evolving into assistant editor. Learning the ropes from the other assistant editors that were working there.

 

Kaare Andrews

By the time you jumped into assistant editing. Did you understand the job or was it still a very new experience?

 

Greg Ng

It was I think the I mean there’s a huge difference between assisting and editing. Editing is you know the emotion whenever I like putting them together the creative side and assistant editing on a feature scale is you know is a huge sort of organizational nightmare. And still lots of you know tracking viz effects shots and I think I learned a lot about sort of just managing this sort of monstrosity that a movie can be when it’s big on a short film. You know my organization and I think in the beginning like working on Final Cut 7 or whatever it’s all just like everything in one folder and you know it’s happening in 48 hours I don’t need to remember the footage scrub the footage and like where’s the shot. We don’t have it. But on a feature you know I learned a lot about organizing and know how to just like simplify and refine and all that sort of stuff just through assisting. I think taught me a lot about how to break things down into their elements and sort of make things manageable.

 

Kaare Andrews

And Justin when did you start officially assistant editing?

 

Justin Li

I think it started around 2000. I did that first one in 2010 but I was still working broadcast for a while. So I went into it full time in about 2012.

 

Kaare Andrews

How did that happen?

 

Justin Li

It’s just opportunities came up. I was able to roll on to from like a MOW to a limited series to a series kind of back to back to back with overlap.

 

Kaare Andrews

Kind of with the same core people?

 

Justin Li

You know like similar Post Supervisor. You know when I got into that series there were four editors I got to work with three of them two or three of them. One of those editors and I hit it off and he took me to another post supervisors so that my network you know, grows. And you know from there then I got to work on a different series and you need more editors and that’s kind of how it is for assistants. I’d say it’s wonderful to build rapport with the same post supervisor because that’s how you’ll ultimately get opportunities in the end when they trust you and you put your time in with them. But at the same time you can’t put all your eggs in that basket. And I think not being afraid to take chances and work with new people is is something that’s important because when you work with new people your network grows and then there’s that many more opportunities flying at you especially if you’re good.

 

Kaare Andrews

What was that initial learning curve like when you were just into it?

 

Justin Li

It was you know it was intense and was fast paced but it was something I was very passionate about so you know I think on those shows like I would pull all nighters sometimes just because I was given like an action scene and I wanted it and they’re just like oh can you do sound for this and I’m like Okay I’m going to crush sound for this. And I stayed up like the entire night went home to shower came back to work and you know and that’s ultimately the editor that took me onto another show with him. So it’s like you know it was steep. The other thing too is I would say if you’re in opportunity where you get to work on a series or there’s multiple First Assistants or assistant editors in general talk to each other like teach each other stuff because the amount of stuff I’ve learned from them. Like James Lawson’s in this room as an assistant editor. I don’t know how much stuff James taught me. Like most all of my templates and stuff are from James. It’s like so you know talk to each other and don’t don’t be kind of protective of your skills. I think sharing them with other people and other assistants is only gonna make you better you need to. You need to support each other and have each other’s backs. And I think for me like that allowed me to grow as an assistant editor and ultimately as an editor too much more quickly.

 

Kaare Andrews

So some of those first things you can do to really prove yourself was like sound design things like that temp sound.

 

Justin Li

Yeah sound design. I think it’s a sound design temp visual effects like I didn’t really know how to use anything but you know we have YouTube now. You can get a tutorial for like anything whatever is asked of you. Just give it like go for it and then try to figure it out. Like even if even if what you did isn’t great. Ultimately if you try people will appreciate it and they’ll take notice of it and you’ll learn and the next time you get asked to do the same thing you’ll do it that much better.

 

Kaare Andrews

I’ve worked with editors and they’re like oh there was this other assistant on the show and I demanded he was my assistant cuz… he does amazing things with sound or whatever there was you know certain things that people get known for. And Greg, what was the first what were the first areas you could like prove yourself as someone who could do things in a way that was exceptional.

 

Greg Ng

Well similarly I had an action scene. Lots of bullets to ricochets lots of big boom. There was definitely something that I prided myself and was like working with sound like… how can you take a sound that’s there and sort of bend it into something that became like you know as polished as possible for… there’s sort of the attitude that it just has to be good enough to you know sell the idea for it the scene to work. And then there’s the idea that it has to be you know just polish that scene as much as possible so that people don’t have to necessarily rely on their imagination to make it work which translated into temp effects. And other such things. So I learned how to do after effects and whatever smoke 3D stuff and whatever like just to make it pass.

 

Kaare Andrews

Yeah I know for me when I’m when I’m doing my director’s cut and there’s. Great sound design temp sounds in the cut I know it’s going to it’s going to make the sound designers rise up to at least that level. Like it or not you’re trying to beat it. You know yeah it’s super important to have not just placeholders but like good work there.

 

Justin Li

Yeah I think to your point I like doing temp sound may seem frivolous because it’s ultimately all gonna get replaced but it’s a really great way to show your taste level and ultimately becoming an editor is… it’s about your taste like the whole job is based on your opinion and I think if you can showcase that you have that high level of taste or a level of taste that’s in sync with what the director the showrunner the other editor wants. I think that’s a good way to inch your way into being given scenes to assemble because they’re like Okay I trust this person. They clearly know how a show should look sound and feel. So let’s give them more chances.

 

Kaare Andrews

So what what were some of those early chances that you were given in terms of OK here’s what you do run on this. Justin?

 

Justin Li

Yeah. I mean like for me it’s like you know you did sound and then be like oh like this guy can understand music you understand kind of like sound design a little bit like you don’t need to be a master at it but it’s something something you can work at. I mean we all watch TV and movies you should have a rough idea of how things are supposed to look and feel and then yeah you do that for editors and they’re like Hey this is pretty good. I’m getting slammed I have nine hours of dailies today. Can you take the scene off my plate and the answer’s yes. See you do it. And then hopefully that goes well I think and then that will snowball right.

 

Kaare Andrews

Do you remember the first chance to show yourself?

 

Justin Li

I think it was just the dialogue scene. I mean most editors will start you off small. They’re not going to give you something with a ton of coverage because they ultimately need to know that coverage inside and out but they’ll give you a dialogue scene three or four setups and then you just I think it was something like that as you’re just cutting back and forth between two people talking… And and that goes well enough and they give you a bigger scene and the bigger scene and then eventually you’re cutting something like 26 setups. And I think you know and it’s it’s all frozen. He’s just learned a long way.

 

Kaare Andrews

Yeah yeah. Greg what do you remember the first kind of chance you were given really prove yourself in a scene?

 

Greg Ng

You know I can’t exactly when I think back to that time. There was a lot of energy drinks and a lot of late nights in my memory it was kind of foggy of those holes so I don’t… I do remember one particular scene in a movie that I was given a chance to do some cutting on and it involved the Taliban running through fancy gardens chasing after Hitler or something. It was just bananas.

 

Speaker 34

What movie was this?

 

Greg Ng

Uh Postal, I think? Yeah I was assisting for Julian Clarke and it was he was very knowledgeable and it was a fun wacky time.

 

Kaare Andrews

When you say he’s knowledgeable like what what did what did you learn from him or one of your other editors you worked with around that time that stayed with you? You just kind of starting to be given these chances to prove yourself. You’re kind of you’ve kind of learned things technically. What were some of the early points of advice that really helped get you know get you where you’re going.

 

Greg Ng

Well I think we were just talking about sort of you know polishing the scene and refining and refining and I do remember not one thing that comes to mind right now not from Julian but from the movie I worked where they I didn’t like I knew people were using test scores but I didn’t know the certain level to which temp scores were being used where like they were really they were pulling like from one scene there was like pulling from like a dozen different movies and each one of those things were like a tiny little sting to make you know make the movie sound like it was fully scored. And that was the first time I saw a temp score being used so meticulously and I there was a period of time where I just couldn’t wait to work on any short film so I could mess around with the temp score from Indiana Jones or whatever like the biggest movies possible just to give it like a huge sound but to time it to your own movie.

 

Kaare Andrews

And then specifically for like someone like Julian was it was there a thing that sticks out like his approach to something that that inspired you to do try things a new way or….

 

Greg Ng

I will say he was very inspiring but I couldn’t tell you like a nugget of wisdom that he may or may not have told me. I remember I picked him up one morning and we were driving to the office and or maybe we were driving home. It was a foggy time and he was looking out the window and said something like he was like looked over and he’s like I think I must be daydreaming because I just was like looking out the window and be like you know this window needs some matte bars because it’s not the right aspect ratio.

 

Kaare Andrews

And Justin what about you? Were there any early mentors or editors that…

 

Justin Li

Yeah totally. I’ve had lots of editing mentors which is what I’ve been very lucky about. A lot of guys in town that have brought me up taking me under their wing I think building on what I was saying earlier about proving yourself to them and then being given some trust in assembling scenes of stuff. It’s great to assemble and it’s always nice when you click on that bin later and like there’s been very few changes. But ultimately all that assembling is not gonna help you a lot from a learning standpoint unless you have someone that’s willing to discuss it with you. And that’s ultimately up to the editor but if you get a chance to work with someone and they are okay with you assembling I think it’s important to make sure that you ask to see if they can talk through that edit with you after especially after they’ve done changes you know they might ask you why you made certain decisions which is an important skill to learn because once you’re working with someone like Ari and it comes in the room and he shot the special and you don’t use it you have to explain why. So I think breaking down your assemblies with that editor is is where I got most of my wisdom from from these editors. Like they they tell you they basically take the position of the producer or the director and you have to explain to them like they would explain to someone else why certain decisions are made. So I think that’s most of my learning was from editors in that way. Yeah. And I think also just like just building on that. And if you get past that point and you have a really good working relationship with the editor sometimes it’s just being in the room with them it’s like you probably learn more from you’ll probably learn a ton from Julian but you can’t peg a specific thing but being around him and seeing how he conducted himself I’m sure it was helpful for me when I worked with editors that I was close to and I was able to be in the room with them when they’re working with directors and producers and show runners and you can be in there with them as they’re doing their cuts. It’s great to be a fly on the wall. You see how they talk to them. The types of questions they get asked what it’s like to be in that kind of environment. I think if you can work with that editor where you’re in the chair even to a certain degree like it’s it’s a great way to learn. You have someone telling you trims that they want and things like that and then you’re in the hot seat on the controls while someone else is pushing you for what they want. So that’s another thing I would suggest. And even if you have you know if your editor’s too busy or isn’t up for that that’s fine. If you have other assistant editors maybe do that with them as an exercise.

 

Kaare Andrews

So that’s essentially because that’s also the second skill set right. One is just the creative aesthetic taste and two is working in the room with either a director or producer or a showrunner. That’s a different skill. But it has to be wrapped up in the same job.

 

Justin Li

And that’s something that you don’t necessarily learn from an assistant editing standpoint. I mean you have to work in a team and there’s interpersonal skills which are always important. But in terms of how to operate within that dynamic and navigate the politics of being an editor I think you don’t get that unless you can be that fly on the wall.

 

Kaare Andrews

What were some of the early things you learned from that dynamic that let’s say let’s say working with the director. Yeah. What are some of the lessons you learned early and like how that works.

 

Justin Li

However much you may critique the footage in private. Don’t do it in front of the director. Nothing is a problem. It’s just could be better. Like you know those kinds of things. It’s how you speak to someone how you conduct yourself I think. And also just like in how you can gain trust so that they’ll take your opinion seriously and also how to offer that opinion without offending them.

 

Kaare Andrews

Because different directors too, I mean I came up making shorts, learning to edit myself because there was no editor to work with until… maybe like Greg but some directors have no technical ability at all and just rely on you as… for that entirely and somewhere some are very tech savvy and know what you’re doing. Like what is that difference?

 

Justin Li

It’s like the skill sets are important. And I think you need to quickly gauge how it is someone likes to work whether that’s them micromanaging you or not micromanaging but whether it’s right or whether it’s them being like two frames one frame one frame or someone being like I want this faster. Like as a global note. So it’s like everyone works differently. And it’s also learning how to interpret that information and execute it quickly.

 

Greg Ng

Or someone saying two frames two frames they really mean faster. But they’re trying to micromanage….

 

Justin Li

And like you know and you need to figure out how to navigate that rapport that you’re hopefully building from the moment they walk in the room and then make suggestions to them or be like you know like Is this what you wanted. Yeah.

 

Kaare Andrews

And Greg I know we’re just working on a movie now and during shooting what I like to do with editors call them every day. Just like recap what happened the day before. Because to get a clean perspective of like what what actually happened beyond the drama of the set and late nights and you know all that all that stuff things not happening things compromising all that stuff like. How do you how do you like to work best with directors in general on a film.

 

Greg Ng

Well I sort of started by saying. Coming up sort of in the sort of indie world or whatever working on a bazillion shorts or whatever. I was I was not always but I have a strong preference and would continue to work with people that would have good rapport with or trust or like we can have a good banter because like we’re… Justin was saying it’s all about your opinion and you don’t want to have to conceal anything or you know we’re supposed be critical about what’s happening no matter how many great specials there were or how many hours had to go into whatever the crane shot like. We have to look at it and judge it for what it is. And so I you know having to be able to be able to trust the people you’re talking to and that they could trust you if it went so you can if you have that sort of rapport everything becomes easy.

 

Kaare Andrews

It’s like I’m like an honesty in editing right. Yeah like it’s when you have to be honest with what was the what do we have? Yes sometimes you have shit right. You nothing there. And if you’re not honest with each other and you just try to pretend something’s there it’s gonna wreck the whole project. Or maybe you have to adjust. Maybe there’s still three days left to shoot and you can fix it if you’re honest with each other and if you’re not there’s no chance.

 

Greg Ng

Yeah. Everything is wonderful then the movie may not be. Yeah you know you have to be able to be very frank without having any ego on the line when it comes to that. Like if you’re calling me I have to be able to tell you. This was shit. And also you have to be able to tell me what you’re doing is shit if it’s shit and I have to be able to understand that you know it’s you know you get to sort of leave the ego at the door. It’s everyone’s movie and you need to make it the best. It’s not like in the edit room it’s nice to sometimes think look at this great movie I’m making it and I’m going to the big bush here and then we’re going to cut to the thing and then you know it’s not my movie to sort of you know I like the movie to be the best it can be but we have to work together to sort of make it.

 

Kaare Andrews

Let’s just back up a little bit. When did you start. How did you start. Now you’re assistant editing. You’re cutting on projects on the side. What was your first big break in in editing a big project and how did that happen?

 

Greg Ng

My first feature was directed by a woman named Tracy Smith who was working at Bright Light and had her own script that she wanted to shoot. She did a no budget movie and raised her own money did like there was like 50 producers you got a you could buy a producer credit for 500 bucks or something. Everyone was volunteering the whole thing. I’ll say you know it’s not a great movie but I learned a hell of a lot on it about just editing you know multi camera stuff long form being you know thinking sort of about you know what how does is this movie making sense which you know working with the director and kind of like having that relationship or calling them up and being like this looks like a student film at certain points can we please reshoot some stuff.

 

Kaare Andrews

Why did Tracy choose you. How did that work?



Greg Ng

Because I was free. It was a large one. I had cut a short film of hers before too. I think we got along really well which you know goes a long way.

 

Kaare Andrews

So no money at the time. How much time did you give to the project. How long did it take?

 

Greg Ng

I couldn’t tell you. It was all after work. Kind of weekends and after work for months I remember there was one summer where I didn’t have the summer I spent it looking in front of a computer trying to make this movie happen but it did happen and then that obviously led to other movies. You know people saw people that were involved knew that I cut it and then you know we’re good around this guy cutting some movies or cut this movie and they got you know a bunch of other shorts.

 

Kaare Andrews

And how did you meet Tracy to do the first short film?

 

Greg Ng

When she came downstairs where the editors were at Bright Light and she was like looking for a who’s gonna cut this thing for me. I need eight cuts in this short film. And I said Yeah. Like. I can do that.

 

Kaare Andrews

Because you volunteered to do that short. It allowed you to volunteer your whole summer away to do the feature. And do you think that was the key? That was the key that that opened up that….

 

Greg Ng

It was a key I think in the way that I sort of look at it. You know I worked with a lot of filmmakers. I think I cut 50 or something shorts or more out of all those people that I worked with the filmmakers I worked with maybe 10 percent of them went on to do something bigger and then eventually they all came up with projects. You know working on fast films and building relationships with filmmakers you know at the time like when you’re making something on you know mini DV on a weekend and you’re not sleeping it may not seem like much but down the road somebody is gonna call you back and be like Hey!

 

Kaare Andrews

Like when you’re doing a film directors pick their editors. I mean they have to get approvals but if I’ve done a shot with you and had a good experience and we’ve already built up our trust. I know I can trust you with my feature film in a way that maybe I’m working with a very experienced editor. I would be wary that they would use their position to override me or or politicize the process or like take it over or like it’s almost more effective as a director to work with an up and coming editor that you’ve worked with on a smaller project because you know how it’s gonna go and you have the trust already and you want to prove something you know and you wanted to prove something like like you know you have that energy you gather you’ve already built in the two of you can go against the world in a way that if you’ve got a very experienced editor maybe it maybe you won’t feel so empowered or so like you’re fighting on the same team… Justin what was your what was the what was your very first big project and how did that exactly happen.




Justin Li

I think probably like a really big break for me was a TV series called Dirk Gently and that was something I started off on as an assistant and I was it was a producer I’ve worked with many times, editors that I was familiar with so it’s again people I’ve had relationship with for a long time. Ultimately they needed someone to fill in because you know an episode needed attention. I think the pilot was taking quite a while and then in the rotation they needed someone to fill that next slot and assemble and they’d been around me long enough that they thought I could handle it and they asked me to do so so I assembled while doing all of my regular duties as a first assistant I didn’t let any of that stuff slide because I was assembling I think the assembly for me was a bonus. So I would stay late and work on those kinds of things. And then you know after the first season that episode went well and they were kind enough to give me a credit on it even though the editor took over down the line. I took it through director’s notes and the first producers pass. So I got to take it pretty far. I think there was one more producer pass….

 

Kaare Andrews

So it was the first time sitting with the director in the room?

 

Justin Li

Yeah that director in that situation he was in L.A. so it was remote notes which also made it easier because I could talk things over with the editor if there’s things I was uncertain about. But yeah I mean that that was kind of a big break and I think it ultimately led to them giving me my own show the following year because I asked for one I think I felt like I earned it and things went well and I think when you feel that opportunity is there it’s OK to ask for it if you ask for it too soon you may not like the answer and it could make your relationships a little weird but so you’ve got a time that.

 

Kaare Andrews

Well I’ve been on series where an assistant editor was given an episode. And it’s it’s like it’s a it’s a celebratory thing in the production like people want to do it and when they do it everyone’s so excited that it’s happened like it. I don’t know if it happens a lot but I know I’ve seen it firsthand where people were so excited to give this person a shot at their own episode and was like everyone really supported that process — was it like that for you?

 

Justin Li

Totally I mean my whole team and the other assistants like banded together to help me find time to do these things like you know on the second season when I got my own episode I was still a first I said I would come back as a first if I could and they made that happen.

 

Kaare Andrews

So then you put that out there. I’ll come back if I I could have one episode. Yeah. Do you think would’ve happened if you didn’t ask that demand you think that demand actually was the thing that made it happen?

 

Justin Li

It wasn’t so much a demand it was a request. I would say to speak to that I felt comfortable enough doing that because I was really tight with my team particularly my editor which is something advice that I’ve gotten from a lot of editors I’ve worked with and why they said they would give me a chance in the first place because I had their backs it’s like if you’re a great assistant and you take care of your editor when the producers and directors ultimately are deciding whether or not you can have an episode they’re going to ask your editor is this guy ready. Is this girl ready. Is this someone can they handle it. Like are they good enough and you need to have that support and you need to prove yourself as an assistant so that editors will give you that time of day. And also when push comes to shove and someone comes asking them about you they’ll say you’re ready.

 

Kaare Andrews

I’m not that quite a lot especially in TV this you know and every level of production it can be like a grab for power in so many different areas all at once. Like I think if you if you can have someone back. That means so much especially in the TV landscape. I think that’s such a necessary quality to then return the favor later on.

 

Justin Li

Yeah. And I think it’s like they want to support you and they want to see you succeed. I mean there’s always the risk that someone like if you’re too good an assistant someone doesn’t want to lose you as an assistant. But you know I think if you have a good relationship with the editor they’ll look out for you. So I mean and that’s the biggest thing I think for some assistants that maybe struggle to make that jump to the next step is they’re in too much of a hurry. Like to them assisting at least in my situation like assisting is isn’t something that interests them and that’s fair. I think that’s why I admire Greg’s path so much because I think you just want straight to the source. Like you went and found directors and filmmakers that you could just work with and cut for immediately. I think for me I didn’t feel as ready to cut right away. So I chose assisting as an opportunity to continue to work and also work on projects I knew ultimately I would want to cut one day but to hone my craft and learn from these people and like and kind of like slowly do it that way. I mean I assisted for five six years I think maybe more before I really got….

 

Kaare Andrews

It really is the opposite path because….

 

Justin Li

I think that’s what’s so interesting and I was like I totally admire Greg like he… I don’t think I had it in me to go out and knock on doors and just like do all those things cuz I didn’t feel like I was ready to handle it.

 

Kaare Andrews

But also for series. Directors don’t hire editors. The director is assigned to the editor. Right, it’s like a different a whole different paradigm from getting those jobs.

 

Justin Li

Yeah. I mean and that’s true. Like for me like I really I mean I want to do like more features and stuff as well. But TV for me is fun and I think because there’s the opportunities for multiple seasons. And like you know repeat business on like the same crews and teams and stuff is a lot easier for me to build that credit. I guess so. And it’s a and it’s like a fun safe environment with like a lot of like team I think with features sometimes it’s like an assistant and editor and then maybe like the director in a room right. Like whereas on a show you might have like three other assistants and then like three or four editors to learn from. So for me it was a really big pool of like people’s brains to pick from and stuff and to learn lots of different skills. I think even now cutting I borrow little tricks and stuff from all the various editors I have assisted over the years.

 

Kaare Andrews

And Greg have you I don’t even notice if you’ve done TV?

 

Greg Ng

I did two documentary series. But yeah but not a dramatic drama.

 

Kaare Andrews

And Justin have you done features at this point?

 

Justin Li

I have done some. Yeah. I for a while especially and this is goes back to me saying try to assist on what you ultimately want to cut on. For me I always want to keep a toe in that pool. So when I was assisting I would purposely try to assist on a feature and a series every year at least one of each if not more if I could fit it in schedule — wise. I think it gave you an exposure to different styles different workflows different people and networks. So that’s a good way to diversify too. I mean I never ultimately got into reality or docs but I really like scripted both features and series yeah.

 

Kaare Andrews

Now they say this is what they say that you don’t learn from success. Cuz there’s no lessons. You only learn from failure. That’s where you learn everything and the more you can fail and more quickly can fail the more you learn. So what I want to know if what I want to know is now that we’re all so humble as you stated very early on what was was big failure a big fail you really learn from somewhere along somewhere along the way? You don’t have to name names but like what was a situation that really like I learned a big lesson today.

 

Justin Li

The only one I can kind of think of. I don’t know if this totally ties in but it was really early on in my career as an assistant and I just felt like I was getting kind of a raw deal from the show like working like really ridiculous hours like no OT. Like just not being treated well. And then ultimately I spoke up but not in a nice way. I think I kind of snapped. And at that time I actually was making demands and it did not go well.

 

Kaare Andrews

Right you let it build up a little bit too much.

 

Justin Li

Yeah. And I think for me like as my lesson there as an assistant and I still carry it in everything I do professionally is like you’re not owed anything. So you could be an amazing assistant amazing editor no one owes you anything. It’s like like if if you build those relationships and you still have to be good but if you build those relationships and you put in the work maybe someone will take a chance on you and that’s all you can kind of do it’s like plants a lot of seeds. But yeah ultimately no one owes you anything and I think that’s an important thing to remember because sometimes people are in such a rush to get in the big chair or to get to that finish line that they forget they got to put the work in first then and have people actually give them a chance. I think it’s you try to surround yourself with people that you want to ultimately kind of emulate. For me it was like and that I was very specific about what editors I liked assisting and what types of shows I like to be on. For me it was is about kind of like forging that path and making sure that I had like a lot of good influences around me.




Greg Ng

You know as a failure in the short term but I think like there’s been a couple projects maybe more than a couple. I won’t put a number on it that I had the incredibly tough decision to leave for perhaps a another project or… because like it wasn’t jiving or I thought the movie was gonna be something and then it was turning out to be something else. And you know that sort of trust wasn’t there. And so you know I chose to walk off certain projects you know which is tough because you know there’s something… you always want to see it through. You always want to finish it you don’t wanna be a quitter or like you leave a project that’s a big sort of deal to sort of leave something behind. And I don’t think anyone really likes to have some unfinished business or you know to walk away before it’s done. But it wasn’t because anyone was you know yelling at me or… there was nothing there was no hard feelings. It was just sort of the project was not for me. I was not a good match. And you know I’d had to leave which taught me you know when you when you’re picking your projects it’s like you’re asking someone out. It’s like you’re getting married to the project. You know you know we’re gonna be spending a lot of time and it’s a commitment that you feel you need to make and it’s it’s hard when you have to sort of when you know it’s not working though it’s really in the best interest of all parties to sort of quit before it gets too late or you know those tensions build up.

 

Kaare Andrews

So here’s a good question. So Justin have you ever walked away from a job? Have you ever been in a position where you needed to?

 

Justin Li

I have not walked away from a job but I have left probably a little sooner than I had originally planned. This is much more recent and it’s one of the people that I kind of left in a bind is in the room which is why I am laughing as I say this but I had an opportunity to go do something. If the schedule according to plan it would have been a decent time to leave. I mean ultimately is another one of those things like I built enough trust in my team that they had my back. They let me go and they kind of covered for me and they made it work because they are all really awesome people that I was working with and they saw that I had opportunity.

 

Kaare Andrews

So you found a way to do gracefully.

 

Justin Li

Yeah I would say if you’re ever presented with that kind of situation definitely be honest. It’s a small city. Vancouver especially people are going to find out if you’re lying. I think everyone wants to see each other succeed especially if you’ve worked together a bunch of times. I think they’ll understand if you have an opportunity to do something… to kind of like better your career. I mean everyone gets that. No one’s going to fault you for it and there’s proper ways to do it. And I think like you know I mean I’ve probably actually done this a few times which is really unfortunate but there’s another time I was assisting on a show and then I got offered to cut a movie but I wasn’t done assisting that show for quite a while. So I tried to give them as much notice as I could. We tried to get another assistant in to fill in for me. No one was available so I asked them if they’d be cool with me cutting there at night or during the day if things are slow and I said I would hang out as long as it took for them to get another assistant. They were OK with it. The movie was okay with me taking the footage there and then I ended up doing that for like months and they never found another assistant and I finished the show as I finished the show anyways and then I went and I finished the movie. So it’s like you know like for me ultimately I didn’t want to burn any bridges. And when push came to shove I kind of took it on my back instead and I’m like fine I’ll be the one that loses sleep but I’m not going to let any of these shows that I make commitments to suffer.

 

Kaare Andrews

Yeah I mean it sounds like both both of you have taken these opportunties in a way that you know you just you you’re. You’re making them happen by putting the extra effort in.

 

Justin Li

Yeah I mean it’s like and like I said it’s a small city like your reputation means a lot. I think people will give you more opportunities. And I think if someone knows you have integrity and that you’ll never put their show in a bad position no matter what happens then they’re willing to kind of give you chances.

 

Kaare Andrews

Yeah speaking of the politics of it. So I know both when I direct TV or films there’s always people that want to watch those director’s cuts before they’re allowed to. I always get these calls from my editors being like: “can I let them I don’t I don’t want to.” And sometimes I have to be “No” and sometimes if its a showrunner I really know, I’m like “yeah, I don’t care, show them.” Depends on the situation but have you been in that bind?

 

Justin Li

Yeah I’ve been in a bind as both an assistant and as an editor you know it’s a it’s a tricky situation. There’s a chain of command in film I think anyone who’s assisting knows you’re an assistant you have your editor’s back above everyone else. You’re an editor you have your director’s back until like the DGC is out of the way and then like they they’re not allowed to do anything anymore. But like you I think just do everything by the book be upfront with everyone. I think again with as with anything else it depends on the situation. But there’s a right way to go about it. I’ve had it before where I was like had a director’s cut in my room that I was doing sound on or something and I went to bathroom and came back and the showrunner’s in there and he knows to hit spacebar on the avid. And then I walk in there and he’s watching the cut. I’m like “Get out.” Well I mean sometimes you can’t help it but you do your best to be upfront with everyone I think. Same thing with editors or anything. If producers of something are doing something shady I think they’re they ultimately have the experience and the know how to navigate those waters so lean on them for advice on what you should be doing.

 

Kaare Andrews

Greg you were born… I guess with film it’s probably less so.

 

Greg Ng

Most of the projects I’ve worked on have always been very director driven and all that sort of thing. But I do remember when I was the Post’s P.A. walking down the hallway with a FedEx ready to go of a cut of a certain movie and this like happily waltzing down the hallway and passing by the editor was like “oh how’s it goin?” I’m like oh I’m just fed-exing the movie to blah blah. And he’s like “What?” And he was unaware the director was unaware and then there was the little storm but I’d learned at that point that everything needs to be copacetic. I was just the messenger.

 

Kaare Andrews

How have you dealt with a difficult personality. Producer… director… No names but like… Like you know it’s a stressful situation. Even the nicest people can be can lose their minds in the pressure cooker of it all.

 

Greg Ng

I generally avoid situations and personalities that I think lead into that but ultimately. Things happen. I think I’m generally a quiet person. I feel like in a situation where people are getting big I think it’s always best to just you know Yoda your way through it and just remain calm. You know I can’t think of a specific example I’m willing to share.

 

Kaare Andrews

You ever had that big personality lose their mind in the room?

 

Justin Li

Yeah I mean it’s film we’re all weirdos. It’s like you can run into like all kinds of personalities and I think at every level you just need to learn how to deal with that. I mean for me in the room I’ve worked with some pretty crazy producers but I keep it about the work. I think if if it’s something that doesn’t jive with you from your personal standpoint like you can’t connect with them on a human level which happens sometimes keep it about the work, stay focused and like you know I think they’ll respect that kind of professionalism side of you. If you really want them out of there, just do everything they ask for as quickly as possible and like especially if there’s timing further down the chain to fix it. But I think yeah it should be professional.

 

Kaare Andrews

Yeah well I will say maybe not some who’s lost their mind in the room but someone who’s been under the pressure in that room it is nice to have a stabilizing person someone who is not trying to get into the conflict by your side to help ease you off a little bit.

 

Justin Li

Mean it goes back to that whole thing about being a fly on the wall in the room when you can as an assistant because I think you see how people manage those difficult personalities. And I think as an editor your one of your greatest assets to the show you’re working on is that you’re impartial you don’t know what’s going on on set you don’t know how long it took to get that shot like ultimately the story’s the only thing that matters to you and the cuts only thing that matters to you so you can put that out of it.

 

Kaare Andrews

And when you’re editing how important is it to think maybe there is a difference between film and TV I don’t know how important is it to follow the written page and how important is it to find the story that’s underneath the words.

 

Justin Li

Oh I mean yeah I think all storytelling is the same film, tv, docs it’s like you’re finding what that thing you’re working on is about and what kind of emotions and feelings you’re trying to evoke from that. I think the story is a story it doesn’t really matter the format. Dealing with difficult personalities… I think from our standpoint is another thing that’s interesting about it is as an editor you’re kind of a therapist in life too a lot of times like you are organized you’re literally organizing the chaos into a timeline a sequential linear timeline. The madness that happened and also just the person that you’re locked in a room with. I mean you’re you’re gonna spend 12 hours a day in a room with a director a producer it’s like you know for some directors when they see the rough cut sometimes it’s like the worst day of their lives because they think they just they just wasted like hundreds of thousands of dollars. And like all of their time. So you need to talk them off the ledge and learn how to do that. Yeah like you need to be like everything’s going to be OK.

 

Kaare Andrews

A lot of therapy on your end Greg?

 

Greg Ng

Yeah for sure. Lots of listening to people talk about their stories on set and so forth as you know. But I will also add to that that there is I mean I’ve worked on I think I don’t know how the difference is guess future worlds and doc I think especially in the docs that I’ve worked on I myself go bananas and I need someone to talk to. And you know there’s the sort of writer’s block and the editors block that still happens because maybe there’s some words on the page that don’t necessarily translate to the thing and you’re just like Oh my God what am I doing with my life. You know I go through that pretty regularly I think and I think it’s a healthy sign. So but you know not during those times I think it’s terrible but in retrospect. I was thinking about this, I don’t know if this is related at all. But I feel like you know when you’re assisting everything is kind of technical and organizing. I mean there’s still organizing in editing but I think a big part of it is a sort of emotional side of things which I feel like weirdly like somehow deep down inside you know underneath this incredibly emotionless stoic person is like a really emotional crybaby. And I somehow can manipulate myself into feeling these things when I’m watching the movie and like I don’t know… like I know it’s sort of working when I can tap into that emotion. But at the same time maybe that makes me susceptible to you know contemplating my existence and you know….

 

Kaare Andrews

That sounds exactly like Justin you were saying earlier when you first started editing that magic of finding the empathy and manipulating the emotions shot to shot. Like that is the job. So if you could give three things people like things in threes three things that if they could take away three things tonight: Transitioning from Assistant Editor to Editing.

 

Justin Li

Actually a lot of the advice I’m giving you guys tonight is from Mike Bennis who’s an editor that I assisted for for a long time and gave me a lot of opportunities. So Mike if you’re listening to this podcast thanks. I think it’s kind of like actually when Greg and I met we met the other day briefly just to see what we’d gotten ourselves and two for this. And one of the things we said and this is probably number one for both of us is do it like just cut everything you possibly can get your hands on. I think it’s like I laugh at all those YouTube videos where people repurpose trailers to different genres and stuff but it’s actually probably a good exercise. It’s fantastic. But yeah I think like cut everything you can. Someone asks you for a reel on a show do it. Someone asks you for like like a gag really which I loathe but it’s good experience do it because you’ll end up getting notes from producers and stuff that you have to work on. So I’d say one is just to go out and cut everything you can. Except for unpaid wedding videos. You’re going to get asked a lot. Those are the ones that aren’t worth.

 

Kaare Andrews

It goes back to choose your projects wisely.

 

Justin Li

I think to build on that one which is kind of too I think if you’re working on a show and you have the opportunity to assemble, I think start small and work your way up. Start with scenes, take those scenes build them into acts, take those acts build them in two full episodes or movies. I think that’s the other thing with a lot of assistants. They think that they do a scene assembly they’re ready. There’s a lot more to it than that. I think you need to know how to put an entire show together. So build yourself up to that level and get lots of feedback from people that have been doing the job for longer than you and get regular work like ask them for advice. Lean on those more knowledgeable than you, don’t think that you know everything because you don’t. I mean I’m learning every day still. Every time I work with new editors especially if they’re open to it. I like seeing if they’re open to watching my cuts or having me watch theirs….

 

Kaare Andrews

You share a lot of cuts with the team?

 

Justin Li

I do when I can. Yeah I think it depends who you work with some editors don’t like it and that’s fine. I think it’s kind of a personal thing. Like with any other artists you don’t want to show your work when it’s not ready and it’s something that’s kind of personal to you. But for me like I I work with some editors a lot that I know are open to that and we will usually watch each other’s cuts like before editor’s cuts go out and give each other notes and feedback and it’s like totally open and honest. And I think it only makes you better. And I think you do that with other assistants like cut multiple versions like work with other assistants and talk about why you like different versions better like all of that is a learning opportunity. I think don’t think of assisting as like this roadblock that is in your way to cutting and then be so excited to get away from it. I mean some people just don’t like the work and that’s fine. I got to that point too and that’s what pushed me to fight for more opportunities. But I think while you’re cutting there’s a lot you can learn and that’s something that you just need to remember.

 

Greg Ng

I’ll just add I mean just add three things. Well you stole some of my answers but I… You get to go out, meet filmmakers and work on films like you can’t cut movies if they’re not happening. You know if those opportunities and those people aren’t making them you know we lost a lot of sleep working on 48 hour movies and fast films and whatever and working after work you know all those relationships having paid off a lot and were super fun to work on. So you know it gives you a lot of chances to like you know I guess the beauty about working on shorts is that they’re always changing, they’re always different, you could work on a western, you could work on scifi, could do a drama and then just sort of little snippets of you know greater genres or whatever so it gives you a lot of room for experimentation just whatever and just you know I think coming together for something like this is super cool because editors, people in post don’t necessarily you know mingle a lot together but it’s nice when there’s community and you know people that are in sets are sort of they’re fighting the battle staying up late whatever eating and their crafty all together and in editing everyone is kind of like in your own room or whatever so it’s nice — come out of your room and talk to other editors you know share your cuts if you can. That’s definitely I think my first go to is showing other editors the stuff that I have worked out because I have a rapport with them we can talk editing and then you know it doesn’t get I think getting notes from other editors they understand where you’re at like they don’t know like they know it’s a before the rough cut or you can watch a scene with no audio and still kind of get a sense of things because you know what it’s all about.

 

Justin Li

Actually one really important piece of advice I forgot which is something that when I was talking to other editors about coming to this event they all told me to say so I almost forgot: train your replacements. As an assistant if you want to move up, train more assistants. And it’s that same thing where you need to it’s a collaborative art form like you need to be open with everyone and you know it’s a lot easier to get an opportunity and get bumped up to assist if they know there’s another assistant waiting in the wings that can take your spot. I think if there’s like a gap behind you then you know someone might not want to lose you as an assistant editor especially if you’re good so I think you need to take it upon yourselves to train more train more people and make sure that there’s like there’s people there to fill those holes. And you know and selfishly down the road you’re gonna need an assistant too.

 

Kaare Andrews

That’s a good note to end on. And so let’s open up the floor to some questions.

 

Audience Question

I’m just wondering if you guys are still assisting or are you just taking editing jobs?

 

Greg Ng

I’m just editing.

 

Justin Li

I am not anymore. No but I mean now I thankfully am fortunate enough to get steady work as an editor that I haven’t been compelled to assist. But that being said when I first got into cutting I was asked by a lot of people like “is this your last assistant gig” “is this your last assistant gig” and I’d be like No I’m totally open to assisting. I think you get to the stage where you assist on things that you might have an opportunity to cut on but I’d never close that door. And I think you know some people need that push to drive them into taking chances to cut more. But for me I just like I said I don’t I didn’t see assisting as a roadblock. It was still a good chance for me to build relationships and learn to cut. So I bounced back and forth between the two for a while until I got steady enough work and I edited.

 

Kaare Andrews

So it is possible though like you were saying you were given your first opportunities while you’re still assisting. Are you able to balance that that for a while. Both assistant editing and then also be given your first couple episodes. How long did you juggle both?

 

Justin Li

I probably bounced back and forth for like a couple of years. I mean it’s people gonna have to want to give you things to edit. Also I think you know you when I’m saying go and cut everything you gotta know that 90 percent of the everything you’re going to go cut is not paying you any money or… like assisting is a great way to learn and pay your bills and then you cut and you grow your career on side.

 

Kaare Andrews

And Greg we’re used still assisting while you were still when you first started to cut bigger things are was there like a hard….

 

Greg Ng

I had a hard out when I went to the Film Centre. I made a commitment to myself that I was like from now on I’m going to only edit because I figured that would be the best way to evolve and learn. And if I was to sort of dabble then I wouldn’t exactly make that a clear line to everyone else.




Kaare Andrews

So I mean the Film Centre is pretty cool. Can you briefly just tell them what it was like in the editing program.

 

Greg Ng

Yeah it’s like going to a 48 hour film festival for five months and making films all the time full time. Like it was nothing but short films all the time and all kinds of experiments and… one of the coolest things that they did and I think they’d still do it was they tried to find a movie that none of the editors have seen and they gave everybody all the footage, the script, all the whatever and each editor cut a version of the movie that they thought and at the end we watched four different versions of the same movie that were completely different.

 

Kaare Andrews

They give you all the footage all the entire movie just go just do it.

 

Greg Ng

Yeah. Make the best thing you can. Good luck. On the side while we do all these other short films. So they do a lot of very cool things like that but sort of give you a pretty crazy idea of how influential every step of the way is they would also give one writer’s script to all the directors and then each director would direct the same actors and however they saw fit and then yeah all kinds of super cool things.

 

Kaare Andrews

And when you’ve done that hard out if you didn’t hadn’t gone to the Film Centre or you still would have done it.

 

Greg Ng

I don’t know it would have been harder because they wouldn’t have had this reason I guess but it definitely was not an easy transition. I mean I had worked on assisting and I’d saved up you know to be able to afford to go to the Film Centre. I think there was some scholarships from the Arts Council and you know when I came back it was hard to… I couldn’t find work right away. I worked on this doc and yeah it was you know slow… the phone didn’t ring for a long time but I found people that were making movies and I had enough time and I guess savings to kind of afford to do it.

 

Kaare Andrews

Yeah and at that point a lot of the filmmakers you had worked with earlier were starting to get to do projects.

 

Greg Ng

Sure yeah like it worked out well that you know a lot of people that I met working on shorts some 48 hours were making movies that had hundreds of hours or at least a hundred.

 

Justin Li

Yeah I think to your point though about establishing that clear line with people about what position you’re doing that is something that is a struggle I think for a lot of people when you first start out and you’re wanting to transition from assisting to editing. For me it was I would still get calls for assisting jobs all the time while I was cutting and I feel like and it was a good opportunity but “Oh like I’m already working thanks like I’m actually cutting this thing now” and it’s finding ways to let your old contacts know that you’re you’re doing this now and you’re able to do this and like look I don’t know about for you how hot was reaching out to all your old contacts and establishing to them that you’re also editing now or you’re only editing now like that. That’s a hurdle that you’ll have to go through when you’re leaving assisting.

 

Kaare Andrews

People know you one way and you need to announce to them that you’re…

 

Justin Li

Yeah. And in a lot of ways I mean that’s the frustrating thing is you have to start from scratch almost again. It’s like yes all these people know you but they know you as an assistant. Like they don’t know that you can actually hold your own in an edit suite.

 

Kaare Andrews

Where there some dry spells in that transition?

 

Justin Li

There were. Yeah for sure. I mean there were like chunks of time where I wasn’t working in particular like there was an editing opportunity that I had locked in coming up but it pushed. And you know assistant gigs are long especially if you’re on a series there are usually like five to six months. Right. So for me like I had to keep turning down work because I was holding out to do that to cut that show down the road. But it was like three four months away.

 

Kaare Andrews

And it worked out?

 

Justin Li

Yeah it totally worked out. I mean that show actually led to another show and then led to another show actually that’s that gap is the last time I assisted. So it totally can work out. But you know in that time while I’m getting work, I was like “Oh no I can’t take it I’m going to cut this thing.”

 

Kaare Andrews

What were you doing in that dry spell? Were you just waiting or were you…

 

Justin Li

I was doing a lot of chores. I was cleaning my house, cooking dinner all that kind of stuff. But yeah I mean I would reach out to people… but actually no that’s not true. I cut an indie in that time. It was something that I told them I’m like I have this pocket of time I’d managed to hear about this indie which was fortunate.

 

Kaare Andrews

Like a non paying job?

 

Justin Li

It paid like a flat and I cut it in my second bedroom. But you know it’s like you fill those times. But yeah but I think that’s that that’s the big hurdle. I think everyone should be aware of and it’s something you need to navigate. I’ve heard of people just cold calling or emailing every producer in town that they know, being like “I’m an editor now!” And like well not to them you’re not. Like you still need to kind of prove that and I think it’s it’s good to for them to know that it’s something you’re interested and you’re capable of doing. And you know actually truthfully that might work out. They might give you a chance but it’s something you need to kind of figure out based on your connections with people.

 

Kaare Andrews

I think at different times again I think right now right is pretty busy. There’s like most of the others are working.

 

Greg Ng

Yeah and assistants it’s so hard to find….

 

Kaare Andrews

But it’s a good time. It’s a good time to look for those opportunities if you if you have a reel you can show. If you’re if you’re ready if you’re on that edge.

 

Justin Li

Yeah. I mean reals are an interesting thing too if you’re an assistant and say you’re only assisting you’re not cutting shorts and stuff on the side what are you gonna show someone when they ask you for a reel you know like here’s my temp visual effects that I did… amazing sound here… So that’s and that goes to cutting shorts and other things on the side that you can show. I mean for me actually I still don’t have a reel that’s like a whole other subject because I think reels are silly doesn’t show that you can cut a story at all. It shows that you can push buttons and pace things to music. But it doesn’t really show you edit.

 

Greg Ng

So I was just going to reiterate the exact same thing. You can’t gauge an editor by a demo reel. You can gauge the demo reel by the demo reel.

 

Justin Li

But to refocus it that is something people ask for. So I think making sure that you’ve done enough work on different things that you have something to show when someone wants to see your work that’s important because just being like “reels are dumb I don’t have one” that’s not going to work either. So you still need to like make sure you’re creating content.

 

Audience Question

Another question. It’s kind of like building off of what you talked about focusing on editing and just editing and when you guys decided in your life that you really want to be an editor. Was there still a point in time where you had to make detours like what you said when you had dry spells when you decided to make detours and said Oh I think I’m not good enough and these other aspects of filmmaking because I guess we all started out as filmmakers. And did you ever make those detours as like directors or writers or producers and do you encourage that sort of thing? Because I mean am I my circle. We kind of fall into that as well because some of us were like I want to be a director but they’re like Oh I think I’ll produce a little bit or AD a little bit. Do you think that’ll help or…

 

Justin Li

I can’t see how being multifaceted could be a detriment. I think if you understand every level of the process that’s only going to make you better at anything you do. I think if you understand the limitations of production and what they have to deal with on set that will make you more sympathetic in the room and understand how to navigate the footage. Think if you understand how things are finished afterwards and online or sound or whatever that will also make you a better editor because you’ll know how to plan for those shortcomings or perhaps you’ll you know they’ll save your ass later on. As far as thinking you’re not good enough. That’s something I think all artists would deal with. I still think I may get fired on every show I’m on.

 

Greg Ng

Yeah me too man.

 

Justin Li

I think you need that insecurity and that drive to to make you better. I think if you walk in and you think that you’re always right you’re gonna have a hard time editing because it’s collaborative. And if you’re not and if you’re not willing to listen to other people’s opinions you’re going to have a really bad time and every every time someone makes you do a note because they will make you do a note you’re going to be miserable.

 

Greg Ng

Yeah. I agree. Like I don’t think you know just because you professionally might be editing doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be doing other things you know to compliment your work or your your creative output. So for sure. Like the more you can do the better. But that being said I do remember that it was when I was in film school this writer came and gave a talk and I often think about what he said where he was like the only thing I know how to do is write and I made it that way so that I would have to write in order to you know feed myself. So he only would write and would take no other work and just like just write and write and write because that was what you did until he was going to do that until someone started paying him. And so you know there’s some value in that too. But balance everything out though.

 

Audience Question

This is more of a freelance editing 101 question. I’m just wondering mostly in indie projects and when you are starting to take on indie projects, how did you navigate like setting your rates and you know getting proper value for the labor and if you had the choice would you suggest to go on like a daily rate, weekly rate, or… You know a flat? From my experience mainly what is offere?

 

Greg Ng

That’s a complicated question with many answers I’m sure. Certain you know jobs if you know the project is super cool you could you know take a look you know do it so that you get the job take maybe a cut or you know a lower rate so that you can have that under your belt. I think ultimately you’ve got to think long term and so in the moment maybe it’s not a good rate but if it’s gonna be a cool project with super cool people that are going to be making movies later down the road it might be worthwhile to do that even then even still I mean today like I work on projects that aren’t massive but you know full of heart and may not have a lot of money but there’s what’s the what’s the word not sweat equity but something along those lines where you know you’re working with a bunch of passionate people that are gonna make something super cool so it’s worthwhile doing it for less than maybe what you’re used to.

 

Justin Li

And I think ultimately that’s a decision you have to make based on the project but from a practical standpoint if you’re looking for just kind of like a 101 on negotiating I think it’s you need to understand what you’re willing to take and take on before you go to the table. I think you have to establish those kinds of boundaries: how long you’re going to work especially if it’s flat, how many revisions, all those kinds of things. I think just to protect yourself. I mean I’ve gotten burned lots of times so I think now I just try to like and it’s super uncomfortable because you’re trying to build relationships but at the same time you have to be blunt and kind of protect yourself. But I think you need to… everyone understands being upfront. I mean that’s kind of the nice thing about emailing and a lot of ways. It’s there’s no tone to it. You can say whatever. Just put a little smiley face haha. But but I think to protect yourself just be upfront with all that. And yeah. And to Greg’s point like you need to gauge what that project is also worth. You like the intangibles of it beyond just the money. If it could lead to something more. If it’s something you’re interested in. If it’s just money. Ask for a lot. Then if they say no, then you don’t have to do it. And if they say yes, you get a lot of money.

 

Kaare Andrews

So that is a very complicated question. That’s a whole nother talk I think…

 

Audience Question

I was at EditFest in August and there was a panel that was talking about reality versus scripted. One thing that they’re going on about which I think really applied to Vancouver, I just wanted your opinion on it was kind of the reality editors find that there’s the stigma against them when they come into scripted and vice versa. And they’re expressing on the panel that when they came from reality to scripted that they’re going to have a bit of an advantage because they’re able to use a lot of the skills that they learned in reality in their scripted work.

 

Justin Li

I think no matter what kind of branch you’re working in in film industry there’s stigma. I think for me trying to jump into features is hard because I have a lot of TV credits. Maybe for someone working in reality it’s hard to jump into scripted. It’s like there’s all those kinds of avenues. I think that kind of goes back to what I was saying about working on the stuff you ultimately want to be cutting even as an assistant because if you’re an assistant in reality it will ultimately lead to editing opportunities in reality and then you’re cutting reality. So that’s something to think about and plan ahead of time. And it’s really unfortunate because for me I think reality editors have it harder than… reality assistants have it harder than assistants on scripted which I’m sure a lot of you can speak to like it’s just way more stuff to deal with.

 

Audience Question

I think there’s a little bit of a stigma this said it’s kind of in Vancouver but it doesn’t really exist to much outside of Vancouver it seems.

 

Greg Ng

I do feel that I mean I haven’t worked in reality I’ve worked in some doc things but there’s for sure snobbery that exists no matter where you go you know what… whatever industry and so but… yeah I do agree that people that are assistants and editors that are working the reality where everybody’s working super hard. It’s just you know the end product may not have a movie star in it or may not have visual effects but it’s still you know the work still good.

 

Justin Li

So yeah and I’m not saying to like quit your job assisting on a reality show because you don’t want ultimately cut reality. I think there’s value in all of that and in working like you’re going to learn something from every show. But you know it’s important to have range and that way you know if someone if someone’s asking you for your credits. Down the road even if you’ve done like reality scripted reality scripted you can give them. If that job is for a scripted show you can give them a CV with just your scripted stuff right. Or if it’s reality show I can give them a CV with just your reality. So I think it’s important to like just have your toe in a lot of different pools so that you can… is that even an analogy? Have your hands and a lot of jars of whatever… just put put things in a lot of other things.

 

Kaare Andrews

I can answer that question as the director. Because my very first feature, that Greg declined to edit, we ultimately used an editor who was a reality editor and this was a scripted thriller and he was editing that cupcake show back in the day. How we ended up being okay with that because it was a you know it wasn’t just me it was like producers in L.A. and Australia and Canada was that he came recommended by Julian Clarke. So it was a process of he had a recommendation of someone who was very esteemed in the genre and we just took a chance we liked him we just took a chance but his credit was the cupcake thing and we had to have this talk. Like explain to these producers that in Vancouver, it’s a smaller industry and there’s the great editors that will work across the spectrum of TV, reality, scripted and features. That’s just the way it is. But it was his relationship with other people that could vouch for him that really helped us get over the hurdle of being able to hire him. But I’ve had the same conversation with films like “oh he’s a TV guy” or TV “Oh he’s a film guy” like there’s always that. But I think from my point of view when I when I can hire editors on films it’s like if I can see stuff. Like shorts or other indie features no matter what they’re working on at the moment if I can see an example of how they can translate those skills into something along the way. That’s what I need to see. Like I would I probably wouldn’t just hire someone with only reality show experience to do a drama film unless I could see an example of the drama work even it was a short it was it’s awesome short. That’s great. Like I would you know that’s enough so we’d be looking for those opportunities to showcase the other side of what you could do.

 

Audience Question

Health in Post? Like it’s a sedentary and very stressful aspect of the industry…

 

Justin Li

What’s our advice for staying alive? I’m by nature I’m a very sedentary person. I’m well trained in sitting for long periods of time. So it’s been an easy transition for me. That being said I have had back issues and I know a lot of people that work in post have back issues. So you get us saying let’s go to physio. If you’re in the union, use your benefits. Drink a lot of water so you have to get up and walk to the bathroom.

 

Kaare Andrews

Have you start experiencing eye strain?

 

Justin Li

Eye strain? I’ve not yet I’m shocked that I don’t have glasses yet because everyone in my family has glasses.

 

Kaare Andrews

I start using those blue blocking glasses.

 

Justin Li

I did but that made my eyes blurry because the glasses weren’t very good. So I mean so far I’m OK I turn the blue light filter on your phone then I guess so. Give yourself downtime when you’re not working but yeah….



Greg Ng

I would say definitely. I don’t know for I rode my bike to work and I think that has saved my life. I got a kneeling chair I got a seating chair I got my standing components so sit stand kneel whatever you know jump up and down if you can. And I think ultimately also in living you’ve got to maintain your health because you’re whole everything is all connected. You know you’ve got to be healthy you think healthy the whole thing. You know when you when you come to work as a healthy person you’re gonna make healthy work so you can you can’t neglect that.

 

Audience Question

What about agents? When did you get an agent?

 

Justin Li

That’s a great question because we have a couple agents in the room actually. I do not have an agent at the moment. It’s something that I’m like I’m definitely thinking about I’m not totally sure if I’m ready for it or not from the people I know who have agents and loved them, it’s it’s a great way to take some of the stress off you. I think going back to the last about health. I think for me the most enticing part about having an agent is expanding a network. I think for me I know who I know. There’s a lot of people I don’t know. There’s a lot of things I don’t hear about until after they’re stuffed up. I think that something that’s really interesting to me especially if there’s different types of work I want to do and I find that I’m stuck in a bit of a bubble. So I think that’s very valuable. From a practical standpoint, yeah they’re negotiating and all of that. I mean how is it for you because you have an agent?

 

Greg Ng

Yes I do have an agent. I still think most of the work comes to me directly but it’s nice to have my agent sort of looking out for me doing promotion because networking whatever maybe he drops my name here and there I don’t know. But you know I’m pretty socially awkward and it’s nice to have an agent who’s out there you know possibly saying “Oh yeah Greg Ng he’s cutting stuff too! How about him?” You know if he’s just doing that that counts for something.

 

Justin Li

Yeah I think it’s nice to just have someone that can help you navigate the industry. I think for me in lieu of an agent I’ve been leaning on like my friends my co-workers like colleagues and stuff. And that’s kind of been my way of surviving so far without it.

 

Kaare Andrews

I think what you find though I get friends with directors like that they just don’t necessarily get your work. Yeah that’s what really. It’s like they are the buffer between the work. So if there’s money issues, or schedule issues or personality issues they can… it’s nice to have that middle man to like not make it personal. Yeah. A person to not make it personal.

 

Justin Li

That’s a really great point because I’ve heard that before it’s like you know there’s things you want and I think this kind of goes back to what we were saying before about how the emails don’t have a tone I think having an agent also kind of doesn’t have a tone in a way. Like I think they’re they’re doing their job and everyone understands that when they’re asking for things like they’re just doing what they’re supposed to be doing and no one takes it personally. So it gives you that kind of that layer of protection and a buffer protects you from damaging your relationship. I guess in a lot of ways.

 

Greg Ng

I do think that before considering an agent they can’t necessarily sell you if you haven’t sort of built up a sort of rapport, a bunch of credits, it will be a hard sell to be like “Oh yeah how about this person cut a bunch of shorts… you to give him this feature?” I think part of… I resisted getting an agent for ever because I just felt like I wasn’t sort of ready for it until I had like enough credits behind me. And then when I did get an agent I had a several sort of exclusions based on people that I’d already worked with and I knew I would regularly work with.

 

Audience Question

I’m relatively new to film. I’ve been told that trying to get IATSE membership is super important. I hear other people say

 

Justin Li

That’s a great question I think especially right now because we’re very short on assistant editors in IATSE I think it’s really… anyone correct me if I’m wrong… getting permittee status in IATSE is super important right now because you know if there’s no one to fill those chairs they go to the permittee list and you might just get a call. I’ve also heard of shows that I’m on like shows very recently that we’re looking for a second assistant editors or to work during the day and they kind of interview people, hired them, and then ultimately couldn’t get them on the show because they couldn’t… they weren’t permittees yet. And it was like it’s taking way too long to get them on. So then they ended up having to give it to somebody else. So I think as with learning while you’re assisting and then getting a permittee status like you have to be ready for when opportunities come knocking. So I would say yeah definitely worth just like I think 100 bucks or whatever you like to get your permittee status. Make sure you’re on the call list because right now people are calling. The town is super busy for post right now like as busy as I’ve ever seen it it’s a good chance for assistants to try and get options cutting especially smaller stuff. And it’s a really good chance for you to get in as an assistant on stuff that maybe you wouldn’t have access to normally, especially if you can show that you’re competent.

 

Kaare Andrews

There’s no one more question. One final question to bring us home. Who’s got that no pressure. Well this will be the most important question of the night.

 

Audience Question

What’s the big dream for both of you?

 

Greg Ng

I always say when I’m talking to various people including my agent I get me onto Empire Strikes Back. That’s what I want. You know. But now that I think about things and my love of Star Wars has shifted since I was a child. But yeah I still have this lifelong dream of eventually working on Star Wars of some kind. The Yoda offshoot movie just the Yoda movie.

 

Justin Li

Definitely not specific. I mean it’s hard. I don’t know if I really have like a dream thing right now. I mean it’s I’m kind of really happy just working and cutting like I didn’t think I’d get to cut full time this quick. So I’m still kind of figuring out the next step. I think for me, I just want to make one thing that I would honestly say is in my top 10 things the whole time I think you spend a lot of time working on stuff especially in the city where we get all range of budgets that you probably would never watch on your own. I just want to work on something that I think I would be really proud of and love and honestly could say that I would have gone and seen that and really really liked it.

 

Kaare Andrews

Great. Before we go. I’m going to ask. Greg and Justin….

 

Justin Li

You said that was last question!

 

Kaare Andrews

It was the last question from the audience. I just want to refocus once again on this idea transition from Assistant Editor Editor. So there’s one point one thing that you think people could leave with tonight even if it’s restating one thing you’ve said in this past couple hours. But one thing to send people away with to think about on the way home….

 

Greg Ng

I believed it was Macho Man. But I looked it up and it’s not Macho Man.

 

Justin Li

It was Macho Man Randy Savage.

 

Greg Ng

Macho Man Randy Savage the wrestler rest said it’s like “Success is when opportunity meets talent.”

 

Justin Li

Yeah just go do it go out and cut it. That’s what you want to be doing. Go out and find those opportunities. Hunt them down give yourself the best possible opportunity and put yourself in a position to succeed. Whether that’s getting a permittee status, being in the ear of people who can make decisions and give you jobs. Learning from every opportunity and every like every assistant gig you get. Find ways to learn and make yourself a better editor. I think it’s when you start showing up to work and it’s just a paycheck and you’re just filling out continuity forms or whatever and not even caring like it’s gonna be harder and harder. Grow because you can get stuck in a rut. So I think chase down those opportunities and make sure that you know if someone comes knocking you’re ready to kill it. And then that’ll lead to more jobs.

 

Kaare Andrews

Great. Well I want to thank Justin and Greg for giving us their… but I’ve learned more more than anywhere else probably here today. It’s all brand new information to me so let’s give them a hand and thank you.

 

Sarah Taylor

Thank you for joining us today. And a big thanks goes to our panelists and moderator. A special thanks goes to Jane MacRae, Sabrina Pitre and Finalé. This panel was recorded by Mychaylo Prystup. The main title sound design was created by Jane Tattersall. Additional ADR recording by Andrea Rusch. Original music provided by Chad Blain. This episode was mixed and mastered by Tony Bao. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and tell your friends to tune in. Until next time I’m your host, Sarah Taylor.

 

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A special thanks goes to

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The Editors Cut

Episode 029: Edit Chats with Lisa Robison, CCE

Episode 029: Edit Chats with Lisa Robison, CCE

Episode 029: Edit Chats with Lisa Robison, CCE

This episode is a Q&A with Lisa Robison, CCE. Moderated by Kerry McDowall, Post Production Supervisor and Chair of the VPA.

This episode is sponsored by Finalé a Picture Shop Company, Vancouver Post Alliance and IATSE.

Q&A with Lisa Robison, CCE

Lisa has been editing for 20 years on a variety of television and film projects. She has been recognized for her work internationally. Lisa talks about her path on becoming an editor and her aspects of editing. Lisa entered the film industry in 1989, initially working as a camera assistant and in 1995 changed careers moving into post-production. She settled into her first editing job in 1998 and she has been editing ever since.

Lisa is a highly regarded editor with movie and series credits for Lifetime, Disney, Sony, Showcase, Hallmark, USA, ABC, CBC, CTV, and Grenada. Her determination and work ethic as an editor has been recognized with many nominations and awards. Lisa has been nominated for three Daytime Emmys (Monsterville: Cabinet of Souls and two for R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour), she has 10 Awards and 14 nominations. Lisa is best known for her work on My Life Without Me, Loudermilk, Unspeakable, The L Word, You Me Her, R.L. Stine’s: The Haunting Hour and Continuum

If you would like to see the transcript for this episode it’s here for downloading.

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The Editor’s Cut – Episode 029 – “Interview with Lisa Robison, CCE”



Sarah Taylor

This episode was sponsored by Finale — A Picture Shop company, the Vancouver Post Alliance and IATSE 891. Hello and welcome to The Editor’s Cut. I’m your host Sarah Taylor. Today’s episode is part of our Master Series and is a Q and A with Lisa Robison, CCE that was recorded on November 20th 2019 at Finale in Vancouver. Lisa has been editing for 20 years on a variety of television and film projects. She has been recognized for her work internationally. Lisa talks about her path of becoming an editor and her process of editing the Q and A was moderated by Kerry McDowall, Post-production Supervisor and Chair of the VPA.

 

Kerry McDowall

Welcome to this Master Series. So Lisa here I just wanted to point out that she is quite the award winning editor. She has won 10 awards and I just want to point out that two of them were she won 2 Leo’s this year and she won 2 Leo’s last year. So your track record is pretty pretty strong and consistent. She’s also had 14 nominations on top of the 10 awards, three which are for Daytime Emmys as well as Leo’s and the CCE and then there was also Circle Writer of Cinema. The Spanish award which I imagine was for Life Without Me.

 

Lisa Robison

It was for My Life Without Me and a neighbor of mine told me that I was nominated. Steve my neighbor was stalking me. Steve thanks.

 

Kerry McDowall

So welcome Lisa and thank you for sharing your time with the audience tonight. I figure probably the first question that would make sense is just talk about how you got into editing in the first place.

 

Lisa Robison

I’m going to try to make this brief. Some of you know I used to be in the camera department how I got in the camera department was very by fluke my brother was shooting a documentary about the making of Expo. So that gives you an idea of how long ago that was. And I loved it. And then I was the the camera rat. That wouldn’t go away and I cleaned cases until they basically ended up hiring me and then got into the union. I was a camera assistant for about eight years. I had a very serious asthma attack where I basically died and saw the white light. So then I had to get out of that and I was at home drinking and watching Absolutely Fabulous. And my brother was like “you can’t do that forever. So come and sit with me in the edit suite” because he was cutting the pilot for a show called Outer Limits. And I was in my early 30s trying to restart my career because I couldn’t be on set anymore with allergies that would trigger my asthma. So I sat and I watched him and I was like I think I can do this. And I became the intern for free on Outer Limits a nice union show and I stirred up things by working for free and a nice union show being the PA that would pick up the dailies at 7:00 and meet the fish flight at midnight because I was determined. So they ended up hiring me for a big whopping 400 dollars a week to be an assistant editor. And after leaving camera was a bit of a kick. My brother hired me on my first show to be an assistant then I was an assistant for four or five years and a Post Supervisor gave me my first job editing. She said I think you can edit and I didn’t want to. I was I was like don’t waste your time I don’t want to edit I don’t want to edit and my one episode of Highlander the Raven turned into three and then that turned into eight. And so, I had my first credit, had my first show thanks to Tracey Ullman and then I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to go back to assisting and my partner Lisa Binkley had done the first season of Cold Squad and she said to the producers I know an editor. And they interviewed me and again they gave me a couple. Then the couple turned in two I think I did three seasons of Cold Squad. That’s kind of how I didn’t do it the… I’m the most untraditional person you’ve ever met. So yeah the Coles Notes version.

 

Kerry McDowall

So I think we’re going to start talking about specific shows or projects that Lisa worked on the first one is My Life Without Me which I love. You a great job. So how did you come to be the editor of that film.

 

Lisa Robison

You know I got an interview which I don’t really… I believe I had worked with… I can’t remember the timeline but I knew the producer. And he said I think you’ll like this script. So I read the script I loved the script. The caveat to the script was you can cut but we’re not taking you to Barcelona. We can’t afford to take you to Barcelona. We’re only hiring a local editor. Very low budget film that because it was a Canadian — Spanish copro they just were it was like “No you’re not going.” And I was like I just want to be attached to this film because I love it. So, the scene you’re about to see I cut it and I sent it to the director while shooting and a lot of people don’t do that. I’m a big believer in working with the director and showing them my madness. And if they don’t like it they can let me know, if they want to build on shots they can… anything like that. A lot of people… a lot of editors I know prefer to wait until the director’s in the room and then show them. So that’s what I did. I think I’ll let you see the scene and then I’ll talk about it after. My Life Without Me is about a young mother who’s diagnosed with cancer. And she she’s has three months to live. So she’s trying to find a new wife for her husband and thus a mom for her kids. And this scene is her recording messages for each of her two girls birthdays for them to listen to. This was a seven page scene in the script and I don’t know how many hours I got of dailies possibly six. And Isabel Coixet who was the director was the camera operator so it was all single camera. There wasn’t A B. It wasn’t easy to find continuity even though Sarah Polley is Canada’s golden girl. So that’s the scene is a mom recording messages for her daughters.

 

[Film Clip]

Hey my buddy Penny I’m not gonna be at your birthday party but there’s nothing I’d like more in the whole wide world. I’ll bet Graham has made a special birthday cake just for you with your name on it big chocolate letters. Penny, I want you to know that the day that you were born, I held you in my arms and that was the happiest day of my whole life. I was so happy I couldn’t even speak. I just stroked your tiny little feet I cried with happiness. Without you I could have never found out that lions eat pancakes or that their bed could be a raft. Try and look after Patsy, K? I know it’s hard because sometimes she makes you mad and everything. I know it’s not easy being a big sister buddy but I know that you can do it. OK. Mommy sends you millions and millions of kisses.

 

Lisa Robison

Like I said the you’re not going to Barcelona. We don’t have any money. So I sent it to her and I got a little message on my old flip phone. Come to set. Right away. After sending this to her and I was like Oh my God I’m fired. My assistant was like “don’t send it. It’s horrible. I can’t believe you jump cut. You should… like she’s going to fire you.” Like don’t even. He was trying to talk me out of sending it right. It was like yeah it was all pretty much like the beginning. So I cut the first two segments of each daughter. And then I was like What are we to do with this footage. It’s like it’s boring. It’s horrible. So I jump cut it in and honestly pretty much what you’re seeing is my first cut that I sent to her because she was like I love it. I’m not touching anything. So she calls me to set it just like the editors here the editors here and I’m like Oh my God. She’s going to fire me in front of the crew because she was like she was Spanish and very powerful and just like oh God I’m just like OK this is horrible. And I haven’t done much like I’d only been cutting for maybe three years and I was just like No. So they gave me a chair and I’m like oh God this is horrible. And she goes you’re coming to Spain. I don’t know how we’re going to do it. And she says Esther. Esther and she calls Esther Garcia who is Pedro Almodovar’s business partner. And they sent it to Pedro and Pedro basically phoned and said she’s coming figure it out she’s coming to Barcelona. So the reason I love the scene is A it got me there and I was cutting… honestly I know it’s a stupid saying but I was cutting with my gut. I was cutting by instinct and if she hated it, I could undo it but this was what I thought. This is my first instinct. If somebody says you can’t do something or they say it’s not in the budget just do it if you love it and you think you can tell a story with it do it. And if you have an assistant that doesn’t believe in you don’t work with them ever again because I haven’t worked with him again. So what happened. We got to go to Barcelona. I outed myself. I said Oh if I go to Barcelona can I bring my partner? And they were like Oh you want to bring your partner. Yeah. It’s a woman. Yeah. Oh we have to get you a nice apartment. Well what was I going to get? So we got a really nice apartment for five weeks and when we get to Barcelona Isabel is like I don’t know what we’re gonna do. And I was like Oh my God we just flew for 24 hours to get here. What do you mean you don’t know what we’re going to do. And she was like we’ll work 4-day weeks. You guys take long weekends you go check out Spain. So it’s it’s my watermark. I’ve never had anything like that again. But if somebody says… if you really love something and they say you can’t finish it stick with it because you don’t know.

 

Kerry McDowall

And what was Isabel like as a director to work with?

 

Lisa Robison

Very passionate. She was the camera operator. She didn’t care about the union. She was like well then I’m not making this film here and then the producers all scrambled. So she she’s very well known in Spain. Walking around the streets of Barcelona with her, it was as if I was walking with Spielberg because they were like [whispers], and she does not suffer fools. She was a tough nut but if you did something she liked it, and if she didn’t like something she… but she could stand up to Pedro and which say something because he’s very volatile.

 

Kerry McDowall

When you were talking about sitting with the footage as it was scripted how long… did your gut tell you to just chop it up right away or were you really trying to stick to the script? Because that’s kind of what you thought you were supposed to do? You know and then did you go back to it you know like at what point did you just kind of throw your hands in the air and say this isn’t working. I want to do this.

 

Lisa Robison

It was in the day of when you watched the dailies go in you know. So you digitized and you would sit with your assistant. You watch them. And at first I was like Oh my God. Because it was like four hours or something. And it was when I saw the final close ups of the writing on the cassette cover I was like I think I know how I can shorten it. And it was then, then I realized what I could do because I was worried and I was just like oh my god my god why through the car… there is this this little I don’t want to say a voice because I sound like a crazy person. But there was this little thing that said you know what, chop it up.

 

Kerry McDowall

You want to set up the next clip from My Life Without Me?



Lisa Robison

Yeah, so this clip… this is Anne, Sarah Polley is inviting her work buddy because she thinks Laurie who is Amanda Plummer could possibly be a good wife for her husband. So she invites Anne to dinner in their mobile home. And because I had sent this I knew I could jump cut and when you have Amanda Plummer, Amanda Plummer doesn’t care where the camera is she doesn’t care what she did the previous take. So I jumped cut that.

 

Kerry McDowall

So that aesthetic… you established the type of editing.

 

Lisa Robison

Yeah. And then the next scene is the dinner scene and I’d like to play the dinner scene and then a lot of you are experienced so you’ll know this, but I’d like to play it. You watch it and then we’ll play the dinner scene again and I’ll just do a little commentary of working the reactions of the little girl. Anne and Don, Don is Scott Speedman, have two little girls and the little girls one of them hasn’t acted much at all. And the one that plays Penny the older one has acted. No the scene scripted and even when she shot it even when I cut it it didn’t focus on so much of Amanda Plummer eating so badly with barbecue sauce on her and the little girl… it became about the little girl noticing Amanda Plummer when the director and I were looking through it and stealing the shots because the shots of Penny weren’t exactly the shots at that moment in time a couple of the shots were while they were setting up her just looking at Amanda Plummer in disdain as a person as an actor to an actor that this little kid knew that Amanda Plummer was kind of out of it. So we stole those shots to create her deadpan stare. Yeah I know you guys all see it. It’s pretty funny… [clip plays simultaneously] …lovely that Isabel didn’t care what Penny was doing. She didn’t care about continuity with the mashed potatoes. And this is just one camera. It’s a real motorhome like it’s not like they pop the wall of the motor home. They rented a motor home and shot through the window and then Isabel got through somewhere like it was just you know, tight. Know you know we stole that line and put it in the mouth because her mouth was covered with her hand. And this is her looking at her waiting for a reset. So it’s just awesome. And that’s why I hate when camera guys put their hand over the lens because you never know. You never know when there’s gonna be gold especially when you’re working with kids and she’s moved on to be quite an actress, Jessica Amlee. Look at her, I love that she doesn’t care that she has barbecue sauce. And is totally into the character. And then… [clip continues to play simultaneously] this is stolen from later the scene. We moved it around. So [laughs] she’s just awesome so sometimes you have to look. I know some of you guys have edited a lot. So you know that. But when you change what the scene was to be more funny because you could just throw out the script and you throw your preconceived ideas and say let’s see if we can dig up reactions and let’s see if we can steal and make it look like all Laurie’s doing is eating. [clip continues to play]. So that’s when kids can be fun.

 

Kerry McDowall

Do we want to move on to Unspeakable?

 

Lisa Robison

Yeah. Yes. Let’s do something more current more upbeat. Yeah.

 

Kerry McDowall

Lisa and I we worked together on that last year, had the privilege of work with Lisa for the first time. Took that long. It’s crazy. So the episode was Krever and Andy Mikita was the director. So what was… I know he and you talked during prep so what was his vision going into the shoot?

 

Lisa Robison

He wanted… the whole episode like 75 percent of it takes place in an inquiry room, which isn’t like a courtroom it’s just a couple of people lined up in sort of like this being questioned by a judge and two lawyers and the newspeople and other witnesses and he and Rob the creator-writer-producer, they wanted it to be fast paced. They were really worried they were going to lose the audience with all this dialogue because it was like All About Eve kind of dialogue, it’s dialogue driven. It’s people in chairs sitting. Very little action. So Andy shot three cameras on pretty much every setup. So he was covered and then the other thing he wanted to do was to show that some of it was shot through monitors because the news camera people were there. And then also some of the shots are purposely 4:3 because it was in 1994? ’93? What do you want to talk about what the whole show was about?

 

Kerry McDowall

So by the time you get to Episode 6 which is this episode the whole the whole series is about the tainted blood scandal in Canada. So it starts in about 1981 when AIDS AIDS sort of showed up but no one knew what it was, before everyone knew that it was a virus before it had a name. And obviously it was getting into all of the blood products and Unspeakable is specifically about how it affected hemophiliacs and because they rely on blood plasma to help clotting. And none of this blood was ever being checked because they didn’t know what to check for because they didn’t know what it was. But then even when they, when scientists discovered that it was and called it AIDS they still didn’t know how to do… they didn’t know how to filter it out of the blood product. And the Canadian Red Cross dealt with all of the blood donations and they were very hesitant to remove it in case it was infected because they didn’t have blood to replace it with, or the technology to replace it with anything that would have been treated at the time. So that was kind of the first issue. And the second issue was when they did realize how they could treat it they still decided to put all the tainted blood out in the world and in Canada. And so the inquiry was trying to figure out whether you know now that they had all of this information they need to get the information and compile it as one place and one judge was tasked with this inquiry to decide whether any wrongdoing existed. So you know by the time you get to Episode Six there’s a lot of information that the viewer is already dealing with and this in one way is great because it summarizes… like all these episodes of information kind of finally gets summarized into this one episode. A lot of the dialogue is brought from actual transcripts of the real inquiry. So I also think that Andy and Rob were very aware that you know this dialogue has to be how it is because that’s what was said so that he wasn’t taking liberties as a writer to make it more like fancy or you know like it was. So it is it read in the script is being quite dry. But it ended up being probably my favorite episode of the whole series. So the inquiry is is at the point where the judge is trying to compile the information and figure out what went wrong about ten years ago.

 

Lisa Robison

When you have witnesses you know you bring in Person A, and you ask them a question. And then you bring in Person B and you’ll ask them the same question. But by that time it might be winter. So, their wardrobe changed. Give it a sense of time because the inquiry wasn’t just done in a month. So you’ll notice that there’s changes in wardrobe to give a subtle sense of changes of the time that went by. But the dialogue is continuous as if asking me where did you park your car. And you say in the garage and then you say that I came up the elevator. So it’s as if you were asking three people the same question with the answer continuing. You’ll see it’s a bit of a thread. So I was just like well so what do you want it to look like? And Andy said from the deposition insider which is not my normal cutting style. So it was a bit of a challenge for me to try and find when you’re given three cameras, it’s six minutes long. So I don’t even know how many pages it was it was like 10 pages. I was insane. It was a beefy amount of dailies every day and to find THE take that told THE part of THE sentence that I wanted to take, that also went nicely to the next shot… it was a bit of a Rubik’s cube.

 

[Film Clip]

Hello my name is Lawrence Hartley and I have been president of the Canadian hemophilia society since 1986. I am also a hemophiliac who is co infected with HIV and hepatitis C.. This story is tragic obviously but the reason it is so tragic is because it could have been avoided. Those of us that depended on blood products to live were seriously injured by a Canadian system that just didn’t seem to care. Now I understand people want a triumph over tragedy story some kind of silver lining but for those of us who have lost someone. There is no end to the grief and so we must speak here today about how to fix things for the future but also know that nothing will ever repair the damage done. No one wanted to recognize the problem, to recognize it would’ve meant taking on the immense task of dealing with it. Doctors and nurses said they were relying on the Red Cross, the Red Cross pointed at the Bureau of Biologics. No one was taking responsibility. We were treaters and our overriding concern was to treat our patients well. We knew very little about AIDS but we knew a lot about hemophilia and the complications of bleeding. Not that I’m trying to absolve anyone but I think it’s important to remember that we can’t look back and judge ourselves and what we didn’t know at the time. AIDS was a difficult mystery to unravel. Furthermore I think it can be too easy to scapegoat certain people at the Red Cross when in fact it was the entire blood system that failed. As early as 1981 there were reports of a new disease in the US and there was no reason to expect it wouldn’t reach Canada. The BOB asked the Red Cross to monitor the situation.

 

Lisa Robison

Do you guys have any questions?

 

Kerry McDowall

Yeah. Maybe this is a good time to open the floor.

 

Audience Question

That scene is frickin awesome. Cudos to you that is a rollercoaster. I loved it. Was the pacing sort of what you’re going for from beginning or is that something that you worked with Andy later on?

 

Lisa Robison

No. The pacing was what they wanted from the beginning even from the script even. Yeah correct me if I’m wrong there was eight episodes?

 

Kerry McDowall

Eight episodes.

 

Lisa Robison

Eight. I think he originally had ten possibly. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. It felt to me that it was all kept… there was such important dialogue and story and facts that it was kept. And then it was kind of squeezed into eight. So the first episode is you know Rob said let it breathe let it breathe let it breathe and then we were like it’s gotta be to time, it’s gotta be to time, it’s gonna be to time. So we had to make… I had to make that one because it wasn’t… like Kerry said it was factual. So cutting out dialogue all the time wasn’t an option. So it was trimming and with this scene it was trimming like like Oh my God that one frame really makes a difference. And kudos to the actors because they were like… they all knew their dialogue. They all knew it, they all could say it fast. Like West Wing. they were all… we can all say it fast we’ll help out… was great.

 

Audience Question

But it all flows from shot to shot but like you said like time continuity is right. Like the questions asked and different person answers the right and different things like bouncing all over the room like it’s moved so fast.

 

Lisa Robison

Yeah and they didn’t want to say “spring” and “fall” and “back to spring” and “summer” and then back to… so it was just you know let’s be subtle and do it with clothing which was great. And I think the audience picks up on it. I mean I’ve never been one for continuity and if you’ve seen La La Land you’ll know there’s the continuity with him at the piano. And the different shirt. And nobody notices.

 

Audience Question

I thought you gave them exactly what they wanted in this scene. Aside from you picking up a camera and going back to your old… I think you did a great job. Now you mentioned you didn’t like this scene. What about your prior scenes did you… would you do anything to change those scenes? Like when you look at your previous work do you always wish, or thought you could have made them different?

 

Lisa Robison

Some, yeah there’s some things I never want to watch again you know because there’s… you’re just like uhhh….

 

Audience Question

Of these these two scenes for example that you showed us your first two. Would you change anything in those ones?

 

Lisa Robison

No you know what’s interesting about those is I don’t think I would. And I don’t think… I went into that with naivete. I didn’t know the rules. I didn’t know the rules of editing. I didn’t go to film school. It wasn’t until I would bring cuts home and show Lisa and she would go “no no you can’t do that you can’t do that. That was not the rules.” So I didn’t know I was breaking the rules. I just thought that’s cool. And in fight scenes you can do that kind of thing but no you shouldn’t do that when it’s two people talking. So I did that with My Life Without Me I did that with a lot of instinct. If you get in the groove of cutting for certain networks they want things a certain way and you lose that artistic style. Because you’re told to follow the convention of no no no, we don’t do jump cuts. We don’t do, we don’t do that here. Which is why I loved working on independent film which was My Life Without Me. Rob was great about us jump cutting or long dissolves or whatever we wanted but that was a different thing. But sometimes you get stuck and those shows I have no desire to watch again because I knew I was just fitting the mold of that network.

 

Audience Question

Can you speak to the difference between working in episodic and, just where you had time?

 

Lisa Robison

This is how I work. I watch everything. I watch the false starts. I watch everything and in my bin as I’m watching everything I create a little timeline of selects and as I’m watching I plunk it in. So that’s sometimes how my jump cuts are created because I plunked it into the selections. So it’s just happenstance sometimes. And that’s the way I find it works the fastest is to pick selects from all that. With doing it that way it’s my play time of kind of going Oh can this go with this? I don’t know if I’m answering your question.

 

Kerry McDowall

I think by episodic I mean you only have two days after your last day of dailies, four if you’re lucky. It’s hard to have time to what if, right?

 

Lisa Robison

As you keep doing it as you keep cutting you get faster and you you figure out ways you know. I think what I do now I wouldn’t be able to do after three years of editing. And just the… like when I walked in and saw all the dailies for Unspeakable I was totally overwhelmed. I was just like oh my god but you just you know one setup at a time….

 

Audience Question

Did you do that same process like selects, reels?

 

Lisa Robison

Yeah I do that all the time. I just find it easier. I miss the days where I would sit with my assistant and watch stuff digitize in because you would go “Oh that’s awesome.” And then now you just go “Oh my God it’s all this I just got to dive in” and you lose that sort of… it’s not tactile but it feels tactile to be able to watch every shot. So yeah I feel from being on set I want to see everything the director’s seen so that when they say well what about and take one when there’s that thing and I go “Well you didn’t print it.” “Well what do you mean. I wanted everything printed” and the script supervisor only printed the last one. And I’m not a believer in the last take is the best take. I’ve worked with so many directors that go I know I printed a lot but just use the last take and then they’ll go “What take is this?” And I was like what’s the first take. And they’re like “oh my god that’s awesome.” So I love it when they weren’t listening to me as a director you know. So I don’t believe the last take is the best take. And I also believe that if you say to somebody “is this bumping for you?” Then it’s bumping. So. And I also get up when I cut something I’m here and I’m looking at my screen and then to review it, I get up and I walk around. I move, I get up and look at it from a different angle and the other thing I highly suggest is exporting it and watching it at home a little distance if you drink or partake in something else or however you want to relax watch it that way. Watch it with fresh eyes. And a different perspective because it does make a difference. And if you have an assistant that you love and trust have them sit with you, because having that person, I don’t know why having that extra body makes a difference… you’re heightened.

 

Kerry McDowall

Because when the scene comes up that you’re questioning, you start getting anxious because you’re wondering where their reaction is gonna be.

 

Audience Question

One question I have for you is when you’re working with Isabel like she you can see it from the scene. She clearly has like a very cinema verite thing going on with her, like how she shoots. Do you find that is freeing as an editor to work like that or you know or do you find you know when focus might not be exactly in a key moment like when you want to be cutting into an actor it might not find focus or the frame might not be perfect. Do you prefer that style of shooting over more locked off traditional framing?

 

Lisa Robison

I guess it depends on the show like some shows suit being hand-held. And and I love that as long as it’s not making me nauseous after twelve hours and some shows are more suited to a lock off kind of thing. And I find if it’s racking focus and gets there it kind of drives me nuts. But I respect it because I did that job and it’s the worst job in the world.

 

Audience Question

But she was exceptional camera person.

 

Lisa Robison

She was and I have to say the end… there’s so many scenes in that film that are just beautiful the way she shot them and she loved the dirty frame. I love a dirty frame, I love the sense… I love horror films where you’re following somebody behind them and then it becomes their POV. Those kind of shots it draws you in. Her style of filmmaking I feel drew you win whether even if it was the wide slightly moving shots… but even Andy in Unspeakable it’s not in the scene you saw. But there’s a scene where there’s an old school fan just kind of in the frame so you feel like you’re part of it as opposed to these perfectly clean. But I’ve done recently these romantic comedies and it’s very clean and it works better being very clean I don’t know why but it just does.

 

Audience Question

The context of the breadth of work you’ve done in so many different kinds of projects. Can you talk about style like do you think you have a style or do you… are you a chameleon depending on what you’re working on?

 

Lisa Robison

I thought I had a style up until Krever Unspeakable. And then that made me go hmmm…it’s interesting. But I do my initial gut thing is I love hanging on people. If we’ve got a great performance i’m like why cut away unless I need to connect, and there’s an awesome connection, and then I go back. But I find as I’ve edited different styles I, I cut less I cut a lot less and I actually now I don’t mind if a producer says oh can you add a shot. Because I would rather have that note than not have it. And then realize you know what I didn’t need that cut away. Why am I cutting? I want to be… and that’s what I find with the Krever scene is sometimes there’s times I wanted to be on Michael Shanks. And see his… because he’s a father whose son is… in fact for lack of a better word and I wanted to see him and they were like No. He was like No let’s keep going. And I was like okay… you know I love becoming very passionate always like with what I’m doing. And if I don’t believe it, nobody is gonna believe it.

 

Kerry McDowall

And what was it like on Unspeakable because normally especially in Vancouver like we work on you know very fantastical things you know visual effects and Unspeakable was the exact opposite in that this all really happened. So it’s historically accurate. The main characters were fictitious but based on Robert Cooper’s family, friends. Scenes were literally lifted right out of his childhood and put on screen. So what was that like as an editor to be sitting there. It’s a little more loaded than other stuff that you probably work on.

 

Lisa Robison

Oh yeah for sure.

 

Kerry McDowall

You know the pressure to get it right?

 

Lisa Robison

Yeah. And Rob you know this is Rob’s passion project. You wanted to tell his story like without him being disappointed, without him being wondering what if you know which I think is why I get upset that I didn’t call it because it was his… that episode is the culmination of the lack of a better word of the whole tainted blood scandal.

 

Kerry McDowall

I think we all felt it on the show that you know you wanted to do right by this show because it was more than just entertainment. Like we were making more than just entertainment.

 

Lisa Robison

For me it was as close to a documentary as I’ve I’ve ever had the opportunity, I’ve never worked on documentary. But to be there and you’ve got the person beside you that has has gone through this you want them to make sure that the the actors you’re seeing the right performance and your being on it the right way. And yeah you don’t want him to be disappointed. He’s your… it’s going to sound silly. He’s the father figure of the show. You want him to be happy. I mean my God the hours of when I saw the boxes that they were carrying and of all the files of all research that he and the writers have gone through and then him describing how many more were at somebody else’s house and that you know that’s years and years worth of research. It’s not just somebody… not that writing a script is easy by any means… but it’s not you know a fictional piece that someone wrote in six months. It’s someone’s life.

 

Kerry McDowall

Or where you can take liberties just to advance the plot nicely.

 

Lisa Robison

And you know you hear him telling stories of this is what… that was my friend that died and you’re like oh….

 

Kerry McDowall

Or this was the exact conversation that I had with my mother. And you’re like you whoa. So yeah it was it was heavy.

 

Lisa Robison

And it was nothing that any of us took lightly. Like you you were there to tell somebody story. Yeah it was great.

 

Kerry McDowall

Yeah it was a unique experience for sure. Yeah.

 

Audience Question

Do you have any films that you could suggest that kind of like, I mean for you were just you watched it as like, power pack like how do they do editing? That amazed me… it just has just loaded with just brilliant editing, useful to learn from?



Lisa Robison

I’m going to totally date myself. I knew… when I knew I could be an editor is I saw a film called Out Of Sight and the still frames… and Soderbergh I became obsessed with Soderbergh and Anne V. Coates. I watched everything he did. I was like who thought of that? Freeze frame. So then I worked with a director who’s is not directing anymore Jorge Montesi. He told me you find a film you love and you analyze it. And I analyzed Out Of Sight. And I thought I can be an editor. And that was my… and now there’s so many films that I watch that I just… Wanted… I watched Wanted over and over again which is this action film. I just love that for action. I love that film. I loved Big Little Lies for drama. I love that series for… and that’s probably why I cut less now because they are — mind you the actors are awesome — but it’s also the story point is why are we cutting why are we choosing to cut away there. Why not wait. Wait and wait and wait. So that’s my… yeah. So I just say if you find a film there’s lot to be learned from Pixar too. I think they’re the best storytellers. And visually and scripted because they don’t cut away that often either for little kids and for big kids.

 

Kerry McDowall

When you were saying to the other day that you think it’s really important for people to watch really bad films.

 

Lisa Robison

Oh I do. I can learn so much from Con Air. It’s such a bad film but so awesome. For anybody… you guys are cutting but for anybody who is wanting to cut and you’re working with an editor you can ask them “Can I cut” but just cut. Cut on your own. Just grab a bin and cut on your own and compare it maybe to what the editor did but what I would do is I would cut the dailies and I would compare it to what the locked cut was. Because who knows if… I’m not serving the editor, I’m serving the network. You’re serving the studio, the network. So to find out what they wanted. I found it a good way to learn. Also my spouse was a great way to learn but Yeah watch watch everything. I love watching… sometimes I love watching bad stuff because you’re like whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. You’re like I would never do that. And then they make it look easy. And you know it’s not. Find a workflow that works for you. That’s my last parting words. Parting words: find a workflow that works for you. Don’t listen to anybody else.

 

Kerry McDowall

Thank you so much Lisa.

 

Lisa Robison

Thank you.

 

Sarah Taylor

Thanks for joining us today and a big thank you to our panelists and moderator. A special thanks goes to Jane MacRae, Trevor Mirosh, Finale, VPA, and IATSE 891. This panel was recorded by Mychaylo Prystup. The main title sound design was created by Jane Tattersall. Additional ADR recording by Andrea Rusch. Original music provided by Chad Blain. This episode was mixed and mastered by Tony Bao. The CCE has been supporting Indspire – an organization that provides funding and scholarships to Indigenous post secondary students. We have a permanent portal on our website at cceditors.ca or you can donate directly at indspire.ca. The CCE is taking steps to build a more equitable ecosystem within our industry and we encourage our members to participate in a way they can.  

 

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and tell your friends to tune in. Til next time I’m your host Sarah Taylor.

 

Outtro

The CCE is a non-profit organization with the goal of bettering the art and science of picture editing. If you wish to become a CCE member please visit our website www.cceditors.ca. Join our great community of Canadian editors for more related info.

Subscribe Wherever You Get Your Podcasts

What do you want to hear on The Editors Cut?

Please send along any topics you would like us to cover or editors you would love to hear from:

Credits

A special thanks goes to

Jane MacRae

Trevor Mirosh

Finalé a Picture Shop Company

Vancouver Post Alliance

IATSE 891

Hosted, Produced and Edited by

Sarah Taylor

Recorded by

Mychaylo Prystup

Mixed and Mastered by

Tony Bao

Original Music by

Chad Blain

Categories
The Editors Cut

Episode 030: The Bigger Picture: What is Anti-Oppression? With Tenniel Brown

Episode 030: The Bigger Picture: What is Anti-Oppression? With Tenniel Brown

Episode 030: The Bigger Picture: What is Anti-Oppression? With Tenniel Brown

In this episode Sarah Taylor chats with Tenniel Brown about what she offers in her Anti-Oppression courses.

Tenniel Brown chats about what she offers in her Anti-Oppression courses

For over 15 years Tenniel Brown (facilitator, consultant, therapist and yoga teacher) has been working collaboratively with diverse clients to apply holistic tools to transform the impact of mental health and substance use concerns on their lives.

Tenniel is a passionate anti-racism, anti-oppression and mental health speaker dedicated to improving the experiences of marginalized people in educational and mental health settings. She is founder of the Centre for Anti-Oppressive Communication which specializes in providing anti-oppressive/trauma informed counselling, clinical supervision, and organizational consultation as well as customized workshops, trainings and team retreats.

If you would like to see the transcript for this episode it’s here for downloading.

Listen Here

The Editor’s Cut – Episode 030 – “What is Anti-Oppression? With Tenniel Brown”

Sarah Taylor [00:00:01]

Hello and welcome to The Editor’s Cut. I’m your host Sarah Taylor. At the CCE, we began our journey of self education with Anti-Oppression training in 2019. It was invaluable for us as it provided us with tools to assess how we as an organization could set a course of action to root our unconscious and systematic bias in our operations. This training is now a permanent part of our budget so future board members and volunteers can continue this work, and equity can be part of the fabric of our organization. We are offering a Lunch and Learn Introduction To Anti Oppressive Communication with Tenniel Brown on July 27. Today I’m lucky to be able to sit down with Tenniel Brown and discuss what Anti-Oppressive training is and what we can expect from this webinar. Tenniel Brown is a passionate anti-racist anti oppression and mental health speaker dedicated to improving the experiences of marginalized people in all institutional settings. She is the founder of the Centre For Anti-Oppressive Communication which specializes in providing anti oppressive, trauma-informed counseling, clinical supervision and organizational consulting, as well as customized workshops training and team retreats. I’m joined with Tenniel Brown, she is the founder of the Centre For Anti-Oppressive Communication based in Toronto. And we just want to have a little conversation about why anti oppression work is important in this and all days but specifically right now. So can you just tell us a little bit about your background and why you started the Center For Anti-Oppressive Communication.

Tenniel Brown [00:01:41]

My background is as a psychotherapist. So I spent I’ve spent many many years working with individuals and couples and families and groups helping them to access more of their well-being by addressing different mental health issues specifically trauma. One of the things that I specialize in addressing is racialized trauma. But also trauma that comes from folks that have experienced different types of oppression. And I think for most people that are called to this type of work it’s quite personal for me right. So often when you don’t see the work that you know needs to happen in the community taking place you create it. And so that was me. You know I think I saw that there was a need for organizations to have somebody come in and not just talk about diversity inclusion but talk about what happens when certain identities have power and that unbalance of power and how to actually address that in our communication. I knew that out in the community there were therapists and social workers that were wanting to do better work. You know work in the best practice way with clients that are black, racialized, queer, and trans, and had nowhere to go to get supervision and support. And finally I knew personally that there were so many folks that when they were ready to do therapy work they needed to see someone sitting across the office that looked like them or had a very similar lived experience and they just were not going to come unless that was the case. So all these things I knew was happening and nobody was doing it. And I said someone’s got to do something and that was me. I think what needs to come out of what’s happened in June is for folks to see black professionals and black community in in the in sort of like the the brilliance of what we do and it’s not uncommon that in many cases where we don’t see ourselves we create it. So yeah that was the spirit of and I think that when I started the organization I knew that it was important for there to be a place where folks from those different backgrounds could come and get that support and information. So it’s a real passion of mine. It is my baby and it’s so beautiful to see folks wanting this information during this time.

Sarah Taylor [00:04:01]

Yeah so important. Can you tell us what Anti-Oppression means and what someone can expect by taking an anti oppressive workshop?

Tenniel Brown [00:04:10]

Sure absolutely. So when you sort of break down the word anti oppression anti oppressive practice we take a look at that anti part and essentially that that just means opposition to oppression and then the practice part. So AOP… the practice part pertains to the context in which you are practicing opposition to oppression. So you can apply an anti oppressive lens to just about anything. And I’ve had the opportunity to work with organizations like Pride Toronto and work with your curators to apply an anti-oppressive lens to the way they do event organizing. I have applied an anti oppressive lens to the way I do therapy and clinical supervision with other therapists. You can apply an anti oppressive lens to teaching. You can apply it to student advising, you can apply it to just about anything. I’ve been working with fitness professionals looking at applying an anti oppressive lens to the way that they support folks that are on their fitness journey. So so it’s about looking at whatever practice whatever context you are working in and using that platform to be able to oppose oppression and all of its forms. So that’s essentially what it is.

Sarah Taylor [00:05:29]

And so when someone takes courses like anti oppressive communication course or participates in your courses what can they expect to be talking about or learning?

Tenniel Brown [00:05:37]

Absolutely so I think one of the most important things is to sort of pull back a little bit of you know the cover on this because I think anti oppressive language is its own language. It’s like Spanish. And you see so many people getting themselves into some rather serious trouble these days because they actually don’t know the language they don’t understand… in some ways the harm of some of the things that they’re doing and saying the deep harm of that. You get a lot of people who don’t really know how to talk about these issues. And so you go into a shame spiral and you just don’t talk. You just get very quiet and I always argue that you know the silence piece is a part of how we got ourselves into this trouble as a human society in the first place. So what I offer is something for everybody. I think over the years what folks have said to me is is even somebody who’s maybe got a social work background and knows about anti oppressive practice when they come to one of my trainings they find that they are moved further along in their application of that perspective around “OK, well what does this mean when I’m interacting with somebody right here in a one on one context.” Other people that are completely brand new have never had the chance to learn any of this language or understand any of these concepts have said over the years that they felt like they left with a really good sense of what this topic is. But not just that practical skills. I’m all about practical skills. I want to offer things that folks can use tomorrow today and the next day and my mission is also for folks to leave his training and talk about it. Tell a friend, tell a colleague, tell a family member, and feel equipped to be able to engage in these conversations. So when someone is saying or doing something problematic, you have this confidence in the skills to be able to interpret what’s going on there and to be able to talk to them and to be able to address it. The other thing that I do is I couch everything that I do in my trainings in a self care and team care perspective. And I think this is very important. We have to look after our emotions. We have to look after ourselves and we have to look after each other. I always say you could be as anti oppressive as you want but if you haven’t had any lunch… if you haven’t eaten anything… you’re not good.

Sarah Taylor [00:07:57]

You’ve got the hangries!

Tenniel Brown [00:07:59]

Trust me, Anti-Oppressive work requires patience. It requires empathy. It requires compassion and self compassion. You will fall down a lot and I find you know and I talk a lot about cancel culture and don’t get me wrong really that could be its own podcast.

Sarah Taylor [00:08:19]

Totally. Especially in this industry.

Tenniel Brown [00:08:22]

Look we need to talk about this and I get why certain people are being canceled for sure. And yet as someone who does this work I recognize that I’m so thankful I wasn’t canceled because over the years I’ve done and said things before I knew before I took a course like this before I had an opportunity to learn what was problematic about my lens. I’m so thankful that I was able to make those mistakes in a safe environment and actually benefit from that and grow. So people get a safe environment to learn language and understand what is going on, what is oppression, if oppression is so bad why don’t we just stop this. Well I unpack that for folks. Why is this so complicated and why doesn’t this just stop. And then I provide practical skills for folks to be able to apply this to their lives and their communication. I think the other thing that I think folks get is not just sort of a general whatever, you’ll find that I’m really interested in applying it to film editors and what it is that you do on a regular basis and looking at how you can use your platform to be able to actually oppose oppression.

Sarah Taylor [00:09:31]

Yeah well it’s like it’s huge I know for myself we did anti oppression workshop as a board for the CCE. I’m in an interracial marriage and so I thought “Oh I know a lot.” Like I’ve been unpacking this stuff for a while and understanding in my own way. But also like kind of like how do I say it to my white uncle who is racist like how do I approach that. And by taking that one course, like you said I got so much more understanding of where people might come from and the language and I could approach it not by just being angry because anytime I’d hear anything I was like “You’re talking about my husband, you’re talking about my child! This is not OK!” And so it made a huge impact on me and I felt like I kind of knew some stuff but I realized that there was so much more to learn. And I think I’m still learning and it’s opened up even conversations I’ve had with my husband and my in-laws… and so I think people who are in my situation are like “no I’m cool I got I’m married to so-and-so or I have my best friend or whatever.” You grew up in your lens and there’s way more to learn and unpack.

Tenniel Brown [00:10:41]

Absolutely. Absolutely it’s so true. And I always say that absolutely positively nobody gets a pass on this.

Sarah Taylor [00:10:48]

100 percent.

Tenniel Brown [00:10:49]

At all. You know myself as someone who identifies as a black fem queer woman, you know folks would be like well you know you of course you couldn’t oppress. And it’s like yes we are all susceptible to experiencing oppression and we are all oppressors. So I have aspects of my identity that allow me to have privilege. And the thing about this is that if you’re not aware of those things that’s how you harm people that’s how you engage in micro aggressions. You know what I mean? That’s how you you know get striking up a conversation with someone about your latest renovation in your house when this person is still renting and doesn’t even have access. These are the types of things that you’re never protected from. Right. Like you’re not protected from that in a certain way. So it’s really important to remember that.

Sarah Taylor [00:11:40]

Where should someone start if they’re like feeling overwhelmed they’re like wow I know that I need to make this change. I’ve seen all this information now on social media and I’m saying all the wrong things and like you said I’m just going to be quiet which is not the right thing to do. So where do they go and what should they focus on first to just like get into this mindset of making these changes?

Tenniel Brown [00:12:02]

That’s a great question. And what I would say is education. Not a coincidence right? So of course you know joining with you know your organization to offer this to the community because I think that’s step number one. I think we do need to have good information about… you need to educate yourself. I would say that it’s a really important first step to really listen, and I find even when you have more information and you have more training it even improves the way that you can listen because what you find is when you don’t have that knowledge there’s certain things that are sort of prevent you from even being open. So I find the training and the skills and the confidence that you get from doing the course like this allows you to even listen deeper right and understand more and I think that that’s step number one. I think that once… but don’t stay there! Because I think a lot of people oh I’m listening but really it’s just their guilt and shame. So yeah they’re still not doing anything but once you’ve had the chance to listen you now can start thinking more about your platform and I think that’s one of the most important thing for your listeners to know that if it’s like well I’m not a social worker I’m not a therapist what’s this got to do with me it’s like it has everything to do with you. You have a platform as a film editor and it’s important for you to acknowledge that there are big ways and small ways that you can make a difference. And we all have a responsibility. What’s happened in this world since COVID what’s happened in this world since June is we can no longer close our eyes to this. We have to look at this and all the years that we have stayed silent on this has been what’s caused the problem. So the reality is is that we all are called to use our platform to be able to address this to look around the room and be like who isn’t here? To look around your history of the films that you and different projects you’ve been involved in and being like how many of these people, how many of these stories featured stories that were outside of what we usually see? Right. And looking at the ways that you can use your platform and your influence to be able to make a change, so we’re all called to do that I don’t care if you’re a child care worker or a housekeeper do some working at a gas station, it literally doesn’t matter we’re all a part of this human society. We all have some sort of platform and so we all have a responsibility to do something. You know Sarah one of my favorite slogans that’s come out of the protest is “Silence is Violence.” I love that one because I know what happens when people don’t have education and knowledge. They go into a shame cycle they go into a guilt cycle and they go into fear and you know what happens there? Shh. And you know what, that doesn’t help anybody at all. So I recognize that these are difficult things for us to unpack but we all have a responsibility to use whatever platform we have to make a difference. So starting by educating yourself, listening a lot, and then that’s going to help you to be more open to what you can do. And then looking at your platform whether that be personal or professional to make a change.

Sarah Taylor [00:15:20]

That was perfect. Yeah. That’s huge. And even since I took my training and even just since I’ve done my own inner work I noticed like I wouldn’t pick certain shots anymore or there’ll be things in my edit where I’m like “that’s a stereotype” or “No that’s not going to work. We can’t do that we can’t have that.” And so I think if everybody’s doing that then what we’re seeing on screen can start changing.

Tenniel Brown [00:15:45]

Absolutely. Absolutely and there’s these you know there’s there’s big ways and then there’s little ways like you describe. So it’s it is about really curating your lens, right and making sure that you’re seeing more and I think training like this just helps you to really open up your lens. So you’re not just seeing directly what’s in front of you work to the side of you but it’s more of like a panoramic view which you folks really need in the work that you do.

Sarah Taylor [00:16:09]

100 percent. Yeah. Well I hope that our membership joins us. I know we’ve already been getting people RSVPing which is very exciting. On July 27 2020 to learn and to unpack and to take part and just hopefully we can continue to do stuff with you and just keep educating and making the changes we can make.

Tenniel Brown [00:16:28]

Yeah. Join us. Join us. Don’t hesitate folks. Be a part of this. I’m really looking forward to working with everybody. And you know what we’re gonna have fun. I know these topics are really heavy but we’re gonna have some fun and we’re really going to connect with each other as a community so I look forward to meeting everybody at this training.

Sarah Taylor [00:16:46]

Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today and I look forward to seeing you on the 27th and continuing my journey. So thank you for doing this for us and thank you for sharing your knowledge and your experience with the world. So thank you so much.

Tenniel Brown [00:16:59]

You’re so welcome. Thanks for having me.

Sarah Taylor [00:17:03]

Thank you so much for joining us today. And a big thank you goes to Tenniel Brown and a special thanks to Maureen Grant and Jane MacRae. If you’d like to connect with Tenniel, you can find her on Instagram @TennielBrown. If you’d like to bring Tenniel into your organization to learn more about anti oppressive work, you can check out her website at brownconsulting.com. I look forward to learning more from Tenniel on July 27 2020 at the CCE Lunch and Learn I hope to see you there. The CCE has been supporting BIPOC TV and FILM. BIPOC TV and FILM is a grassroots organization and collective of black, indigenous, and people of colour in Canada’s TV and film industry. From writers, directors, producers, and actors, to editors, crew members, and executives. Their members are a mix of emerging, mid-level, and established industry professionals. BIPOC TV and FILM is dedicated to increasing the representation of BIPOC both in front and behind the camera. If you would like to donate to BIPOC TV and FILM please head to their website at bipoctvandfilm.com. The CCE is taking steps to build a more equitable ecosystem within our industry and we encourage our members to participate in any way they can. 

The main title sound design was created by Jane Tattersall. Additional ADR recording by Andrea Rusch. Original music provided by Chad Blain. This episode was mixed and mastered by Tony Bao. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and tell your friends to tune in. Til next time I’m your host Sarah Taylor.

Outtro

The CCE is a non-profit organization with the goal of bettering the art and science of picture editing. If you wish to become a CCE member please visit our website www.cceditors.ca. Join our great community of Canadian editors for more related info.

Subscribe Wherever You Get Your Podcasts

What do you want to hear on The Editors Cut?

Please send along any topics you would like us to cover or editors you would love to hear from:

Credits

A special thanks goes to

Jane MacRae

Maureen Grant

Hosted, Produced and Edited by

Sarah Taylor

Mixed and Mastered by

Tony Bao

Original Music by

Chad Blain

Categories
The Editors Cut

Episode 031: Edit Chats with Daria Ellerman, CCE

Episode 031: Edit Chats with Daria Ellerman, CCE

Episode 031: Edit Chats with Daria Ellerman, CCE

This episode is the master class with Daria Ellerman, CCE, that took place on March 10, 2020 at Finalé in Vancouver.

This episode is sponsored by Finalé a Picture Shop Company, The Vancouver Post Alliance, IATSE 891, Annex Pro, AVID and Integral Artists.

Master Class Podcast Episode with Daria Ellerman CCE

Daria has over 25 years experience working in television and films. Some of her most recent credits include the new hit series on Netflix, Virgin River, the ABC series Take Two for which she won a 2019 Leo Award and the feature film Meditation Park.

This master class was moderated by Kirk Hay.

Listen Here

The Editor’s Cut – Episode 031 – “Q&A with Daria Ellerman, CCE” (Master Series)

Sarah Taylor

This episode was generously sponsored by Finale — A picture shop company, the Vancouver post alliance, IATSE 891, Annex Pro, Avid and Integral Artists. Hello and welcome to The Editor’s Cut. I’m your host Sarah Taylor. This episode is part of our Master Series and was the Master Class with Daria Ellerman, CCE that took place on March 10th 2020 at Finale in Vancouver. Daria has over 25 years of experience working in television and films. Some of her most recent credits include the new hit series on Netflix “Virgin River” which I’ve binge-watched-the ABC series “Take Two” for which she won the 2019 Leo Award and the feature film “Meditation Park.” This Master Series was moderated by Kirk Hay.

Kirk Hay

I met Daria in 2012 on a kids show when I was assisting and it was there that Daria gave me the opportunity to cut. So I started cutting in 2012 on the kids show. Then we did two seasons of that then another kids show, all multi cam stuff. Then I left to do some other things animation and some MOWs and then we reconnected on season one Virgin River last year and this year I got to cut two episodes once again with the support of Daria. So that was great. It was really really helped me knowing that I could always lean on Daria if there was a an issue of course there was lots of issues as there always are. So yes so we’ve known each other for a while actually when I sat down to think about this a little bit about Daria two decades of experience editing television series, MOWs, documentaries, feature films. Her credits include the feature film Meditation Park which opened the 2017 Vancouver International Film Festival and Birdwatcher. Several MOWs and hundreds of hours of episodic television. Daria’s versatility comes from the variety of projects she has been involved in from comedy to drama across genres and 140 episodes of sitcom that include a live audience. Daria has been nominated for nine Leo awards, a Southampton International Film Festival award, a Gemini Award, and a CCE award as a picture editor, and won Leo Awards for her work on television series Take Two and The Collector and she currently just wrapped the Netflix series Virgin River. Now the special thing about the sitcom things is in front of a live audience is just to interject a little bit into that is the pressure in which you have to turn around a cut for the audience on Friday and they only shoot was it Thursday-Friday? Thursday Friday. So I don’t know if you’re talking a little bit about that later but that was that was something else. She’s a master of art and it gives me great pleasure to introduce Daria.

Daria Ellerman

Thank you. And I can’t believe how many people here I know, how many people here assisted me, how many people are now my fellow colleagues, those editors, and I can’t believe you guys want to hear me talk but anyways we’re going to talk and I just wanted to tell you what I thought I would do. I’m gonna show a clip the first episode of Virgin River Season 1 Episode 1 and I wanted to talk about… I want to of talk about it from the perspective of the three ways that a story gets written, any story any movie or television series it’s the script, it’s written in production, and it’s written in post-production, and I wanted to sort of should show you the clip and then explain the different areas where there was impacts on the script by both production and post-production, and also the way that we would edit this particular scene as the fact that it’s the first episode of a new series. And I’ve I’ve done I think I counted them up I might have written it down… I’ve done ten or twelve episode ones of a season one, and I’ve done two pilots that were… one was a backdoor pilot which was a movie of the week for Sabrina the Teenage Witch the half hour sitcom, which went on to be completely retooled and nothing that we did was used. And then another pilot that was an action kind of tween thing… teen thing that got rejigged and we used part of the pilot but it became a new thing so that’s a more conventional pilot style. You know we don’t really do pilots so much anymore, particularly I don’t still think it’s a Netflix or streaming thing really. We just sort of launch in and so there are some considerations about when you’re doing Episode 1 season one and I was sort of aware that this was more knowledgeable audience and I thought that might be a more interesting way look at this clip. So we could play the first clip I think.

[Clip Plays]

[Clip Audio]

Daria Ellerman

How do you like watching that again Kirk?

Kirk Hay

It was the song again and again and again.

Daria Ellerman

So the reason I wanted to… the reason I wanted to talk about the three ways that the script is written is because it took me a while to start thinking about how production is impacted by so many different things and how we would you know gather in the bullpen and complain about the way something was shot. Then once the director came in you might find out like like in the season just recently that there was a truck mount on a car and then there was an accident and then the truck mount was off the car. So we only had one camera on this particular scene when it and it was like Oh this is such an ugly angle. Right. So you just you just you just wonder like who who shot this why were they doing this. And I think it’s important for us as editors to kind of realize that that the impact that production has on what is scripted that we just kind of have to deal with it and stop going out in the bullpen and complaining. Well I guess we’ll never do that but… and I’ve also been in meetings where you know there’s a script that has it like lots of many small scenes and I’ve seen a production manager directly address the writer it’s like OK so you’ve got 12/8 of the pages here at twelve different locations. You can have six. You know? And so then the writer has to go back because they don’t we can’t afford to go to twelve locations so they have to somehow figure out how to either make. Two locations out of one location or you know like it’s like the writer was never expecting that they would be have to go back and rewrite something just because the money’s you know there isn’t enough money allocated for that many locations so the writer starts with this idealized thing. Then even once prep starts they have to start immediately. The thing becomes un-idealized and then as production goes then it becomes further impacted. And then when we’re in post we choose to sometimes change the script. So in the case of this show, the first three shots that we saw which were an overhead shot, a drive by, and a drone at dusk, never existed in the production of that episode as scripted. It started at night with the woods with the car driving in. So production shot what was scripted but as we were editing episode one of course episode two… well one and two shot together so episode 3 and 4 are shooting, and there’s editing going on and we also were supplied with a bank of drone shots beautiful beauty shots that we were using as transitions. And so you know we’re sitting around and realizing that there’s not there’s not really much of an opening here. And we we wanted a few things; we wanted more time to establish our song because it was the first episode of a new season we’re trying to create interest. We wanted you to listen to that song because we were trying to suggest something with the lyrics of the world keeps moving on… whether you know not literally but we wanted… we wanted that to resonate. And we also thought about things like… and this was a collaboration between the showrunner and the executive producer that was in post and myself and our post producer and Kirk and you know how can we do this. And so we decide well you know what, we have all these beautiful drone shots. We should probably start the episode with a drone shot because that’s going to be a visual motif. It’s gonna give us time. And while we’re while we’re getting this drone shot you know, Gary can you get us a couple more shots right? And then we were all because of the what the drone could shoot where the location we were at. The only shot we could get from the drone was from behind the car and it comes up and it’s a beautiful shot. But that’s not the shot we all have in our minds when we wanted to we wanted this great this epic drone shot just one shot. You know Gary might be able to get us some other shots but so production impacted us in the limitations of the drone. We at post impacted the writer’s script by deciding we wanted more of an opening. We wanted to try and draw the audience in and we had to remove something coming up later. So we wanted to emphasize the smallness of a of a car in a wild world. And we wanted to establish the world of our show so that when the drone comes up that is the world of our show Squamish is in for Northern California. And also we wanted to maybe suggest that this has been a long journey so if we shot that at dusk then we would dip to black and then we would come up into the episode per script which was that this car drives through the forest. And so… so something else that we think of when we’re when we’re editing is our shot selection so the kind of shots we were trying to select for the beginning were with that idea of this is a lonely road or in the forest first it’s dusk, now it’s night. So that the first time we come to the shot of someone in the car there is no question that this is our main character. We’re not being coy about it at all. We’re not like shooting from behind or from the side or we’re like the first thing that we decide to do after trying to establish this opening is to just show you this person. This is the person that you need to be interested in. This is the person whose story we’re telling right now, whose point of view this scene is from. And in terms of shot selection as well the director had done a nice little tilt down. So we saw the phone and and it wasn’t and it wasn’t really inserting and we really liked that and then we did a little VFX where we replaced it so that we could do the no service thing. And that was just mainly just that the director she was so awesome. She just like kind of just did this thing and then we’re like oh but we could like make a sound and put something on the screen and then we recorded some ADR of her going “oh great.” And again you know just trying to emphasize that she is a fish out of water because you might get from her appearance and from her fancy car that perhaps she’s not a person who regularly travels these roads or lives in this area. Anyways that took a long time to get there. It took a lot of cuts and it took a lot of thought and a lot of discussions and a lot of meetings and then and then to have… you know our director or second unit director go out and survey and come back with the news about well this is the only shot I can get you. But at the end of the day we felt that we had accomplished that anyways. So then the next section is is the the stalking semi which we were trying to to show that she was rattled and I guess it would be unfamiliar for her to maybe deal with a semi on a dirt road like that. And and then she skids which takes us into the flashback. So in the script the semi honks and goes by her. And then a bear suddenly rears up in front of her. And roars and that she slams on the brakes and hits her head on the dash. So like I like to call this like “look ma no bear!” So… Kirk like tried… we tried we like ordered up… we shot a bear.

 

Kirk Hay

There was a bear.

 

Daria Ellerman

There was a bear. We shot a bear but we shot the bear in December. What are bears doing in December? This bear was so sleepy and all the bear could do is turn its head and open its mouth and like we put the growl in, like we tried speeding it up, we ordered up a green screen bear, we tried we didn’t have a plate. We had the bear… what was wrong with the bear shot?

 

Kirk Hay

The only shot they did was a POV over her shoulder. A POV or like over the shoulder through the window. And then they had to have a wire an electric wire run around the bear because it was a huge grizzly.

 

Daria Ellerman

Yeah. It was like a fence.

 

Kirk Hay

And then the trainer was there like with its biscuits going like… and the bear was literally going like “my mouth so dry,” like it opened its mouth. It was like that. So the roar was like [blah.] So that was a problem. And then the way they shot it was because they didn’t want to run over the bear. The car just goes like this.

 

Daria Ellerman

Yeah. That’s right the car just slowed down.

 

Kirk Hay

We had we had to try and speed up the car get rid of the fence, get rid of the trainer, anger up the bear. And there was no plate no clean plate no anything.

 

Daria Ellerman

And a strange light too a strange light because they did do a B-camera on the actual just bear. And he was kind of like in this little halo of light. Yeah. And so then we like had come up with this version the best we thought we could do. And then the big kahuna show runner who happened to be on set a lot in season one not so much in season two. She came in the room she sat down we played her the sequence and she said “get rid of the bear.” We agonized over this!

 

Kirk Hay

And we got rid of the shot we got green screen animals to give us a bear. They were like “hey Kirk you know after effects” I’m like No no… “you do now.” I mean they’re comping the whole thing up. So we did our due diligence. I mean we covered that every… I was I thought they were gonna like come and glue hair on me and be like “All right Kirk out to the road you go.” But we tried it all.

 

Daria Ellerman

But that that was just mind blowing actually because it was so obvious but you know you well it’s not my practice any ways to cut out anything before it before the showrunner’s seen it. I mean even when directors make lifts I’m kind of like oh okay because generally on television series, not on features, you know that the showrunner is gonna want to see everything that was in the script unless like there’s like a phone call in a discussion and an agreement like okay I I really do want to see it that way. So I don’t think… there was never… the option of removing the bear was never an option we thought… even the Post Producer then.

 

Kirk Hay

Then the question was What do we do when the bear’s gone?

 

Daria Ellerman

Right. So so I said I’ll make the skid happen out of the semi which you know when you have like a nice shaky when you have nice shaky shots like that nice little skid sound a little music sting it would just it you know it wasn’t that hard. And in retrospect it feels cleaner than to have had first a semi menace her and then a bear. Like I mean that might have been a bit much but I think that that what the writer was trying to do was really show the danger of the wilderness area that they were in and the unexpectedness of a bear she would probably never expect this, this woman from L.A.. So it felt like it was really super important to have the bear.

 

Kirk Hay

A lot of money was spent on that bear too.

 

Daria Ellerman

A lot of money was spent on that bear but it was yeah it was yeah man it was hilarious. And the interesting thing was that I mean the showrunner also happened to have written the first episode and she was not at all precious about the bear. She was like “get rid of the bear!” right. So yeah first episode first season flashback. So we have a flashback because it’s a conventional way that we are going to reveal backstory about characters right. It’s kind of a trope… it’s very accepted and also putting it right in the opening is saying to the audience this is how we’re gonna this how we’re gonna do this, right? That’s why that flashback is there and it’s also to make you wonder who this woman is, to put her in a hospital setting so maybe you think that she works in a hospital and then to create this kind of eye contact between her and the doctors so that you maybe think oh is this person important. And that flashback was a lot longer and it got truncated just to make it a lot cleaner. And I think that’s better better than exchanging a lot of dialogue that wasn’t really gonna build on what is there. And we thankfully cut to it because I think it was scripted with the flash of light and somehow a flash of light was gonna come through that… I don’t know what was going to… anyways once we got rid of the bear we had to rethink that and I personally always prefer a cut to a flashback. We did pre lap some of the audio going in because there was just some concern about making it really clear to people that we were transitioning into a flashback. And I think did we have a little sound there?

 

Kirk Hay

Flashback whooshes were had, lots of them were sampled and gone through and I just think they didn’t like that idea. No it was really like a double hat on that thing….

 

Daria Ellerman

Yeah a hat on a hat. Yeah yeah that’s our showrunner’s favorite saying “hat on a hat” and I’m glad and I’m glad because I think we even auditioned a white flash which is like please say no please say no. And then we come out of the flashback and we we are meeting a new character and as the as the episode went on we were continually meeting new characters because it’s the first episode but in that scene we were we were trying to be wide whenever we could just to emphasize the remoteness and you know remind us that we’re in the woods and see her you know assuming that her cell phone is gonna work even though we had the insert where she said she had no service right. She should have known her cell phone was….

 

Kirk Hay

You always check it still.

 

Daria Ellerman

You do right. And then we cut to the main title card which was not scripted and that’s a thing that I’ve noticed you know recently and I’ve been on shows where I’ve like you know when I’ve had an opportunity to speak to the showrunner and they’re not scripting them where the main title card goes like “Hey guys want a script that?” you know and some people are like “yes!” because they they realize that that might affect how the director might direct if they knew that we were cutting to a main title card and like there’s so many shows now that that you know just slammed the graphic on top of footage for a scene. But this the these scripts never had the main title card scripted or where we were gonna place it. So it got placed in several areas. This was I think the earliest it got placed. We had it placed later I think. And then even later. And then we came back to here but it’s just I noticed that’s always an interesting… it’s a thing because in this case it helped us. There was a time cut you know the scene that came after that they’re in the truck and they’re driving. It also helped us emphasize that she had a decision to make right there. Like is she going to get in the car with this guy. I mean she’s really have any choice. Like what is she going to do. Sit in her car and wait for the bear to get her? Oh right. She doesn’t know there’s a bear.

 

Kirk Hay

There was a ripple effect of that too cause didn’t doesn’t Doc say there’s bears out here she goes “there’s bears out here?” Yeah but the title thing also goes back to the Netflix all knowing all seeing they know that if a title last longer than I think it’s 10 seconds then you have to follow certain format because people will skip past it. So if you have a title they want you to have it this long or that long nothing in between. Because I know that people are gonna… so that played a part in….

 

Daria Ellerman

Yeah. How long?

 

Kirk Hay

Seven and a half seconds.

 

Daria Ellerman

Right. So we’re doing it under the ten seconds so that we don’t get the skip.

 

Kirk Hay

Yeah yeah yeah.

 

Daria Ellerman

And there was talk of a main title as well. And for some reason I’m under the impression that Netflix would rather not do a main title and I’m not 100 percent certain why that is. But I think some productions insist and they they do a main title. Like I did another show where they went out to a place in London England and did a beautiful main title and Netflix was OK with it but but also then I think that’s where that skip thing comes in. So when you… oh no but you can’t skip it unless it’s at the beginning. Like when you’re watching them when you’re bingeing. Right. Right. Anyways there’s we’re having, it’s funny because that’s the thing when you work on Netflix show there’s a lot of these discussions about the Netflix rules and things of where you. Yeah.

 

Kirk Hay

And they change ever so slightly every season.

 

Daria Ellerman

Yeah. If it’s not scripted I I like to see if they will but I don’t think we’re ever gonna script them on Virgin River. We’re just going to plunk them in and then continue to move them from cut to cut. Right.

 

Kirk Hay

And then when the director comes in you can say “it would be great if you shot a specific shot for the main title” and they always go “that’s a great idea!”.

 

Daria Ellerman

That’s true!

 

Kirk Hay

And then that next block you’re “like where is it?”.

 

Daria Ellerman

Yeah. And then in season one we had that same card on every episode and in season two we have a different shot for every episode which is kind of nice actually. Yeah. Does anybody have anything specific about that clip that we were talking about or anything that I said that was confusing or Kirk said was confusing?

 

Audience Question

The opening music did you have that well beforehand or did you get that later?

 

Daria Ellerman

That’s a great question actually because um…no. So before we had the extended opening we did want something in there and we tried… we tried a number of things and we tried to go a number of ways because Netflix… and this is not a Netflix symposium here but… it was Netflix kind of digs the idea of of a of a cover or something recognizable that’s affordable or they’re all about having you know a source cue at the beginning and at the end of an episode that costs a little bit more than you know that kind of library stuff that you might put in other scenes. And we really didn’t have enough time. The way that it was shot before we before we were like into the bear which is now into the crash and so I think the most recent thing I think I probably had temp score in there when we decided to get rid of the bear. And then when we decided to get rid of the bear is when we had the conversation about extending the beginning and then we started auditioning a lot of songs and we had an executive producer in post that season and… who was really into finding music and she knew this song and she came in one Monday morning is like “this is the song that we should use.” And so we started using this song, everybody in production really liked it. And so then we did start in a little bit of black and try and make our shot lengths so that we could establish the lyrics that we wanted to. And we did even edit I think for like we edited a verse so that we could get lyrics that we wanted before we crashed into score for the semi thing. But a lot of times we do have a song. It might be scripted or it might have been sent to us and we find something that we like, or sometimes our showrunner will be like I really love this song, and we will work with it from the beginning, but and this goes to episode one of the season one is, that first of all you’re going to redo the temp score 10 times anyways and any songs that you’re gonna use, like you’re going to you’re gonna burn through 100 source cues before you land on the three or four ones that you’re gonna feature in the episode. It’s just everybody knows what they don’t like. They just don’t know how to tell you what they want, and they might not even know what it is until they hear it anyways. And in this one it was… we all kind of liked the vibe of it, but the world keeps moving on was really very important and it’s important to the story because you know this character is is coming out of a lot of it, she’s leaving L.A. for a new start in the small town and leaving behind a lot of personal bullshit right. And we we really thought that song would really help us establish that and we were hoping that it would draw you in and keep you interested because as a viewer of streaming services, it’s not lost on me how quickly I’ll give up on something. Nope, next! You know. And so when you’re editing something for a streaming service you’re like Oh my God how can we not have people do that how can we keep people interested? So I think that we hoped that the song would do that. We hoped that having a little bit of action and a flashback to make you think… then a grumpy old man, and then a main title might be enough for you to go “OK I’ll see what’s… see what’s happening next.”.

 

Kirk Hay

Yeah there’s a lot of information crammed into that opening. With the introduction of the main character, a flashback, the crash. It’s quite busy as far as that goes.

 

Audience Question

How long can you go before the opening title?

 

Daria Ellerman

It was like 2:30-3:00 or something.

 

Kirk Hay

Some of the shows were like “How about here?” “How about there?” But never passed like five minutes. There were some that were late. I think it’s like 3:30 or something around there.

 

Daria Ellerman

Yeah it almost is like… it seems that we do like to do a teaser type thing but it’s not scripted that way and sometimes it’s like I said… Why don’t you… it’s easier to just script it as a teaser but you know.

 

Audience Question

Was the flashback scripted?

 

Daria Ellerman

Yeah. It was longer and we cut we cut it down and I think that this episode didn’t end up being super long the way you know like a lot of first episodes on streaming services are beyond what we’re used to seeing the 43 minutes of broadcast hour. I think this one was forty eight minutes or so seven minutes yeah. So it wasn’t it wasn’t super long and our goal was to keep people interested. So cutting down scenes.

 

Kirk Hay

I feel bad for the bear. He probably got all his friends around like “all right I’m in the show. Wait a minute. Where’d I go?”.

 

Daria Ellerman

Shooting a bear in December!

 

Audience Question

Once you decided to cut the bear, did they pick anything up for the car crash?

 

Daria Ellerman

There was talk of doing an insert on the wheel and stuff and actually I was I was really not encouraging that because they also thought while at the same time we can get the wheel in the ditch because it could be as the doc character says well your car’s in a ditch and basically you see two cars parked there whatever your car’s not drivable. That’s all that really matters. And I thought well where it first well where am I going to… how am I going to make this wheel insert work for the skid without it without it kind of just looking stuck in like I preferred it to flow out of out of the the pass-by of the semi. The idea that she just skidded over to the shoulder so sound can help us there. We had a nice shaky POVs we were inside the car and then we… you know it’s I think faster is better. So while yes they were thinking about that and then it just got… it was at the bottom of the list and then it just dropped off, thank goodness.

 

Audience Question

Is it something dark this show, or just… because I was startled a little bit by the song?

 

Sarah Taylor

Yeah. No it’s not. It’s not necessarily but as as I’ve watched this clip a few times recently I’m like yeah man. First of all like it’s night. It was it was just night and it’s dark and then the whole opening takes place at night until like I don’t know 10 minutes in or something.

 

Kirk Hay

It’s funny though it does get there’s a bit comedy… as soon as you come back from that main title, there’s a bit of a comedic beat and then even more of a comedic beat and then an even more so it does start like that. And then yeah it’s streaming on Netflix right now.

 

Daria Ellerman

Yeah I just didn’t really want to play so much so that we could just sort of talk a really a little bit about. But yeah you’re right. Like it does.

 

Kirk Hay

That’s capturing the audience again too.

 

Daria Ellerman

Yeah yeah.

 

Kirk Hay

Getting them interested. See. What’s going on here. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Daria Ellerman

And then when we do lighten up. Like I’m always a fan of any moments that you can… where you can lighten up is is always fun.

 

Audience Question

I’m also curious when you locked that music, did you find you’re shifting some edits or is it perfect?

 

Daria Ellerman

No I because I felt it was perfect [laughs]. Plus I edited the song roughly and the music editor or maybe Kirk edited the song.

 

Kirk Hay

Well I had a crack at it.

 

Daria Ellerman

We all you, know but anyways we had a rough edit of the song when we locked. If anything, yeah I actually did adjust the black at the beginning of the show because when I first laid that song it and we didn’t have the the three shots at the opening I had like 15 seconds of black so I could play my song so I only start now and a few seconds black.

 

Audience Question

So going back to the how tough it can be doing the first episode of the new series, how many versions of that opening do you think you did?

 

Daria Ellerman

Good question.

 

Kirk Hay

That project was about a terabyte….

 

Daria Ellerman

The iterations of the Bear were like 15 or 20….

 

Kirk Hay

There was original bear, there was new bear. And then there was a truck crash and then there was in the truck crash we were trying to figure out how to do that. There were sound… there was stuff was just sound design like working on trying to get that wheel from the gravel to the dirt and her and Mel who is the main character there… her stuff.

 

Daria Ellerman

Yeah it is my experience with every opening of this episode one season one just even though like we were so let’s say we did a 20 versions before we were happy. We touched that scene every time we looked at the bloody show in some way. And then when the episode was not long but longer than we wanted it to be, we went in to this like the flashback and into the subsequent scenes in the beginning and we did line lifts. So that came later in the process. Like everything sort of stayed. It’s that crazy thing where you think OK everything’s good right. OK well let’s just look at it one more time and it’s like oh….

 

Kirk Hay

And you can’t say no.

 

Daria Ellerman

You can’t say no of course not. I love making changes. Yeah. And certainly like I said the music that’s the main thing about an episode one season one thing is that like I said we were all temp score then we were all sound design then we had a song and then we didn’t have a song and then we blah…blah…and then we you know and and the music that’s in there. I think the composer did a redo. So what so then the composer sent music and then we gave notes on the music that he sent so he redid it before it even went to Netflix. Which is just you know luckily we had a composer who was so into providing us with score. Like wanted Netflix to hear it with his score which you don’t always have because the most frustrating thing is to continually replace temp that is never gonna be it’s never gonna be what what’s going to air. So and then it was great because then we had notes and he adjusted his score and then they probably had notes but I think it was a lot… it was by the time it went to Netflix it was pretty much what it is right there, I think.

 

Kirk Hay

I like getting tracks back from the composer for first track and you look at it in the end this is version 13, you’re like “version 13?” This is the first time we’ve heard this! So you know they’re on their end, doing the same thing. We did that this year to the composer tweaked some score or some source music that we had.

 

Daria Ellerman

Yeah. We also like to use a lot of source in this show. But then sometimes we like to transition our score to our source. So it’s so hard if you don’t have something that’s in the right key or with the right vibe and so then we would just ask our composer to give us something and it really really helped. Really helps. And you know it’s that old thing like “everybody’s a filmmaker. Don’t worry about it if it’s rough.” But no… people can not respond to the show if it isn’t completely scored and sound effected and V effected and sometimes even color timed. I mean we do some stuff in Avid but I mean sometimes we’d even have to get something a shot sent out if we thought it was too dark we’d have to to get it color corrected and cut it back in just to avoid having your broadcaster and your executives tune out of the show. You want them to see everything and hear everything. I have another clip that I just wanted to contrast with that. It’s a little comedy, kids show comedy, and mainly because man, cutting comedy’s the best. It’s so fun. When we worked on the multi cam sitcom we were laughing every day. Oh and sometimes we were like really really belly laughing. So we worked together and I was the editor for five seasons… Well three Mr. Young and three Some Assembly Required… six seasons of multi camera which was four cameras simultaneously. The idea of multi cam which is the basis of all sitcoms from our childhood, and which was credited with Desi Arnaz developing it for the Lucy show. I’m not sure if that’s really how it started. I think people were doing more than one camera but… is that when they shoot the sitcoms in Los Angeles, the idea is is that you set up the cameras so that you don’t have to do very many takes. So you’re trying to get a pass of four cameras that are all cutable. And if everything’s working you don’t even… you do a safety take but you don’t really need more than two takes. And they were shot in front of a live audience. What that meant was they did one day of pre shooting of sequences that might might be difficult to do in front of an audience because it would require a cut to make the comedy work, or there’d be a gag that would that would have to be cut around in Hollywood they would they would pre shoot for two or three days and then shoot in front of the audience. On these kids shows we would shoot like more than half the show on one day and then the next day we would shoot a half a day for a little bit more and then we would have an audience come in and we would shoot like probably a third of the show in front of the audience so we would pre shoot two thirds and we would shoot a third of the show in front of the audience and it was such a cool experience because I started to get called down to set which is a place that we just don’t really get called to. And the thing is our offices were upstairs in this building and they were shooting downstairs and the thing about a sitcom or a multi cam experience is that you don’t go outside. Everything’s in a studio right and they start calling me down to set and asking me like if the cameras were gonna cut and I’ll never forget like the first time I got called down to set and I looked over at this monitor that’s a quad split monitor and my eyes just flicked around and I said to the director who had worked with before, “I don’t think this is going to work.” I think we better if I had that and all of a sudden they’re they’re signaling OK they’re on the radio to the cameraman to change the shot. It was just like “Holy crap I hope this works” you know? But like I don’t even know where that came from. And so then there I was going up and down the stairs like on a regular basis which was super fun and then I would attend the live shows and do the same thing, like watch the cameras. And there was just this energy of… there’s people in the audience and then there’s these kids who are into the fact that there’s people in the audience. And we had adults as well… and and everybody’s game kind of comes up a bit when there’s an audience, and then they’re all the writers are down there and they’re checking off whether or not the jokes work and they’re huddling and rewriting the jokes and I’m just watching them shoot. And in my mind I know what… I know what I have to do on Monday when I have to come in and have the show ready. But like Kirk was saying… it was definitely grueling, and one of the hardest jobs I ever did but it was so fun because with the help of my assistants of which I had Warren, Dione, Kirk, Jon who would help me with the assembling because we would have to assemble all of the footage that was shot on the Thursday. We would have that material like within… I would have it within half an hour of it being… each scene being shot.

 

Kirk Hay

This show was also technically new to Vancouver. I don’t think anyone had ever done it where they recorded directly into the Avids. And when they yelled cut and the DIT downstairs pressed stop that MXF file was available. So as soon as they yelled cut it would be available but of course you waited till the scene was done and then you can organize it bring it upstairs. So there was a whole workflow issue that Daria was working through on the fly while she was learning multicam, while she had to cut Thursday’s footage, Friday morning’s footage, so, she’d cut til noon and then that was it. But you’d get footage til noon. And then the audience loaded in at 3:00 and they started at 4:00. So you had two thirds of a show to put together. Lots of slapstick comedy which meant resets to cut, remove, put stunt in, put the gag in, green screen… we had a VFX team that would do viz effects on the fly as well. Daria would pass it off to me I’d get it ready I’d send it down the hall they’d give it back, sound effected and all that stuff. So Daria is doing all that stuff. And then at the end of that, running downstairs and staying there till 10:00, 9:00 at night.

 

Daria Ellerman

It was fun. It was fun. So what we would do is we would play for the audience the scenes that we had assembled and then we would stop and they would perform a scene and that would be recorded for me to cut on Monday. Then we would play a bit more of the episode so the idea was that the audience saw the whole episode with these little breaks where a scene was performed live in front of them. It was something else but it was great because I had to rely on my assistants to to help me assemble. And then there was too many episodes for me to do because they start they would also do episodes without an audience some weeks. And so those then became the assistants’ episodes and then people got moved up to Editor and then we are hiring more assistants. So it was a really great experience for all of us and for me because it was just so different. You know like I was kind of like at a point in my career where I’d been just doing a lot a lot of episodic and it was like it would be nice to do something different and love to laugh. You know that was that was the main thing. So that was a really unique experience that I don’t know will ever happen again except the rumor at the Netflix mixer… is that Netflix is getting in the multi cam game. So who knows maybe they will do something here.

 

Kirk Hay

You get to learn to map your keyboard. Camera one two three.

 

Daria Ellerman

Exactly. Yep yep. And I mean it’s the form itself is the writers who write on it love it. The producers who produce it love it. It’s a thing like sure you know it’s kids and fart jokes and I mean I’ve got an eight year old boy inside me somewhere because I find all that stuff hilarious. And so the love of the forum also kind of infects you like you’re just like… you know it’s hugely collaborative that way. You know everybody is interested in everybody’s else’s opinion on how to make it better. So I hope it comes and I hope that you get the opportunity to work on something like that. We’re not going to show you anything from that because I… I didn’t even think about that but I did think it would be nice to contrast Virgin River with some comedy because we don’t get to do as much comedy here as I think any of us would like. Right. And I’ve done some single cam comedy as well and this clip I’ll show you in a bit is a single cam kids show right? And we do that here. And the main difference between the single cam comedy and the multi cam form is there’s no laugh track. So yes we did have a laugh track and we edited the laugh track. You guys edited the laugh track. And that was one thing where a lot of people who were quite cynical about it were like “Oh yeah. But it’s got a laugh track” but we didn’t have a lot of music, like the laughter was kind of our music. We had like stings a little stings in and out of scenes but it’s quite different that way. But I think that in terms of any comedy whether you have a laugh track or not you have to hold for laughs. You have to… in your head when you’re editing, I mean you have to be fast pace in your setups but you’ve got to let the the punchline land and you’ve got to give it a beat. And so when you’re editing with a laugh track it’s very easy to do because you’re putting a laugh under it. So people can’t jump it like I find sometimes in single camera comedy, sometimes the other actors don’t let the… like there’s a way to gracefully let a laugh land as a performer, as well so that it doesn’t feel like it’s staging.

 

Kirk Hay

Remember they would laugh on stage… that the video village crew would laugh. So the actors knew OK.

 

Daria Ellerman

Oh yeah. That’s the thing about multi cameras that anybody who is on the stage floor watching whether it’s a rehearsal or actual live shooting. You have to laugh. And so you develop your multi cam laugh where… because if you don’t laugh, no but the actors are like “whoa oh what’s wrong with it.” And sometimes you’re laughing at the same joke over and over and you do have to keep laughing.

 

Kirk Hay

Those poor live audiences would be like take 7 they’d be like what’s happening here?

 

Daria Ellerman

Oh yeah yeah yeah and we’d be down at the village going hahaha! You have to right? A little bit about comedy it’s all about timing: acting plus pacing. A lot of people say comedy lives in the wide shot, not necessarily. In sitcom, yeah. You know we did, we did have a lot of gags that were wide because they were visually were that. Single cam, not always but there’s just something about the looser angles in comedy with the body language and especially if you’re including lots of people in the gag you know it’s not… you tend not to use so many close ups. You tend to have fewer reactions and that’s not a hard and fast rule but the thing about comedy is it’s important to get the setup out so that the punchline lands and if you’re cutting away during a setup, there’s a possibility that people aren’t going to hear the setup. And of course sometimes part of the setup will include people’s reactions, if something is gross you might do it. But you would pace it in such a way that you’re very clear with your setup because if you’re not clear with you setup, you don’t have a punch line. So that’s why there tends to be definitely fewer reactions. And we used to… the way that they described it in multi cam is that we give the laugh to the person who has the punch line. So the person who has the punch line, we stayed on them and gave them the laugh. In single camera comedy, we might cut away to other characters as a way of creating that space for the people at home who are hopefully laughing. Not if they were watching police academy the one hour series which I worked on… and the other thing that is super cool and I wish we had this scene, Kirk, I wish we had this episode… is genre. So a lot of comedy and particularly kids comedy I’ve worked on adult comedy too but particularly kids comedy, they like to like turn genre on its side. So we had this amazing episode of Some Assembly Required that was Whiplash. It was fantastic. From the music to like the kind of music that we used and the way that we quick cut it. And it was just, it was hilarious, and it was hilarious because it was recognizably supposed to be the movie Whiplash. You know they quote some of the lines that you know they shot some low angles. They really went to town on it and it’s really… I find that happens a lot in kids comedy and it’s interesting because they kind of take a serious adult genre and they kid-ify it and that kind of makes it funny. So this little clip which is the second clip, we’ll look at that and then just chat little bit about it.

 

[Clip Plays]

[Clip Audio]

 

Daria Ellerman

That’s a cute episode because the girls end up busting the boys club. So they were like trying to work with the gangster genre. You know the panning camera and the quick cuts and the framing of the of the girls with it with him on the seat like he’s kind of trapped, and you know it’s paced up for the whole kind of interrogation… sort of the girls are the hard boiled detectives, the boy’s kind of like the dumb blonde so they’re kind of inverting that. The ladle is like you know and you have to know the series, the ladle is threatening the the boy’s hairdo. And it’s like when we watched it we just recently watched Uncut Gems and it was like the ladles the equivalent of Adam Sandler like being hung out the window like you know they’re trying to… and it’s… that’s I thought that was an example of how genre really influences comedy when you sort of turn it a little bit sideways. Yeah. And that’s really all I have to say about that. I just wanted to kind of have a nice little contrast to the other clip. I’ll just say something before we go into Q and A. So it was very kind of Erin to say earlier that she was grateful that I was mentoring her, Kirk and John, both on the sitcom were able to edit and were amazingly helpful to me, and I look around the room at people that have been, you know, working with me or in the same team as me and I just think it’s really important that we mentor everybody that we work with. You’re not gonna get ahead by keeping things to yourself and not sharing what you know and not sharing information and not collaborating and not being honest with your, you know, colleagues if they want you to look at something and lifting everybody up and supporting everybody, wanting everybody to succeed, being happy for your colleagues who have success even if they beat you out of a job you wanted. Way to go. That’s that’s my… I just I really realized that I had had some really amazing mentors in my life and I think early on I thought, it’s you know it’s really important to do that and to, and I can remember coming up as an assistant and talking about the jobs that were out there and do you know about this you know about that. And some people were like [mmm]. And I’d be like “oh OK” like you know if you were gonna beat me out for a job you’re gonna beat me out for a job just because… You know me, keeping that information from you doesn’t mean that you’re not going to find it out somewhere else. I just really I just feel like it’s really important to pay it forward and to, and to you know mentor within our communities and to support each other. And thank you all for coming to support me in this event.

 

Kirk Hay

Yeah, I’ll add do that. I mean in that crazy schedule of the multi cam world, you still found time to come and watch my cuts, give me notes. Be honest about it which is probably one of the most important things. Without just saying “oh that was terrible. Anyway good luck.” So that’s good. But also you know you mentor. I don’t know if you know even, but just through work ethic in the way you deal with one of the best things I try to learn from you is navigating the tricky waters of not editing, but politics that happened inside an edit suite. Daria is a master, she’ll be like “This is how you cut this,” and someone will walk in and be like “I don’t care about that.” Just the way she talks to people and she interacts with directors and producers, because I mean editing, putting together stuff getting the timing right is one thing and the whole second part it’s a totally different part of it is… is time management, finishing the cut. Listening to a song 78 times and still going “yeah. OK” so so you know just being around and listening to that and learning that due diligence is such a huge part of editorial. Watching you cut that first scene of that first season every single way you could cut it. Daria did it. Every aspect… even if you said well what about this. Nope doesn’t work. So when somebody came in and you always had an answer for them. So that was… I always thought that that was very important and instilled in me that oh that’s what you got to do. Yeah sit down you got to make sure that all your angles are covered and you have to be able to tell, especially on Virgin River where the show runner is the writer and the creator. You better know exactly what it is and why you did it that way.

 

Daria Ellerman

Yeah well I think because I had a unique situation in my life where my husband and I decided that he would stay home with our child, meant that I had to work and because I had to work meant that I really needed to never burn a bridge. And that really fueled my work ethic and it… and I kind of never turned down anything. I basically finished a job and then said “Yes please” to the next one. And so I I feel like I was thrust into this situation where I really had to work but what it did do was that the stakes were high for me. So I had to conduct myself in a way that I could not be a prima donna. I could not say “oh no we don’t have that shot.” when we did, even though I didn’t want to use it you know I could not risk the possibility that I would get a reputation as somebody that would be difficult to work with and I think that did motivate my work ethic and it just became part of how I, how I attack everything that I do. And also I really do love the job. Like I love doing it and I think if you don’t love editing you should not be in a little edit suite for all those hours a day.

 

Kirk Hay

Producers Cut 27.

 

Daria Ellerman

Yeah you know.

 

Kirk Hay

Yeah if you can find yourself a Daria stick to them, because those things pop up that they don’t teach you that you know you can’t go on YouTube and be like only see… white flashbacks….

 

Daria Ellerman

Oh well you know what I feel bad about how technology affected the assistants’ time so that… people don’t really have a lot of time to come and sit in your room. When I started out like you know there was time in my day and I would ask my editors if I could sit in the back and I would just physically watch them handle dailies because that’s kind of the first thing that you need to… that’s the advice that I gave you was like Do not stop. Like if you are hung up just keep going because otherwise it’ll be five o’clock and you’ve got four more scenes to do and you’ve still been like wanking over one cut and I learned that from watching other editors kind of just how they managed dailies because you really have to get those dailies done every day in scripted right and, I mean you know unscripted has a different workflow but you really have to get it done. You can’t save anything for the next day because there’s a whole lot more coming in. And then you also need to see if there’s problems. So you do need to to deal with it. But yeah. Soldier through!

 

Audience Question

It seems like I mean you’ve been working for a very long time. You’ve got quite a breadth of kind of different genres different styles of shows. Did you ever find yourself at a point being, not necessarily typecast, but having difficulty finding or getting work in different genres you wanted to move to?

 

Daria Ellerman

I got hired on Samurai Girl the pilot and I was in the parking lot at Lionsgate like an hour before my interview and I watched four boy editors go in and out and then I went in and then I got the job and I couldn’t believe it because it was an action-heavy thing and I don’t really know how that happened. And I actually asked the producer later who was actually the amazing Frank Spotnitz and I’m like “Why did you guys choose me like I saw these guys” and they’re like “You know what you just seem nice.” And that was just like “what?” Like that you know if you work so hard to like think… I was worried about that at that point and then I got that show and I thought “oh I get it like really it has a lot to do with how you vibe with the with the show runners, with the people that you’re gonna be working with right.” I do think that maybe Post Supers do a little typecasting because I do a lot of drama. I’ve done a lot of drama. I love drama. I look at my PVR and I’m like you know I look at what I watch and I realize like you know I can do that, and I can do that very well. And I think I used to do a lot of sci fi because that’s all we had. And now I don’t really hear from the sci fi Post Supers and Post Producers and I don’t know if that’s typecasting because there’s also a lot of people have their people you know we’ve been rolling with Sally on and off for like a while and you do… what happens is that you roll with the same Post Producer or Super and then you get into a schedule where you’re not available when other things start up. So the other thing I did was I did get an agent finally. And the reason I did that is because I thought that she might be able to open up some possibilities for me with with post producers or supers that I hadn’t worked with more recently or may be but I still find for anybody who’s thinking about getting an agent, 90 percent of the work I get the phone call first. And I phone her right. That’s just that’s just how it goes. Especially once you’ve accumulated something of a career you know it’s like “oh hi.” Eight years later like it’s like “Oh great. You do remember me” you know. Yes. So you get you do get the repeat business but those show runners tend to do the same kinds of shows. So when I did do that that year I also happened to, the following year decide to do Meditation Park because I really really wanted to do a feature. It was an insulting amount of money. Like it just is a Telefilm micro budget and not all of us can afford to work for you know a very low weekly for several months. But I felt like I was in a position OK I can do this now. So I think in a way I’m able to make that versatility happen a bit more for me because I’m on one side of me I’m saying no to work that doesn’t meet what I think is a decent rate because I feel like there’s too much of that going on. For the right project, I would be a little bit more flexible about my rate and that that’s why I did that movie and it was great. It was great to do a movie. It was great to see it on the big screen at VIFF, you know like that was super cool for sure but it was hard work and not very well paid.

 

Audience Question

Can you give us a rundown of when you open up a bin for the first time. Do you start a scene from the top of the scene or do you kind of find your way through…

 

Daria Ellerman

Sure I glance at the script to refresh myself. Like what’s the scene about. Sometimes when I’m being very diligent I’ll flip to my facing pages and see if the director has any favorite takes. And then if they do sometimes I’ll put a little star beside the group. So what I do is I have a bin, I just want the groups. And even before multi cam I worked that way, but since multi cam it’s like I don’t want… if I don’t have to look at single takes, I’m very comfortable watching two, three, four, six cameras at the same time. And also I’m very conscious of my keystrokes so I’m you know I don’t really want to use the mouse, the track ball any more than I have to. So I kind of then maybe star the takes it the director wants but I don’t want to be too influenced by that because I’m amazed at how many times a director will say “make sure you tell the editor. I love this take.” Then they come in they’re like oh I should use that take. So it’s like you know I’ve just sort of over the years realized like I should do what I want. So what I’ll do is then I’ll look at the tiles based on the lined script. So even though my bin is going to be in alphanumeric order. If I look and I see that there’s an L slate that’s just lined for a little bit that clearly is an opening shot or whatever. I’m gonna look at that first I’m going to see what it is. I’m going to maybe pick a piece and then I’m going to just work my way across the lined script and I go beat by beat. So I go methodically beat by beat through every tile that pertains to that. And then as I get into the dialogue I will start looking at each group and I’ll always be auditioning for the first line but I’ll usually listen, I might listen three lines in and take what I like. And then I’ll go to the other side do the same thing, take what I like and then start covering up you know what other… maybe if I’ve left two lines from another take but I find something else I like. I just start roughly building in sections then I go back and I start crafting the opening because by the time I’ve… you know typically a script is going to like, have a description and then it’s going to have some dialogue. So I’ll go like a third of the page or so and I’ll sort of craft a bit of an opening and I’ll start working on the dialogue and at the same time I’m looking at reactions. I’m maybe not putting reactions in yet, I’ll build all the dialogue and all the action and I will go to the end of the scene in these sections. So when I go back to revise the section I’m not really fine cutting at that point I’m just saying yeah I like that performance I like that and I’m noting to myself a reaction that I maybe want to layer in. Sometimes I will layer reactions in, and I use… when I’m building I use a video track above the dialogue and I layer in some reactions but I keep the little viewing monitor on V1 but I might layer reactions on V2 to remind myself like I kind of like this reaction, it might work here and I then just continue to build the scene in these chunks all the way to the end. And depending on where I am and in the episode or the movie… and I always work within the cuts… I don’t build scenes in isolation and put them in a bin and then string them together later. I always work within one cut and if there’s something if I have the A side of the scene I lay it right in and I look at my A-B side and I might go “oh man that’s a cool opening shot but I ended that with the…hmm… what am I going to do there might have to go back… Look at how I’m ending the other scene, work on the opening” and then I’ll get into the dialogue, and I do a pass where I just splice and listen and fine cut go to the next, listen and fine cut, next cut listen and fine cut. Sometimes I might overlap in there if I’ve got my reactions then I’ll go back again and I’ll look at what I’ve built, and I’ll think about reactions I’ll look to see if I’ve laid any reactions on video 2 and then I’ll think about whether I’m going to use them or not. And then I go back and I back up into the preceding scene if I have it, and I play through and if I’m happy I move on. And then the next day I will revise that scene. And typically you know there’s some scenes where… you just know like “I don’t like this at all but I’m moving on” because I have like five other scenes to cut and I might do like quite a big recut the next day or I might not. I might just do… I usually end up tightening a bit more and I might look at it third time and that’s it. So how I revise is that as I’m building the bigger piece I skip over the chunks that I’ve looked at two or three times, because I don’t want to saturate myself. It’s not till the last day of shooting is in that I really will watch the whole episode down unless we’re… sometimes when you’re block shooting you might end up having one episode ready earlier than another and if I’m only missing a scene or two I might start revising that episode after I’m finished cutting my dailies for the day, I might start revising that as an episode but… so my process is I cut all the scenes that are new that day. Then I go back and look at what I did yesterday and then I might start adding music at that point to the stuff that I cut the day before and the other thing that I do is I drop locators as a build, for all the sound that I want my assistant to do. And sometimes I’ll even drop a locator for music especially if it’s something genre that is sort of maybe out of character for our episode so that it won’t be… in the case of Virgin River we have a library of composer cues but, on a new show you might have a temp track that you’re using for the feel of the show but then all of a sudden we have a suspense scene, it’s out of character and I might ask my assistant “see what you can do with this. Give me some underscore here” or whatever and any VFX that needs to be done I’ll drop a locator there for my assistant and I feel like it’s really important for my assistants to work through my cut because I feel like it’s a good way to edit without having to edit and also, you know the assistants begin to absorb like how important sound is and sometimes I see how they are trying to like squeeze a excellent sound into where I haven’t left enough room. Then I’m like oh and then I just like kind of open up my cut to make room for that beautiful explosion shot or whatever because I don’t want them to adjust my cut but I I can sort of see how it’s been cut off or it’s got like some a little fade out on it. I’m like oh “I didn’t leave enough room there for that! That nice reverb out!”

Audience Question

Do you still use ScriptSync?

Daria Ellerman

No but I would at the drop of a hat. If they do multi cam here they have to do that.

Kirk Hay

Once you get the taste of that ScriptSync. Thank you Daria very much.

Sarah Taylor

Thanks for joining us today, and a big thank you to Daria and Kirk. Special thanks goes to Trevor Mirosh, Greg Ng, Jane MacRae, and Finale.  The main title sound design was created by Jane Tattersall. Additional ADR recording by Andrea Rusch. Original music provided by Chad Blain. This episode was mixed and mastered by Tony Bao. The CCE has been supporting Indspire – an organization that provides funding and scholarships to Indigenous post secondary students. We have a permanent portal on our website at cceditors.ca or you can donate directly at indspire.ca. The CCE is taking steps to build a more equitable ecosystem within our industry and we encourage our members to participate in a way they can.  

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and tell your friends to tune in. Til next time I’m your host Sarah Taylor.

Outtro

The CCE is a non-profit organization with the goal of bettering the art and science of picture editing. If you wish to become a CCE member please visit our website www.cceditors.ca. Join our great community of Canadian editors for more related info.

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Credits

A special thanks goes to

Trevor Mirosh

Greg Ng

Jane MacRae

Finalé

Hosted, Produced and Edited by

Sarah Taylor

Recorded by

Mychaylo Prystup

Mixed and Mastered by

Tony Bao

Original Music by

Chad Blain

Categories
The Editors Cut

Episode 032: No Script? No Problem!

Episode 32: No Script? No problem!

Episode 32: No Script? No Problem!

This episode is Part I of a IV Part Series covering EditCon 2020 that took place on Saturday February 1st, 2020 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto. 

Panelist from EditCon 2020

Massive hours of footage, tight deadlines, and no script? No problem!

Elianna Borsa, Jenypher Fisher, CCE, Baun Mah and Ian Sit from hit the shows Big Brother, The Amazing Race, Yukon Gold, and In The Making share how they get to the finish line. Featuring clips from these and other top-rated and award-winning reality and factual programs, this discussion breaks down the process of cutting unscripted programming, both creatively and technically.

This panel was moderated by Jonathan Dowler. If you would like a transcript of this episode it can be downloaded here.What do you want to hear on The Editors Cut! Please send along any topics you would like us to cover or editors you would love to hear from!

Listen Here

The Editor’s Cut – Episode 032 – “No Script, No Problem” (EditCon 2020 Series)

 

Sarah Taylor:

This episode was generously sponsored by Blackmagic Design. Hello and welcome to The Editor’s Cut. I’m your host, Sarah Taylor. Today, I bring you part one of our four-part series covering EditCon 2020 that took place on Saturday, February 1st, 2020, at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto. 

Massive hours of footage, tight deadlines, and no script? No problem. Editors from hit shows including Big Brother, The Amazing Race, Yukon Gold, and In the Making show how they got to the finish line. Featuring clips from these and other top-rated and award-winning reality and factual programs, this discussion breaks down the process of cutting unscripted programming both creatively and technically.

 

[show open]

 

Simone Smith:

Good morning, everyone. So we’re going to jump right in this morning with an inside scoop into the people who mine hours of footage to find the gems.

Simone Smith:

With experience in unscripted shows of all types, the Amazing Race Canada and Big Brother Canada to the nature of things and artist profiles in In the Making, our moderator is industry veteran Jonathan Dowler. Jonathan’s credits include Big Brother, So You Think You Can Dance, Master Chef, and the Amazing Race Canada. He is a 12 time CSA and 15 time CCE nominated editor, and has won five consecutive CSAs and four CCE awards.

Simone Smith:

Blackmagic Design are pleased to welcome editors Jonathan Dowler, Baun Mah, Elianna Borsa, Jenypher Fisher, and Ian Sit.

Jonathan Dowler:

We’re going to just dive right in. Unscripted is covering everything, from reality competition shows to factual entertainment, which could be hewed slightly from, I guess, docu-dramas or series docs and goes straight into unscripted. So you can have everything.

Jonathan Dowler:

Just to give you a little background, in this boom of TV that’s called the Golden Age, but shouldn’t be forgotten amongst all the scripted programs that unscripted is having banner years one after the other. And it’s proliferating the industry. Just in an outdated industry report, $300 million in the Canadian economy has come from unscripted programming, from formatted shows, and it is getting rave reviews. Amazing Race Canada is one of the highest rated shows in Canada every season, and many people tune in to see everything from house guests to chefs to artists to dancers, singers.

Jonathan Dowler:

So we’re here to talk about some of the experts and their experiences, because the challenges of this genre are incredible. You are given so much footage. What you don’t have in a script you have in footage that will help you forge the story, and arguably one could say that the story, more than any other format, is forged in the editing suites.

Jonathan Dowler:

So here we are. We’re going to talk about tips and tricks.

Jonathan Dowler:

First off, the majority of students coming out of colleges or universities, film schools, might get their start in unscripted. That being said, I just want to go down the line, and just see just a very quick intro of how you guys got into editing and to your first jobs in the industry.

Jonathan Dowler:

So, Jennifer, why don’t we start with you? Start down the line.

Jenypher Fisher:

Sure. Oh, it works. Great. That’s fantastic. If we’re a little nervous, I think it’s understandable. We usually hide in rooms. We don’t come outside rooms. We don’t speak in public, except if we blow up. We go back and hide again. So forgive us, at least me, because I’m nervous.

Jenypher Fisher:

I’m from Vancouver. I went to BCIT, which is a technical institute, because I couldn’t afford to go to film school. It was a lot of money. Technically, I got trained in news editing, which I had zero interest in doing, but it was a good way to get into the industry. I had, honestly, it was a two year program. Year one, it was tape-to-tape editing, because I’m kind of old. And I had no interest in that. Like, zero. I was like, this is great, it’s fine, but nothing.

Jenypher Fisher:

Second year of BCIT, the Avid showed up, and I went, ah, that. That is the way that I … Suddenly, it seemed like a thing I wanted to do, and no one knew how to use it, so I trained myself on it. Then I trained the teachers, then I trained my other students, then I trained the first-years, and then I went and got a job. And that’s pretty much how I got into editing.

Jenypher Fisher:

And, actually, the other thing is I remember right after the Avid came, I decided I knew I was going to be a shooter or an editor. One of these two things was going to happen, and I decided that shooting was a little too stressful, because you could really fuck it up. You could really, really screw people by not getting the right shots, by tinting it blue, by whatever. And editors could just save things, which is not true. We can screw it up, but seemed to me at the time to be completely true, and that’s why I chose editing because I have a need to fix things.

Elianna Borsa:

When I was a PA on set, I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do, and I just asked a lady for some advice, and she said get into either pre-production or post-production because they’re the longest contracts. And I didn’t like paperwork, so I’m like, okay, I’m going to try post-production. And I did like editing in school, and from an internship, went into the post-production department, and I was working as an assistant. And then I kind of just put myself out there to edit some webisodes and just some stuff that the network would see. And then from there, it’s just I had a really awesome post producer. She was great, and she was very willing to help assistants. That’s Angie Pajek. So she was like, “Let her do more things. Let her do more things.” And then from there, I quickly became … I’m a junior editor on the Cold Water Cowboys, and then about two months later was editing, and it’s kind of just gone from there.

Baun Mah:

Yeah. I started out doing the typical Asian son thing and trying to become a doctor. In third year, I realized I was going to fail at that, so I started taking some arts courses because I’ve always been interested in photography, visual arts. And then I took a film course in my fourth year, and that sort of sparked it, the beginning of my love for film. And then so once I graduated, I had the choice of either becoming a lab assistant or doing research for the rest of my life, or try again and have a hand in film.

Baun Mah:

So I applied at Ryerson. I got into the Ryerson Image Arts program. I did four years there. Ended up loving it, and, yeah, I also did a little bit of camerawork. Super stressful. This body is not made to stand for like 10 hours, so I gravitated towards the chair, which went into editing.

Jenypher Fisher:

Sitting is good.

Baun Mah:

Yeah.

Jenypher Fisher:

Standing is better.

Baun Mah:

And then from there, after I graduated, I did sort of smaller jobs here and there. I … not really assisted, but I was like a web content editor for a Discovery series called Diamond Road, which was a really great series. One of Jennifer’s coworkers, Andy Bailey, actually trained me how to use Final Cut, because I was an Adobe Premier guy.

Baun Mah:

And then from there, I just kind of sort of dabbled in documentary, smaller documentaries for local channels. And then my big break was getting the editing job for the Gemini Awards, which is now known as the Canadian Screen Awards. And from there, I’d met some producers who got me in touch with Insight, and they happen to do a lot of the bigger reality shows here in Canada. And it’s been nine years from that.

Ian Sit:

I also didn’t go to film school. It was a sort of Asian son thing as well. I studied economics, and I got a degree in commerce at U of T. But then I had no intention on becoming an economist ever. I always knew that I wanted to try something in film, so after that, I taught myself how to edit. At the time, it was Final Cut Pro 7. That was the easiest software to get your hands on.

Ian Sit:

Then a couple of years of just doing anything, saying yes to everything. Not getting paid for any of these jobs until one day on Facebook someone posted a job posting for an assistant editor job for a travel food show, and it seemed very urgent. And I just so happened to be the first guy, because you can see the time thing. It’s like two minutes posting. So I immediately replied, and it was urgent. By the end of the day, I was at Technicolor doing assisting editing work for this travel food show.

Ian Sit:

And then from there, I guess I made a good impression, got recommended for more jobs, and then just grinded it out for several years before I became a full editor.

Jonathan Dowler:

All right. Now we’re all here in the landscape of unscripted, and I think we had a discussion when we first met up, and it was “no script, no problem.” And, Ian, what did you have to say about “no script, no problem?”

Ian Sit:

I said you should change it to “no script, a lot a lot of problems.” Super many problems.

Jonathan Dowler:

Yeah and it’s just … Problem solvers. That’s what we are in unscripted, because when you say “unscripted,” does that mean that there’s no plan, and where we figure into it? So I guess the question would be what is your average workflow for someone who might know what unscripted, how that flow works? We’ll just talk about factual elements. And I want to talk about factual entertainment. You can think of reality competitions as whenever someone’s singing to win, on a race to win, trying to win in a household competition. But when we talk factual, it could be something that’s more storyline based such as Cold Water Cowboys, the Deadliest Catch, all the way down to, if you’re going to the other end of the spectrum, which is the Kardashians or other ones which are long form stories that take place over the course of a season.

Jonathan Dowler:

So let’s talk about unscripted factual, and basically Jennifer and Ian, give us … Why don’t we say, Jennifer, you’ve worked on Jade Fever.

Jenypher Fisher:

Yeah.

Jonathan Dowler:

Let’s just talk about perfect scenario and then we’ll talk about what actually happens, but in terms of no script, what do you get in the form of story in terms of footage? What do you get?

Jenypher Fisher:

What do I get? For Jade Fever, current is a half an hour show. It’s about Jade, a lovely green rock that people apparently want. I don’t understand, but that’s fine. We have two writers on the show. We have a showrunner and a writer, and that’s it. And we have two finishing editors. I’m one of them, but I also do my own rough cuts, and I think we’ve had three other editors.

Jenypher Fisher:

Generally, the workflow is the editor who is doing the rough cut … We call it the internal rough cut. It gets four weeks. You get a string-out from a writer. Now, a string-out could be anything from 40 minutes. Keep in mind, that’s a 22 minute show. 40 minutes of general thoughts, “Here’s what I think is going to happen.” It could be great. It could be crap. It doesn’t really matter. Either way, you’ve got to deliver a show at the end. Jade Fever is actually pretty good. It’s well thought out.

Jenypher Fisher:

My last string-out was two hours long for a 22 minute show, so that was a lot. I still have the same 10 days to get it to basically an assembly. So I take 10 days, which generally comes out to I have to conquer two scenes a day every day. At the end of 10 days, I have a general assembly. It’s not great, but it generally shows the picture of what the show will be. At that point, we all sit down. That’s me, the writer, and the showrunner, and maybe the in-house executive, and we basically look at it and go, okay, this works, that doesn’t work. Fix that.

Jenypher Fisher:

Then you’ve got two more weeks with the writer. Oh, I forgot to mention. The first two weeks, it’s just me. There’s no writer. It’s I’m in charge of everything. I’m in charge of the VO, which I write badly, but it’s there. I’m in charge of basically crafting the entire thing. Second two weeks, I actually get a writer. We hammer it out. We try to make it look good. We put music on it, and then it goes to a finishing editor, which is also me in this case, and because I’m the assembly editor, they give me one week instead of two because my assembly is supposed to be better than everyone else’s. It’s not fair, but that’s fine.

Jenypher Fisher:

So four weeks to an internal rough cut. One week or two weeks to broadcaster rough cut, which is a very lax schedule and it’s really awesome, but basically we have almost zero notes. We have no fine cut, and we have no lock. So it all works out in the end.

Jonathan Dowler:

She’s downplayed it, but I have to say these are some facts that Jen was actually able to give me. To give you an idea of the shoot and the quantity of footage that two hour comes from, it’s 95 days of the shoot for the season over four months, and there’s eight hours per day times two cameras, so roughly 16 hours a day of footage. Then that equals about 96 hours of the main cameras for the season. GoPro gets roughly around three hours a day. Drone footage to capture the vistas and make it a little cinematic is four hours per episode. Yeah, so basically over 14 episodes, you could be looking up to 1800 hours of footage to deal with. And so the way you approach story and the way this workflow is supposed to work, you have to be really on your game.

Jenypher Fisher:

That’s not including, by the way, we have the footage from all four of the … We’re in season six. We have footage from all five of the other seasons. That’s all open game. If you need cover, you have to go look in post seasons, so that’s another 1800, and another 1800, and another 1800.

Jonathan Dowler:

All parts of the buffalo. I think that’s absolutely incredible.

Jonathan Dowler:

Ian, what would you say in terms of your average workflow on a show, like either Forever Young, which we’ll see a clip for later, or In the Making?

Ian Sit:

Those two actually differ quite a bit. I’ll talk about In the Making.

Ian Sit:

In the Making was very much a director-driven series, and so the producers had the mind to give the director as much flexibility as far as workflow, and they were far less streamlined. So it was usually a direct relationship between the director and the editor and one other assistant editor. There was one story producer that sometimes gave us notes and time codes, but a lot of the times, it was just a paper edit or a direct conversation with the director before we tackled the footage.

Ian Sit:

Similar, it was a half an hour show. We had four weeks to do an internal rough cut. I don’t think any of the episodes stuck to that schedule. It went way beyond because it was a lot more trial and error with this show that we, in fact, cut many versions of a lot of these episodes, which at the very end of it, because there was so many chefs in the kitchen, they couldn’t quite decide on what they wanted. We had to go back to ground zero. So it was not an easy show to do, but I think ultimately all that hard work showed up on screen, and I’m proud of that.

Ian Sit:

With Forever Young, which is a one hour doc, for that one, it was a lot more of a “Here you go. Here is a bunch of footage. Try out whatever you can, and then I’m going to continue shooting …” This is the director speaking to me. “And then we’ll come back, and then we’ll see what you’ve done, and then keep shaping it from there.” It was a very, very organic process. So that’s basically how you get into it. It wasn’t really structured is what I’m trying to say, but because the director is so competent and efficient with the way he works, he knows exactly what he wanted, which is such an asset when you’re working with someone, that it turned out to be quite an easy, not a very stressful edit.

Jonathan Dowler:

Basically, it starts of, I guess, from production. You’re getting the idea from production or producers saying, “This is the rough idea of what we’re going to go for,” and then you get a string-out, be it handed down from the director or from the story editor. They’ll hand it off to you, and that’s your starting point. But you both seem to be left alone to experiment and find the story.

Jenypher Fisher:

I call the string-out an opening theory. That’s exactly what it is. Some theories are better than others. Some are not a good thing at all. What you’re given to begin with is probably not what you will end up with, anywhere close to it. It’s just here’s an opening thought, then we all as a team tackle it.

Jonathan Dowler:

Tackle it. Well, then let’s go over to reality competition, because at least in terms of reality competition shows can be built around competition. Baun, if you can just give me an outline, how is the story process streamlined in a competition show like Amazing Race or Top Chef in terms of how is the story handed off to the editors, and then your process there?

Baun Mah:

On the bigger shows, you end up working in teams. I don’t think I’ve ever done a large challenge show solo.

Baun Mah:

So what you do is you start off with usually there is a lead editor and then a team of editors with them, probably usually just two or three other editors. You get together with the story editor, who helps you facilitate all the story and what they feel like is the through line through the episode.

Jonathan Dowler:

So it’s like a meeting? Like they have a —

Baun Mah:

Yeah, yeah, it’s a meeting that you have, and depending on who you’re working with, sometimes what you get is a paper edit. Sometimes they actually have selects for you ready in Avid. The really good ones have somewhat of an assembly or at least markers so that it saves you time from sifting through all the footage, and you can just look through the markers bin. So it almost reads like an annotated notes kind of deal.

Baun Mah:

And then we split up the work between all the editors. For example, it’s different for every show, but for example, Amazing Race … For assembly, we have 13 days, so on day one is when we have this big story meeting, and we divvy up the work. Day five, we have an A-line screen, which is like our radio edit. So what we try to do in those first five days is go through all the footage that’s relevant to our sections. We go through all the sound bites to see what is relevant, and we try to make our story beat. So typically a story beat would be you try to land it somewhere between 20 and 30 seconds. Sometimes, if it’s a really good beat, it goes a little longer. But anything more than that, especially on a show that’s as fast paced as Amazing Race, it actually feels like it drags in the end.

Baun Mah:

So you try to break up your story beats that way, and then on day five, you screen it together, just so everyone gets a sense of where the story is, where the characters are, whether or not a beat is working. And there could be multiple beats that have … For example, a team could be struggling. It’s like where is the best example to show where this team is struggling? So that’s where you figure that all out.

Baun Mah:

And then you have another four or five days, so day nine or 10, you have the internal screening with the whole team, the story editor, and our post producer, where we then get notes from the post producer. And then on day 13, we screen with the showrunner, and then we get his notes.

Baun Mah:

And then we go into what’s called the screen cut. So we have four days to do the screening cut, which is then shown to the executive producers. We get notes from them, and then we finally get to the rough cut, which is five days, and that’s just with the lead editor. The other editors go on to do other episodes. You have five days to clean all of that up, and really a lot of the challenge comes from bringing it down to time, because some of the rough cuts can end up being, for a 44 minute show, the longer ones … I haven’t worked on a premiere, but I know the premieres, I have heard, have ended up being like an hour-10, and hour-15. I remember in Season Four, our Vietnam episode was an hour-25, so we really had to cut it down.

Jonathan Dowler:

In terms of races, to give you an idea, some people question … One of the questions, I don’t know if we’ve got some of them, is why are so many editors needed to tackle this, and it could be broken down quite simply by schedule, which you’ve just heard. But an example for Race, on our first episode or season premiere of Race, so it could be a longer episode or it comes down to right time, on average, 101 XD cam discs, which is seven per team, including interviews. So, yeah, you basically do 101 XD cams. Each one of those, about 70 minutes. You’d have 42 GoPro cards for various helmet setups. You would have car cams, and then you’d have a drive full of drone footage. And then 56 audio cards, which is almost every contestant is mic-ed. You have the on-camera stuff.

Jonathan Dowler:

And then I should say on the XD cam is also the mats, the various zone cameras, so if you are ever wondering why a certain number of names are on anything, it takes a lot of teamwork and a lot of effort to get to those schedules.

Jonathan Dowler:

And did you want to say, in terms of a rough cut, are you talking about some music, maybe some black gaps, or are we talking about-

Baun Mah:

No. Yeah, and this is more of a trend that I feel personally is not great that’s happening is we no longer have what is known as a traditional rough cut. Our rough cuts include sound effects, music, lower thirds, graphics …

Elianna Borsa:

It’s polished.

Baun Mah:

Yeah. It’s polished. It’s a polished cut.

Jenypher Fisher:

Color correct sometimes.

Baun Mah:

Yeah. Sometimes because you know you’re going to get feedback saying “This shot is too dark,” so if you have the time, you try to color correct a little bit. So that’s what our rough cut is. It’s basically a finished cut. Other than the length, it’s air-able. So it takes a lot for the rough cut, and especially with a show like Race, which is super, super fast-paced, if you look to the timeline, if you look at any Timeline Tuesday, if you look at the whole timeline of the episode, it’s basically all black because of all the cuts. You can’t even see where a cut begins and where it ends. And, yeah, we end up doing 16 to 18 tracks, and you have four or six of those are dedicated to sound effects. Once you watch a couple clips we have, you’ll see that there are a lot of sound effects.

Baun Mah:

And each music beat really only lasts as long as the beat itself, so it’s wall to wall music, but it’s 20 seconds of music, and then you have to find the next track. And one that fits the mood and the moment.

Baun Mah:

So, yeah, it is a lot of work to get to that rough cut. Yeah. So just to pick up, so then you get the rough cut, you get the network notes. It’s two more cuts for the fine cut, and then you have one day to picture lock. And then it’s like beginning of that day and then end of day that should be done.

Jonathan Dowler:

And that goes on all summer long.

Baun Mah:

How many days is that total? I didn’t even calculate that.

Ian Sit:

Sorry.

Baun Mah:

It’s your typical 25. I guess … Yeah, that’s around typical. 25, but it’s like the show is on steroids, so you feel like you could always use more time.

Jonathan Dowler:

And then just to give an idea, Elianna, one of your first gigs you were working on was Big Brother. Just give an idea, what would you say just in ballpark … Big Brother has about 64 cameras running 24/7, 50 microphones, and turnaround, Elianna? Can you just give us a rough thing on how you remember Big Brother, just a ballpark?

Elianna Borsa:

Well, Big Brother, obviously as you know, it’s like three days a week the show airs. So, for example, when we’re doing challenges, they will film the challenge, one of them, on a Thursday night, and by Sunday it’s on TV. So you have a very short amount of time, and it’s obviously a ton of footage. Sometimes the challenges can go up to three, four hours, really depending on if it’s endurance.

Elianna Borsa:

And then it’s really cutting it down, figuring out who we really need to concentrate on. For that kind of show, it’s like who is going to be nominated, and who the Head of Household is.

Jonathan Dowler:

The end of the story, where you’re heading to and stuff.

Elianna Borsa:

Yeah, and then cutting that all down.

Jonathan Dowler:

But, again, it’s teamwork stuff as well. It’s like you’re left alone in as much as your section of Race or Brother, but then you also have to work as a team, which is a different —

Elianna Borsa:

Right. It’s all very collaborative, and there’s a ton of editors. And mostly if you’re not working on challenges, you are taking scenes, and then sometimes you’ll work on a scene, and it doesn’t make it into the episode because something else just happened right now. And that’s more important than maybe a comedy scene. You can’t be precious about your scenes for sure. But, yeah, it’s like Big Brother is very collaborative and super fast paced.

Jonathan Dowler:

Why don’t we dive right into a scene, seeing as we just talked a bit about Race, because that seems to be digestible. And then we’re going to talk about some factual stuff. So, Baun, do you want to set up the scene that you have from Amazing Race, and the challenges? You’ve talked about some of them already, but just set up the scene from Amazing Race.

Baun Mah:

Yeah. So I chose a really seemingly simple scene, and in the larger scheme of the episode, it is a simpler scene. I don’t want to give too much because hopefully you guys get the story because that’s the whole point of the panel.

Baun Mah:

So, basically, so these teams, they’re coming from Indonesia. They’re landing in Toronto. They have to get to their next location for their next challenge.

[Clip Plays]

Speaker 8:

Go, go, go. Hold hands. Hold hands.

Speaker 9:

There they are. We’re free, [inaudible 00:23:10], we’re free. We’re at info.

Speaker 8:

Board the Chevrolet Equinox to where it was assembled in Canada.

Speaker 10:

The Chevrolet Equinox has been assembled at the CAMI assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ontario, since 2004. Teams must now determine the location of CAMI Assembly, and drive themselves to the two million square foot facility, being careful not to confuse this plant with any other Chevrolet plants in southern Ontario.

Speaker 11:

How about these guys?

Speaker 12:

Hey, question for you.

Speaker 11:

We’re looking for the Chevrolet Equinox assembly line center.

Speaker 13:

Located at 300 Ingersoll Street.

Speaker 12:

Write that down. Ingersoll, Ontario.

Speaker 14:

Ingersoll.

Speaker 11:

And that’s CAMI Automotive?

Speaker 14:

Yeah. C-A-M-I.

Speaker 11:

Okay.

Speaker 12:

Let’s go. Let’s go.

Speaker 11:

Let’s rock and roll.

Speaker 12:

Yeah, Chevrolet Equinox is made in Ingersoll. Some of them are made in Oshawa. The Equinox is made in Ingersoll.

Speaker 11:

Okay.

Speaker 12:

I would not be surprised just how many end up in Oshawa.

Speaker 15:

We are headed to Oshawa to the GM plant. Head east towards Oshawa.

Speaker 16:

We just stopped for directions, and now we’re just heading out all the way to Oshawa.

Speaker 15:

Oshawa.

Speaker 16:

GM Oshawa Assembly.

Speaker 15:

Oh, another car is here. Oh, my God, two other cars are here. I am very confused as to where we are supposed to go. It says to where it was assembled in Canada, so maybe this isn’t where it was even assembled. Hmm. What are we thinking? I have a feeling this isn’t it.

Speaker 16:

I think you’re correct.

Speaker 15:

Do you guys have a phone we could borrow? Ingersoll. Ingersoll.

Speaker 16:

Ingersoll is another hour and 45 minutes past Toronto on the other side.

Speaker 15:

Oh. We have headed east. We now need to head west.

Speaker 16:

Ingersoll. Coming up, baby.

 

[end of Clip]

Baun Mah:

Okay, so I mean that is a relatively simple scene. It’s two minutes. I trimmed out the part where the teams that knew where they were going went to the right location, so that was maybe another 45 seconds. So altogether, this moment lasted two minutes and 45 seconds in the final cut. There were actually 30 hours of footage just for this. Because the teams did get lost, the camera is on all the time in the car, you’re looking for sound bites. Because as we were doing the radio edit, you’re looking for any relevant sound bites, any interesting sound bites, any interesting moments. So I hope it seems very clear here, but really it was like a huge mess from when they landed in the sense that everyone went looking for someone with a cell phone.

Baun Mah:

There were conversations that were really interesting because some of them did debate. They were like, “Where is it built? Oh, there are all these locations,” and usually you’d be like, oh, that’s really interesting because they’re trying to figure it out. Some people would go to gas stations, so we showed one of the gas stations, but really the teams that got lost and even some of the teams that went to the right location, they would stop off at gas stations, have conversations there.

Baun Mah:

The rough cut, when we showed the assembly cut, this was an 11 minute scene because the teams, when they arrived in Oshawa, they actually explored the plant and no one was there, and it was like actually really fun because they were like, “I feel like we’re going to get arrested. This doesn’t feel right.” It’s all good stuff, so we kept it in. And then with the cheerleaders, Leanne and Mar, in the previous two episodes, they were actually number one. They won both legs. So we cut out this whole section because they went to Oshawa. They ended up at a whole different part of the plant, and then things started getting tense, so they started getting a little more agitated with each other, and you could see that they weren’t really working as a cohesive unit. So there was conflict there, and it was interesting conflict because they were getting frustrated that they couldn’t find the location.

Baun Mah:

All of that very interesting, all of that that we had, but then it was too long. Once we did our radio edit and also I think we even went up to the internal screening with a post producer. There were more interesting moments, like at the very end of this episode the teams also got lost in Stratford not being able to find the final mat. And that was more interesting. That ended up being more interesting than these moments, so we had to come back to these, and revisit, and see what we could cut down.

Baun Mah:

So what we did anchor it on were what we considered two pivotal moments was when the teams who got it right … You heard the woman say there were two GM plants, one was in Oshawa, one was in Ingersoll. I can see how people could get lost going to Oshawa. And that was the key moment there. We decided, okay, we’re going to sum up this whole little moment in this one sound bite. That’s what sort of helped us clean up the rest of it because we just wanted that to be the message of this whole little travel beat.

Baun Mah:

And then the next moment is when they all end up at Timmy’s, but what happened is … So three of the teams did end up at Timmy’s, and they crowded around each other, and everything happened like it happened. But the cheerleaders actually didn’t go there. They went there, they saw that there was a crowd, and then they left again. And then we did have this whole moment where they went back to the plant, they talked to a security guard there, and the security guard actually told them that there’s another plant in Ingersoll, and that’s where it sparked.

Baun Mah:

But because the security guard and … People ask us sometimes why we cheat things in reality TV. In this case, it was very practical with the security guard. The security guard didn’t want to be on camera, so we didn’t have any vis of the moment, just audio. We didn’t have time to put those girls back at the Oshawa plant, so what we did was we just took the little bit of them entering the Timmy’s and exiting, and then just formed that moment. Made it just one big moment, and then that was the pivotal moment for the teams that lost realizing where they had to go.

Baun Mah:

And then so it ended up being from 11 minutes to 2:45.

Jonathan Dowler:

But you can also argue that essentially, talking about truth and fact is basically they figured out their mistake, and that is the truth-

Baun Mah:

Exactly, yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan Dowler:

But it’s just collapsing it so you can make it-

Baun Mah:

Really, really condensing it just so that we had distilled it down to the basics. And, like we said, Leanne and Mar had all this tension building up as a team, but later on in another challenge, there was also a greater moment of tension. So working with the story editor, I actually was really fortunate because my story editor was Seth Poulin, who was actually a lead editor on the show for three years, so he knows how this show goes. So we talked about it, and he was actually really great in helping whittle it all down. And his whole motto was you may have 10 great moments, but what’s the gold? So you have 10 great moments, but can it be distilled down to five great moments, and still keep everything that you want? And that’s the mentality that we go in with.

Jonathan Dowler:

And you say that the prime rule on Race, if you had to order the priorities when you approach a scene, would be clarity first?

Baun Mah:

It would be clarity first, so that’s why you string it out. And then it’d be trying to maintain that clarity while cutting it down to like one-fifth of what you had.

Elianna Borsa:

Yeah. As you say with that clip of that one girl in the car saying, “Well, I’m sure a lot of people will mess this up, and go to the wrong place,” it’s really making sure that every word, because it has to be cut down so much, that every word matters unless it’s comedy. So if something is in there that doesn’t matter, it’s not helping the story, then we don’t have time for it. And if you’re not listening when you’re watching that show, you might have to rewind because you’ve definitely missed something.

Baun Mah:

Totally.

Jonathan Dowler:

And would you say, in terms of you finding that, is that you going through the 30-odd hour so footage?

Baun Mah:

For the travel beats, usually, because there’s so much to do that the story editors that are helping us, they tend to focus on the challenges and the mats. Travel beats are usually left up to the editors. Sometimes, like when the story editor has time, they loop back around and help you clarify things. So Seth did loop back around. We talked about it. He went through some of the raw footage as well. But I feel like that’s a luxury. Usually it is up to the editor to condense these travel beats, and find what’s interesting in them.

Jenypher Fisher:

I have a question. When you do this, when you’re looking for something and you know you’re looking for something, how do you find it? Do you use the waveform to figure out where people speak?

Baun Mah:

Yes. That’s all we do.

Jenypher Fisher:

Or do you listen to things and fast-forward, or a combination of the two?

Baun Mah:

There’s a mix of both.

Jenypher Fisher:

These are great tips.

Baun Mah:

Yeah. Depending on your system. If your system can handle fast-forwarding, because we’re doing multi-cam, too, especially in challenges. But, yeah, on these travel beats, you could definitely … Because it’s a single camera on each team. So you can scrub through at one-and-a-half or two times speed. I usually look at the waveforms, so as soon as I see someone talking-

Jenypher Fisher:

Listen to that.

Baun Mah:

Yeah, I listen to that. And that’s why we do the radio edit because we barely pay attention to visuals. Like maybe you can make a mental note, or put a marker when you see something interesting, but usually when you’re doing your A-line edit, the radio edit, you’re literally just looking at waveforms, and sound bites, and trying to form your beat using that.

Elianna Borsa:

Yeah. And sometimes it might not exist in that travel beat, and like you said, there’s previous episodes and their footage, and you might just go in and grab them saying “There it is” from another episode.

Baun Mah:

Yeah, 100%. Even when Courtney was summing up the whole thing about how you go to Ingersoll or Oshawa, the camera wasn’t on her the whole time, so you saw that I cut away to her brother, and that shot was from way later in the footage just because the camera didn’t stay on her at that time.

Jonathan Dowler:

Well, I think we’re talking about using all parts, all things that you can find to tell the story appropriately. I think that throws really well to, I think, Jennifer’s scene, because I think, Jennifer, on a factual show like Jade Fever, you’ve got a different sort of challenge. You’ve got the shooting over the course of the season, so how do you approach a scene and build it out? Because there’s not so much a challenge to build around, so what is it built around?

Jenypher Fisher:

It’s always built around character. Character, character, character. Always character.

Jenypher Fisher:

My process, it’s always the same no matter what I’m working on. I could be working on a two hour doc doing a nature of things. Honestly, I’ve done Bachelor. I did the same thing on Bachelor. I’m specialized in men’s TV. I don’t know how that happened, but it did. My process is almost always the same. I have a super bad memory. I generally go to the writer and say, “Tell me the bullet points. Don’t go into detail. I won’t remember anything you tell me that happens in the back of the show. Just give me the least amount of information humanly possible.” Then I’ll watch the string-out. I will forget. This is a four act structure. I will forget acts two, three, and four. It’s not going to stay. But I will actually watch it.

Jenypher Fisher:

Then I actually am super linear about the whole thing. The way I do it is I watch the string-out for the scene that I’m currently working on. I fix the audio, because honestly, I could get audio that’s parsed down because someone actually knows how to use Avid, or I could get 16 tracks of I don’t know what this is. I have to find the mics of the people who are in the scene, not the ganged mics. The actual mics. They could be hidden because often I’m dealing with track two may actually have four mics on it, so I’m having to search through all that, find the mics.

Jenypher Fisher:

While I’m actually sorting the audio, because I’m kind of militant about audio, interview on one and two, background on … I’m super organized about it because if you’re not organized at the front, the back end is just going to be a mess. I’m also familiarizing myself with the footage. It doesn’t take that long, but you’re actually really getting the story. You’re starting to drink it in, and you get to understand while you’re doing that what the problems with the scene are.

Jenypher Fisher:

Then I always go talk to the writer. Even though I have 10 days all by myself, it doesn’t mean I don’t get up, walk to the writer, sit in front of them. It’s not something I do online. I need to see their eyes. I need to understand, and I say, “What is the story you are trying to tell?” Whether or not they actually told it, I want to know what they want to tell because that’s what I have to make.

Jenypher Fisher:

And then I literally just go for it, then very linearly start putting it together, keeping in mind most importantly who the show is for … Most importantly … The broadcaster and the audience. You always cut for those two things. I’m not making a soft documentary most of the time. I’m making men’s television, and I need to know that it’s for men between the ages of 16 to 34, and the broadcaster is History, and they want this. And that’s what I need to deliver. Because I only have 10 days.

Jonathan Dowler:

And so when you’re given a scene, why don’t we talk about the Jade Fever seen now? This is a series that is still ongoing. This is an earlier cut that you’re dealing with right now?

Jenypher Fisher:

This is actually a cut I’m currently working on. Actually, we just locked it on Thursday. So this is locked. Yay.

Jenypher Fisher:

So this cut is from a show I work on called Jade Fever. It’s in a place called Jade City up in BC. They mine for jade, which is technically giant pieces of rock. They don’t look like anything until you actually saw them in half. Then you see the green.

Jenypher Fisher:

The wonderful thing about this clip, and I’m going to set the clip up slightly, is … And a friend of mine said this the other day. Reality never works the way you want it to on TV, which is exactly what we’ve been talking about.

Jonathan Dowler:

It’s just the whole thing. Yeah.

Jenypher Fisher:

And this sequence is completely true and about 80% made up. Like I didn’t have so much stuff. I’m going to tell you the problems I had, then we’re going to watch.

Jenypher Fisher:

This is the end of a six year journey for them to sell jade. We’re in Season 6. They’ve never sold jade on their own. Never. Not once. This is the pinnacle, this is the moment. I had nothing. The buyer, it’s a Vietnamese buyer, he’s the only Vietnamese guy in there. You’ll know him. He showed up to buy a rock. It was still being cut, so technically it just looks like a rock. You can’t see green. There’s no green. It’s not cut. He agrees to buy it, and he does buy it two days later when they finish cutting it, and they’ve actually taken pictures of the jade and sent it to him in Vietnam because he’s leaving. He’s not going to be here tomorrow.

Jenypher Fisher:

This is a problem because it’s a show about jade. You want to see the jade. I watched the scene, and I’m like, “You can’t see the jade. This is a terrible thing. When is the jade cut?” “The next day.” “Is he there?” “No.” Okay. I’m going to try and marry these two days. That’s the problem because the buyer is gone, he’s left, he’s gone. It’s sunny the day he’s there. It’s raining, it’s cloudy, but that’s fine. I’ve done that before. We can figure this out. I don’t have a picture of the jade falling to the ground because no one was shooting that, unfortunately. Usually, we’re pretty good at that, but they didn’t get it, and there are only two people present. There are, I think, six to seven people. The day he bought the jade, there’s only two people.

Jenypher Fisher:

So at the front of the scene, you’ll notice there’s only two people, and it’s sunny. And as soon as the Vietnamese buyer goes up, the weather changes, but no one really notices. And then he buys.

Jenypher Fisher:

There’s many, many more problems. I’ll tell you about it after the clip.

 

[Clip Plays]

Speaker 17:

Going to be close.

Narrator:

Early evening at Two Mile …

Speaker 17:

It’s going to fall over.

Narrator:

The clock is ticking.

Speaker 17:

You start hearing it cut hard like that, it’s getting close.

Narrator:

The crew have just one more hour to try and sell a jade slab to their buyer, Mr. Long.

Speaker 19:

I don’t know. We’ll see what happens.

Speaker 17:

There. Now it’s done. It’s a big chunk of jade.

Speaker 19:

Beautiful grade.

Speaker 17:

Now, before he flies out, he can see it. I hope it’s good.

Narrator:

If Mr. Long likes what he sees, this sale could go a long way towards paying for their mining season.

Claudia:

This is it. Our last visit.

Speaker 19:

Yeah.

Claudia:

Ooh. We’ve worked so hard to get here. This could change everything.

Claudia:

Okay. Is that good?

Narrator:

Mr. Long has to make sure he can work around any fractures to carve this piece of jade into a five foot tall Buddha statue.

Claudia:

So, Long, are you still thinking about it?

Mr. Long:

[inaudible 00:39:04] is good.

Claudia:

Yeah? This one’s a deal? Like a handshake deal? Like a yes?

Mr. Long:

Yes.

Claudia:

100%? 100%? Okay. I think I just sold jade.

Josh:

That’s happy dance right there.

Speaker 19:

That’s the best.

Claudia:

This is what we mine for. This is our dream.

Speaker 19:

We got a job next year maybe. We got a job next year maybe.

Narrator:

Claudia has just landed a $250,000 jade sale.

Speaker 19:

Thank you, Long. Thank you, buddy.

Claudia:

This is exactly the moment that we’ve been waiting for. Took 10 years.

 

[end of Clip]

Jenypher Fisher:

So that’s an unfinished scene. That’s actually my voice. Yay. I love doing voice over. I used to suck at voice over. The first time I did a rough cut, the guy behind me, the executive, went, “Can’t you even try?” And I sat in my seat like this, going, “Oh, God, it’s an hour long show and this is Act One. We’re in trouble.” And so I endeavored to get at least better.

Jenypher Fisher:

So other problems I had. There’s only two people. There’s two guys in the sunny scene. I inserted the third guy, who is the younger kid who does the happy dance at the end. He’s the guy I love. He’s good at TV. He knows he should do stuff like that, and I will put it on TV. We call him a clip monster. He’s always one you look at. “What did Josh do? What did Josh say? He probably said something useful.”

Jenypher Fisher:

I inserted him into the footage from the 29th into the footage on the 30th, to actually try to marry the scene so that you would think Josh was there, and it wouldn’t be weird that he suddenly popped up with Mr. Long. Because he didn’t arrive on an ATV. Only the two of them arrived.

Jenypher Fisher:

There’s an actual wardrobe change that I don’t think anyone noticed. One guy goes from wearing a bright yellow thing to a dark thing, but it doesn’t matter because there’s a couple shots in the middle, and there’s time for him to have taken off his jacket.

Jenypher Fisher:

I couldn’t show the buyer, Mr. Long, with the jade because the jade was still being cut. It just looked like a rock, and he’s buying a finished thing. That’s a problem, so every cut away of jade is not the jade. It’s from some day at some point of some rock. While I’m picking jade, it has to be plausibly the rock he has bought. It can’t just be any rock. It has to be believable. So it kind of cuts down.

Jenypher Fisher:

The buyer, Mr. Long there, was not super clear about buying the jade. He kind of took a minute to go, “Eh, eh, eh.” It was not rewarding at all. The piece of jade you see him buying there isn’t the jade piece I want you to think he’s buying. It’s a second piece of jade he bought later in the day. That one was way more rewarding, so I faked it. So it’s completely true he bought the piece of jade. He bought a second piece of jade much clearer, so I took the footage from the second piece of jade, and made him buy the first piece of jade using that. Which was a problem because directly behind him is the piece of jade I want you to think he’s buying, and directly in front of him is the piece of jade I don’t want you to think about. So it’s a problem.

Jenypher Fisher:

And the entire thing is pretty much … Oh, and actually Claudia, they were pretty much all business. They did not smile a lot. So every smile you see in there is every smile I have. Like, all of them. It’s all wrapped around Josh doing the happy dance, which I was so happy to see. Because I’m like, oh, someone’s excited, and Josh wants to high-five people. It’s like, sweet, I’m going to split that into two, and I’m going to sparse it out just to make it seem happy.

Jenypher Fisher:

And every closeup you saw in that whole thing, both before and after the tension and the happy, was taken around a back of a pickup later in the day when they were discussing lunch. Because no one got closeups. But I needed to create tension, and then I needed to create happy. So you just do what you have to do. It took awhile, but completely true … Not at all true.

Jonathan Dowler:

My head is almost spinning out because you’re like “I don’t have this.” “Oh, yeah, the one thing you need? Yeah, we didn’t get that.” And then I guess there’s varying degrees of that because some camera will get all the shots. You got that perfect shot of the slab falling off, but then-

Jenypher Fisher:

After it fell.

Jonathan Dowler:

After it fell.

Jenypher Fisher:

Which is fine. I have to say, as an editor, for the first 10 years, I was super like, “Why didn’t the shooter get that?” And then I really sat down and started to think about what these guys are doing, and what these girls and guys are living with, and the cacophony of chaos that’s in front of them all the time. And I’m less harsh on them now because I’m like, I don’t want to go out there. I want to sit in my chair.

Jonathan Dowler:

A senior editor I once knew said, “I really want to become a cameraman because I think that it would be one of two things. If I go out to try and shoot something, it’ll be either easier than I’ve ever thought possible, and then I have a new job that I can do, or it’ll be the hardest thing ever in the world, and I’ll shut my mouth, and I’ll happily go back to editing.”

Jenypher Fisher:

It’s that one. It’s that one.

Jonathan Dowler:

And so, yeah, he never got to try it, but I think that was something that’s resounded with me.

Jonathan Dowler:

So were you pitched this scene of this is the scene, this is the big thing. You’ve got to make it work.

Jenypher Fisher:

Yeah.

Jonathan Dowler:

Or did you realize this is it?

Jenypher Fisher:

Pretty much.

Jenypher Fisher:

No, it wasn’t pitched to me as this is the scene. I just watched it and knew what that was, and then I went to the writer and went, “We can’t have a rock that you can’t see. How do we fix this?” I think I said, “When does the jade fall? Can we use that?” And they’re like, “Well, it’s supposed to be in the next episode.” I’m like, “It can’t be in the next episode. We need it. Go get it.”

Jonathan Dowler:

And then they’re like, well, that’s going to cause a problem in the next episode. You’re like, “I’m not editing that episode, so-“

Jenypher Fisher:

Yeah, I don’t care about that episode, nor am I finishing that episode, so I could give a rat’s ass.

Jenypher Fisher:

No, this was all pretty much me going “There’s a problem.” I’m pretty experienced. I’ve been doing this. It’s not my first rodeo. Me going, “No, there’s a problem. I think I know how to fix it. Just let me fix it,” and then doing a rough string-out, showing it to people and going, “Eh?” And then them going, “Keep going,” and that’s how. It’s just all initiative. It’s feel. It’s instinct. It’s what you know. You know what you have to do.

Ian Sit:

This thing that Jennifer’s talking about, not having enough footage to create a scene, I find that we’re often confronted with this. And it’s a strange paradox where it seems like you have hundreds and hundreds of hours of footage that you have to sort through, and yet not have the shot that you need to create a two minute scene.

Baun Mah:

Yeah, you’re always missing that key moment.

Ian Sit:

And so what I find that is strange but perhaps should happen a lot more often is just having a conversation or being able to talk to your DPs prior to … I don’t know how often you guys get a chance to talk to production, but telling them in order for us to get a scene, if you’re going to shoot a jade thing, please shoot it. Have a closeup. Or hold your shots for more than 10 seconds please so that I can cut to it, and–

Baun Mah:

I’d like five. Five seconds, please.

Baun Mah:

I’ve thought that way a lot, too.

Ian Sit:

Yeah.

Baun Mah:

And now, seeing what production goes through, I will say that, especially on these competition shows, they don’t know what the through line is. They’re just trying to get everything they feel is relevant. I would love them to hang on a shot a little longer.

Baun Mah:

Let’s say, for example, the Food Network show. We have 10 chefs, and only three cameras, and they have to capture everything. And, you’re right, we often miss those key moments that we need that end up being in the story, but at the same time, I can’t imagine how they could predict some of it. The jade seems like maybe they could predict that a little more.

Elianna Borsa:

Yeah, maybe.

Jenypher Fisher:

It’s going to fall.

Elianna Borsa:

I should say what’s great about this scene is, as we watch it, it doesn’t seem like it was something hard to cut, because it just seemed like it was there, right?

Jenypher Fisher:

Yeah. It’s right there.

Elianna Borsa:

So that’s the thing about reality TV oftentimes, especially on the Race, is I was told when something looks like it might have been easy to edit, you’ve just done a really good job of doing exactly what Jenypher did.

Jenypher Fisher:

I will say one of the things I do, and I probably get away with it because I’m older and people know me and they trust me … I’m not sure I would do this with someone that I was just starting to work with if they didn’t know me … Is I refuse to put music in till we’ve nailed the story. It’s a privilege I have because I know my boss, and I know my boss trusts me, but I absolutely will not music in. I’ll put sound effects in. I will absolutely smooth the audio. It’s going to sound great, but there will be no music. I can hear all the music in my head. I actually build for the music. I know the moments. All the pensive stuff, that was there before. I just refuse to put it in until we’ve nailed the story enough that I’m not going to have to re-edit the music over and over again.

Elianna Borsa:

You are very lucky.

Jenypher Fisher:

And that’s a privilege. I know.

Elianna Borsa:

That’s nice.

Jenypher Fisher:

I know. But it works really, really well because once you put the music in, you can mask a lot of stuff. You can fool a lot of people for a really long time, but then someone is going to go “This doesn’t make any sense, but it’s flashy.” And that’s when you’re really in trouble.

Jonathan Dowler:

Ian, how do you approach music then? Do you bring stuff into your clips? Do you bring the music in, or is it-

Ian Sit:

I have the exact same attitude as Jennifer. I try not to add music until I know the story is functioning, until you hit your A-B-Cs, I will not put music in. And then, strangely, we’re editors, so we’re very visual, but, honestly, you always work with the audio in terms of getting your pacing right. And sometimes I’m closing my eyes when I’m editing, which sounds strange, but you do it, too, right?

Jenypher Fisher:

I absolutely do it.

Ian Sit:

Yeah.

Jenypher Fisher:

I spend half the time with my eyes closed.

Ian Sit:

You close your eyes. You kind of find your selects. You put it all together, and then you just want to hear the rhythm of the speaking just to know that you have what you want in terms of how you want the scene paced out. And then you look at the visuals, and that’s when you realize you don’t have what you want, and you’re swearing all the time. You’re like, “Oh, damn it. Hold the shot a little bit longer.”

Ian Sit:

And then at the end, that’s when you put the music in, and you make your adjustments. So the pacing of the audio that you’ve constructed in terms of how you want the scene to play is what informs the music. You can use a music track to inform your editing, but I find that that tricks you into building moments that don’t actually exist in the footage that you have. So I try to reserve that process of adding the music until as long as I can before producers and director-

Jonathan Dowler:

Let’s just talk about building your storyline, the audio. When you close your eyes and you’re listening to stuff. When you’re talking, a lot of this is written by the interviews, by the on-the-fly, off-the-cuff interviews both in the situ and after the fact, like in the interview stuff. For example, in the Jade Fever scene, just at the end, she’s like, “This is the big deal. We’ve done this whole time.” Let’s talk about, because this is a frequent question for unscripted, you’re writing it through their interviews. Do you fake what they say or do you make them sound better? What would be your approach? We call it franken-editing. Franken-grabbing is a term.

Jenypher Fisher:

I hate that word.

Jonathan Dowler:

Yes. It is thrown about quite a bit, but a lot of people say, “Well, I didn’t quite say that,” but you’re writing it using their words. Let’s just talk about how you build up your A-line stuff.

Ian Sit:

You do it in terms of being ethical about it. I think you do exactly what Jennifer did with her scene, whereas like it all happened. This is what actually happened, but you don’t have the footage or the person saying exactly what they are trying to say, and so you cut it, and you do manipulate the arrangement of the words occasionally in order for them to actually say exactly what they wanted to say.

Jonathan Dowler:

Or to be more clear. In an example of Race, to be absolutely clear.

Ian Sit:

Exactly. You’re cutting out um’s and uh’s and pauses, but sometimes people speak circularly … You know what I’m trying to say.

Jenypher Fisher:

Circularily?

Jonathan Dowler:

If this were an interview, we would cut this part out.

Ian Sit:

I would be, yeah, cutting myself in such a way that would be far more coherent, and precisely what I’m trying to say.

Jonathan Dowler:

But exactly.

Ian Sit:

But you never, at least in my experience, I have a problem with creating a version of that person that did not exist in order for your to aid a story along.

Jonathan Dowler:

There are certain levels. Clarity and what happened, and speaking to that stuff, is what generally happened, or in the case of the Race would be like this happened, they got to this point, and how they got there, it’s too complicated to get into specifics about security guard, clearance, whatever, but you get to that point. And that is something like A-to-B that’s what happened. So, like you say, 100% true, but 90% constructed.

Elianna Borsa:

Unless you work on the Bachelor.

Jenypher Fisher:

All bets are off on the Bachelor.

Elianna Borsa:

Most of it’s true, but …

Jenypher Fisher:

“Yes, she really does love him.” That would be a bad franken-edit.

Jonathan Dowler:

I think it’s worth talking about, because Bachelor is certainly the black sheep that kind of comes up quite frequently, and there’s also a lot of discussion both online or whenever you’re dealing with unscripted or reality TV is I think in some ways when it comes to scripted, you have someone like an actor saying, “Thank you for the editor who was curating my performance along with the director in close …” Someone like Lupita Nyong’o would say, “Thank you to Joe Walker for editing me in 12 Years a Slave, because that’s my performance. It’s not me personally.” But we have characters or personalities that are cast in these reality sections, and they’re quite certain people. Certain people will certainly come up and will be quick to blame the editors. In this age, a lot of them are media savvy. Quick to blame the editors, saying, “I didn’t say it that way,” or “You made me say …”

Jonathan Dowler:

What would you have as an answer to that in terms of … We could talk about it more, but more of it just in general when they say, “I never said that,” or “I never did this.” What has been your experience with that?

Jenypher Fisher:

I, personally, don’t make people say things they would never say, with the exception of the Bachelor, which took me awhile to wrap my ahead around once I landed there. It’s just wrong. I would never, ever do it. I will make them say what they would’ve said had we been able to ask them in the moment. The fact is I’m editing four months after you shot. I only have this footage. Would they have said it? Would they object to me making them sound better? Hopefully not, which doesn’t mean I’ll take out colloquialisms. If people talk in a certain way, I’m going to use that. I’m just going to make it as clear as humanly possible.

Jonathan Dowler:

For example, we’re boiling down the characters, the essence. We don’t have time sometimes to bring out all the little nuances of certain elements. So, for example, in a series that’s as fast-paced and run-and-gun as Race, a lot of things that happened over the past season was an example of characters who were the villains or the bad people and stuff. And I think it’s nothing that, at least in my experience, it’s nothing that’s been done. They do do that, but we’re boiling down the essence.

Jenypher Fisher:

We just make them more them.

Jonathan Dowler:

More them. Yes. Elianna, you worked on the last season of Race. What would you say about the villain characters or how that happened?

Elianna Borsa:

Right, yeah. A lot of people were upset about those villains because they weren’t Canadian, and everything that we showed, that’s how they were and they were very competitive. And one of the guys, it’s in his character to want to win, and I’m here for a competition to win, and I’m going to try to get into your head no matter what. Because that’s literally his job every day as a boxer. So he took that there, and he really does have a big heart. I actually really liked him. But when you watch the show, and Jennifer hated him-

Jenypher Fisher:

I hated him so badly.

Elianna Borsa:

And I totally understand why you would because you kind of just see that side of him. But then we also want to show their good side, so we try to show that as well. But when they’re just giving “No, we’re here to win,” that’s what we got. And it makes good TV.

Jonathan Dowler:

And it’s mostly the impression of them. Certainly some of those elements, that’s just them doing the race. And people can take a strong view of it. But, you’re right, we’re showing them doing stuff, but I think in this age, a lot of people are media savvy. Young people who are applying to a show like Big Brother, they were just born when the first Big Brother aired, so they’ve grown up in this age of … And they’re very cognizant of editing. And that is certainly a challenge for people because it gets very meta.

Jonathan Dowler:

I remember some people talking about, “Oh, I was edited that way.” And then it becomes this whole thing of impressions and stuff.

Baun Mah:

I think definitely they’re very aware of how the show is done. Especially Big Brother, because there’s a livestream on both the US and Canadian versions, so they see everything play out in real time, and then they see the edited show. They’re like, “Well, that’s now how it happened.” Of course that’s not how it happened. It happened over the span of an hour and a half, but we condensed it into a three minute scene. And by doing that, by virtue of compressing, you’re creating a heightened version of whatever confrontation that was, or what that moment was.

Baun Mah:

But, yeah, the contestants especially are very aware of the cameras and what they’re saying. We even had a problem in Season 3 where the house guests wouldn’t confess to use in the Diary Room, because that’s where they’re supposed to tell their true motivations, but they were just so wary of trying to project their image that it took a lot to just say, listen, this is the one place where it’s a safe area, and we need to know what you’re really thinking in these moments. But they were just so in their heads about their image that it was actually really difficult-

Jonathan Dowler:

Overthinking it.

Baun Mah:

They were all super fans and strategists, so they just didn’t want to give anything up. They wanted to stay in the game the whole time.

Elianna Borsa:

Or an ego thing when they do really poorly in a competition, and they’re like, “Oh, no, but I wanted to lose then.” And it’s like but you went in there. We heard you saying that you really wanted to win. So on TV, they’re like, “No, I planned that.”

Ian Sit:

A lot of the time you’re actually making your subject look way better than they are. You’re making them look way more competent, way more interesting, way more coherent, and so the news you hear about Bachelor and stuff is like, “You made me look bad.” It’s like, what about 90% of the time we made you a lot better and more interesting?

Jonathan Dowler:

Very erudite and, yeah, you spoke really well and concisely, and so great. Yeah.

Jenypher Fisher:

Often, the longer a show goes, the more the characters get a little more … They know what you’re doing, and you end up asking them questions over and over and over and over again. You’re asking because you need them to say it in that space, and you need them to say it well. If someone asked me the same question for six years over and over again, I understand where they’re coming from, but we really just need you to say “I want to find jade.” Say it here, or whatever. I really just need you to say that. And it’s because you might have said it badly five times.

Jenypher Fisher:

Or confused. Like they think they said “I want to find jade,” but they didn’t. They talked about jade esoterically, and it’s like I don’t need that. I need you to say “I want to find jade bad. My family will die if I don’t find jade.” Or whatever.

Jonathan Dowler:

But I think also the great thing, just going back to your scene for a second, is the scene is very dramatic. You have to set up stakes through all that stuff, and you have to get those great … Drama is founded on the conflict and the stakes, and you set that up in your scene as “We need to sell this. Six years have led to this, this big moment,” and then you need that moment … It’s very dramatic. You are applying any sort of dramatic rules that we have in any sort of cutting, be it scripted or whatnot, but you’re kind of coming up with it without the right lighting, without the right shots-

Jenypher Fisher:

On the fly.

Jonathan Dowler:

On the fly.

Jenypher Fisher:

Yeah.

Jonathan Dowler:

Unscripted, and that’s to be commended.

Jenypher Fisher:

You still have to make a good story. It doesn’t matter what they shot. Best case scenario, it has to compete with the best scripted shows on television. That’s your competition. You still have to try to meet that, even though it was shot in two days in the middle of nowhere with one camera guy and maybe an audio guy. Your goals are still the same.

Jonathan Dowler:

That plays to the heart of it. A lot of the writing or the first draft could be in the planning of the shoot, so how often do you find, percentage-wise, are you given enough to work with when you cut your scene? When you’re given your scenes … Not to slam production. We’re not trying to start a fight with production, but in terms of are you getting enough story? How many times are you getting to the point of, oh, my God, we really have nothing. Like what you were talking about. So much footage and they didn’t get anything. Or do you find that more often than not you’re getting what you need?

Ian Sit:

It’s a process because it changes depending on the scope and the angle, the story that you’re approaching. So they might have gotten all the footage you needed. It just so happened that when you started editing, you took this direction, and if you’re going to tell this story in this scene, you have no footage. And so if you get into a point where you can’t go any further, and you’re stuck, perhaps you have it the wrong way, and then you go back.

Jonathan Dowler:

What you have versus what you planned for.

Ian Sit:

Yeah.

Jenypher Fisher:

Also, sometimes in the field they think they’re shooting one story, because they think that’s the story we’re going to tell, and in fact, that’s not the story we decide to tell four months later in post. We still have to use that footage that they were trying to tell that story to tell that story now. And that’s the job.

Jonathan Dowler:

I want to show Ian’s clip first. We’ll do the Ian clip, Forever Young. Ian, do you want to set this up for us, just talking about how you built this scene?

Ian Sit:

Yeah. This is from a one hour doc about immortality. It’s like a soft science show about people trying to live forever. So this one person that you’re going to see in this scene, Liz Parrish, was the first person to undergo a genetic therapy that has not been approved for humans. It’s only been done on mice.

 

[Clip Plays]

Liz Parrish:

What would you do if you might be able to save millions of lives with one action, an action that might take your life? What if you had to build a business to do this? Learn a new science. Be judged and treated like a lab rat. Would you do it?

Liz Parrish:

I am three days out from taking two gene therapies. One never performed in a human. I don’t feel well. I can’t sleep. Wake up with my heart pounding. I keep picturing the person who will find me dead. Hopefully, I will live. I am totally happy with my decision either way because, today, all sorts of people are dying, people I know nothing about, but they are just as real as I am. And I am in good company.

Liz Parrish:

I’m okay. Let’s just do it.

 

[end of Clip]

 

Jonathan Dowler:

It’s very lyrical, very beautiful. So in terms of what we’ve talked about, finding the stuff, talk about the breakdown of that scene and how you approached it.

Ian Sit:

So it was quite an organic way of cutting. Basically, we went through all the footage and tried to identify the most salient things, and just build from there. What was shot with Liz was a sit-down interview. There was also footage of her just walking around her home, which was that forest, and there was also footage shot of her reading a letter that she was composing while she was undergoing the experiment as a form of personal emotional therapy in case she died. She was trying to write a justification as to why I’m doing this.

Ian Sit:

So when I was going through the footage, the moment where she breaks down, that was kind of like, oh, that’s a good moment. Every time you have someone showing genuine emotion in that way, it feels like it’s probably important. So we started with that, but it occurred to me that the way she was reading the letter sounded a lot more like voiceover than it did just a regular person reading, so we attempted to pair that audio with the footage of her walking around in the forest, which started to create a kind of fairy tale-y, dramatic, narrative scene. Which was an interesting moment.

Ian Sit:

And it could’ve played out that way entirely, but we didn’t want to lose the on camera moment where she started to break down. And so the decision was made to kind of set it up in such a way where she’s kind of walking around in the forest, but then all of a sudden, you cut to her reading the letter, and it became a bit of a dance between these two things.

Ian Sit:

That scene was cut, and it was put aside. At a certain point of cutting the rest of the film, we decided that this would be the very first scene of the entire movie. There are other subjects involved as well, but we liked how it started. So once we moved it to the top, we needed to build a kind of a bit of a tease, a bit of a hook. And that’s when we got the footage from the actual experiment, which we did not shoot. Liz provided for us. And so that was inserted afterwards in order for us to build more of a moment where she-

Jonathan Dowler:

And that’s the button. The button at the end. Let’s do it. Let’s get this done.

Ian Sit:

And I don’t think it would’ve worked if we had just inserted that stuff hadn’t the theme been played out like a dramatic scene without that kind of grounded moment where she’s very emotional, and we see her on camera. So it ultimately kind of came together step by step as we were going through the film.

Jonathan Dowler:

That’s great. Well, I think it’s incredible to see, much like any unscripted, she’s commenting, and we’re seeing what she’s talking about. It’s all on her face, like you say, in the tears.

Jonathan Dowler:

We were talking earlier, saying action is character, but it’s actually reaction. And those looks that can be built, be it in the Jade scene, where it’s the look of the people as they’re watching things, even if they’re talking about lunch.

Jenypher Fisher:

They were really serious about lunch.

Jonathan Dowler:

They looked hungry. And even in Race, it’s those looks of sheer terror, or being ticked off. I think we’re going to go to questions now.

Audience Question:

This is for Baun, but I guess anybody can answer. Just referring to your scene we showed today. You talk about how the original version was 11 minutes and change.

Baun Mah:

Yeah.

Audience Question:

And then you get down to about two and a bit.

Baun Mah:

Yeah.

Audience Question:

I’m assuming your edits aren’t really loose, but do you ever cut assuming I know this is going to be two minutes so I should make it two minutes, or do you always leave it a little bit longer, and let the writers kind of break it down?

Baun Mah:

No, I think the key to doing a show like Race is if you do know, then that’s great. Yeah, cut it down as much as you can. I think in this one, them getting lost is such a … It’s happened before, but it’s such a unique moment in Race that I find it very interesting. And it was also that it did have these moments of tension, so we did leave it in for the rough cut screening just because up until that rough cut, or even our internal screening, we have no idea what the other people are doing yet. Our story editor, Seth, had set up a story board through Trello, so he was updating it daily, but we didn’t know which tension beats would work. At that point, I still hadn’t realized how crazy the foot race at the end … Obviously, you guys don’t know what happened, but it was a long but really exciting foot race to get to the mat. So that was prioritized over this.

Baun Mah:

So, typically, yes, you would try to cut it down to maybe … 11 was way too long, and I put that on me because my cuts to the assembly usually end up being a little longer. But, yeah, it should’ve maybe been around five or six. That’s a little more reasonable, and then you cut it down in half. But really we wanted to see how this played out, and because if we cut it to the two and a half minutes … Like say we did cut it down to the two and a half minutes right away, we might questions like, oh, what happened? How did this team find out, or how did this team get lost? And did anything interesting happen here?

Baun Mah:

So sometimes on Race, it’s like you show what happened, and then once everyone has an idea of what happened, you whittle it down. And then you realize at least you can justify why you cut certain things out. So you present your whole case, and then you just keep the best bits.

Jenypher Fisher:

I personally always know what the times are right from the start, and I’m really annoying with writers because I’ll always tell them what the times are. I will always tell them “We are 10 minutes heavy at the end of the assembly, just so you know. Act One is really long, it’s this long.” If it’s a four act structure, I’ll know how long each act is generally. I’m not annoying about it, but I want everyone to know we’re seven minutes long, so if you have anything you’re not loving, get it out of here.

Jenypher Fisher:

And every time, every cut, I’m always trying to shorten it, because I’ve worked on too many shows where you’re not cognizant of it, and you’ve got an hour-and-20, and it’s just do it from the start. It’s just easier. We call it killing our babies. Like start killing the babies early. Choose a few that you want to protect and love, and then just start whittling it down. It makes it easier in the long run.

Baun Mah:

On the flip side though, we’ve had moments, not necessarily on Race, but on other shows where we do cut it closer to time because we do know roughly what our Act One, Act Two, all the acts should be. But then either the producer or the network or whoever who is not directly involved in the edit, they’re like, “Do we have another moment of this?” Or “Does this moment play out more?” So it’s sort of like a give or take. Then you’re like I would rather cut down rather than rebuild. I always find it’s much easier to compress than it is to open things up again. So I come from that sort of standpoint, where it’s like, okay, let’s show them everything, and then … Not necessarily everything, but what we feel is good, and then you’re like, “Okay, this is what we have,” and then we’ll cut it down after the assembly or the rough cut.

Jenypher Fisher:

Don’t get me wrong, my assemblies are longer. It’s just like I always tell them.

Baun Mah:

Yeah.

Jenypher Fisher:

We’re always going for this.

Baun Mah:

It’s great to be vigilant on that, yeah.

Jenypher Fisher:

The aim is always on time.

Baun Mah:

Otherwise it could get out of control, and you have a crazy long … Yeah.

Audience Question:

All right. Thanks, guys. I had a question about continuity because, as you mentioned, when you especially try to salvage a scene, you have to cobble together shots from different days. Things are obviously not going to completely match up.

Audience Question:

So my first question is how much does that actually come into play when you’re cutting a scene? And, more importantly, how do you deal with questions that you’re going to get, reactions you’re going to get, from your producers or director who may focus a little bit too much once they’ve seen one of your scenes and they say, “Well, we can’t do it that way because this thing in the background is different.” How do you react to that?

Elianna Borsa:

Yeah. I think it also kind of depends on the show. When I was in school, I was taught a lot about continuity, but then when you get into reality, you just need to throw that away. You do. And it also depends on the show, but that’s actually what I find the hardest. Race is actually a little bit easier because you can have them jump from here to there, and you put in a sound effect, and just the nature of the show because you have to really get it down. But something on like Big Brother when doing a challenge, it’s like how do I get this down and still have it make sense of how they got there, and that’s always a challenge.

Elianna Borsa:

But we worked on a show, a beauty show, where continuity was very important, and that was super hard to edit just because of continuity. The shots wouldn’t match up, or we didn’t have something to cut to, so it really does depend.

Baun Mah:

It really does, and especially that particular show. I had PTSD from that show.

Baun Mah:

There was a stylist I guess that they had that they were originally going to put in the show, but then they decided against it, so that stylist was in all the shots. So as soon as you saw a glimpse of her, that’s what they would see. And it was just so hard because there were so few cameras to cut around to that you really had to be creative with how to get those moments where they’re trying on different outfits but keep the stylist out. Even though she’s fluffing all the dresses and everything.

Jenypher Fisher:

The most important thing is character. If people like the characters, they’ll forgive an awful lot. Like if you cut for character and there’s not continuity, and it’s all about the character, they may miss that she’s wearing a red shirt and a green shirt.

Jenypher Fisher:

Also another trick is put an interview between the two things where it changed, or like I did, the guy took his jacket off. He went from wearing black to yellow, which wasn’t really a big deal. I did notice it, but there’s four shots between when that happened, so you create the time to believably have him take his jacket off. You don’t put them back to back.

Ian Sit:

One of the things that I do, if you just cut on action, and there’s movement within your clip, you can get away with a lot as far as continuity issues. I also find that audiences now are so savvy. Everyone has a camera on their phone, they could video stuff. Especially with documentary or factual, there’s a lot more forgiveness on the part of the audience. They understand. It’s constructed. It’s not always going to be a cup here, and then a cup shifts over there. It’s like, whatever, they knew it’s on the same day.

Baun Mah:

Yeah. Actually, I feel like nowadays, we can get away with it a lot more, even on Brother. Not necessarily the challenges, but the reality scenes that we have in between because it could be, again, an hour, hour-and-a-half long conversation. Like Ian said, they talk circularly, so you’re just really trying to compress that conversation to what the essence of it is. And the house guests are hopping around the room, they’re pacing back and forth. They’re standing, sitting, and we actually have gone looser. We used to try to keep continuity, but we’ve gotten looser with it over time because the audience now is very well versed in what reality TV is like.

Baun Mah:

And we even try to rely a little less on interview clips in our challenges because we try to play out the moments a little more because I find reality TV is kind of like going back towards a almost documentary style in the looser sense. But like a documentary style where you just try to let things play out because the audience knows. They know what the tricks are now, so you’re just trying to play it out more real, even though it may not necessarily be as super hyped up amazing.

Baun Mah:

I think the Great British Bake-Off has a lot to do with that, because everyone loves watching reality versus having it as a somewhat manufactured story.

Ian Sit:

Yeah. One last technique that I often employ is that you know how in school you’re like 180-degree, don’t cut this whatever …

Jenypher Fisher:

Doesn’t exist.

Ian Sit:

As long as you have an emotional rhythm to your scene, and you kind of hit the emotional rhythm, it’s hard to describe explicitly. But if you’re cutting an edit, and it doesn’t make sense in terms of where the positioning of the person is, but it makes sense in terms of the feeling, it hits that mark, no one is going to notice that the person is in the wrong spot in the previous shot or anything like that. Anyway.

Jonathan Dowler:

Please give a hand for our wonderful panelists. It’s been wonderful.

Ian Sit:

And thank you, Jonathan, for organizing this, and preparing us, and guiding us through this.

Jenypher Fisher:

Thank you very much. It was really awesome. This is not a comfortable situation, and you made it that. Thank you.

Sarah Taylor:

Thanks for joining us today, and a big thank you to our panelists and moderator.

Sarah Taylor:

A special thanks goes to Jane MacRae, Maureen Grant, and the CCE Board for helping create EditCon 2020.

 

The main title sound design was created by Jane Tattersall. Additional ADR recording by Andrea Rusch. Original music provided by Chad Blain. This episode was mixed and mastered by Tony Bao. The CCE has been supporting Indspire – an organization that provides funding and scholarships to Indigenous post secondary students. We have a permanent portal on our website at cceditors.ca or you can donate directly at indspire.ca. The CCE is taking steps to build a more equitable ecosystem within our industry and we encourage our members to participate in a way they can.  

 

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and tell your friends to tune in. Til next time I’m your host Sarah Taylor.

 

[Outtro]

The CCE is a non-profit organization with the goal of bettering the art and science of picture editing. If you wish to become a CCE member please visit our website www.cceditors.ca. Join our great community of Canadian editors for more related info.

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A special thanks goes to the following people for helping to create EditCon 2020

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Blackmagic Design

the CCE board

Hosted, Produced and Edited by

Sarah Taylor

Mixed and Mastered by

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Original Music by

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Categories
L'art du montage

Episode 003: Meeting with Arthur Tarnowski, ACE, hosted by Isabelle Malenfant, CCE

Épisode 003: L’art du Montage: Rencontre avec Arthur Tarnowski, ACE, animée par Isabelle Malenfant, CCE

Episode 3: Meet Arthur Tarnowski, ACE, hosted by Isabelle Malenfant, CCE

Épisode 003: L’art du Montage: Rencontre avec Arthur Tarnowski, ACE

This episode is Arthur Tarnowski’s Master Class. The discussion is focusing on his last project, the first ever Quebec Netflix production: The Decline.

The event was generously sponsored by Annex Pro/Avid.

Presented in French.

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A special thanks goes to

Arthur Tarnowski, ACE

Isabelle Malenfant, CCE

Julie Groleau, Couronne Nord

Sarah Taylor

Michel Arcand, CCE

Bam Library, Maud Le Chevallier

and our sponsors Annex Pro/Avid

Monderator

Isabelle Malenfant, CCE

Podcast Host

Myriam Poirier

Editing

Pauline Decroix

Main Title Sound Design by

Jane Tattersall, adapted in french by Pauline Decroix

Mixed and Mastered by

Tony Bao

Music generously offered by

Categories
L'art du montage

Episode 002: Assistant editor, a profession in its own right. Meeting with Edith Bellehumeur.

Edith Bellehumeur_Podcast

Episode 2: Assistant editor, a profession in its own right. Meeting with Edith Bellehumeur.

David Di Francesco, our podcast co-host, spoke with Edith Bellehumeur, assistant editor in film and television. Edith talks about her career path, her work in Montreal with several renowned editors, her vision of the profession and her transition to editing.

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A special thanks goes to

Edith Bellehumeur

David DiFrancesco

Sarah Taylor

Isabelle Malenfant, CCE

Claudia Hébert

Maud Le Chevallier

Hosted by

David Di Francesco

Edited by

David Di Francesco

Main Title Sound Design by

Jane Tattersall, adapté en version française par Pauline Decroix

Mixed and Mastered by

Tony Bao

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L'art du montage

Episode 001: Ziva Postec, The Editor Behind the Film Shoah

Ziva Postec

Episode 1: Ziva Postec, The Editor Behind the Film Shoah

Meeting with Annie Jean, CCE, and Catherine Hébert, hosted by Paul Ruban

Épisode 001: Ziva Postec, la monteuse derrière le film Shoah, Ziva Postec

We are pleased to present the first episode of L’art du Montage.

On November 7, 2019, the CCE hosted a screening of ZIVA POSTEC, THE EDITOR BEHIND THE FILM SHOAH, at the Alliance Française of Toronto, with director Catherine Hébert, and editor Annie Jean, CCE. The evening was hosted by Paul Ruban. We are pleased to share with you this beautiful evening of discussion around this film.

 

 

 

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Laetitia Delemarre, Mélissa Cuvilliez, Marin Stemmelen de L'Alliance Française de Toronto

Sarah Taylor

Annie Jean, CCE

Catherine Hébert

Paul Ruban

Clotilde Vatrinet et les Les Films du 3 Mars

Claire Pochon

Isabelle Malenfant, CCE

Claudia Hébert

Maud Le Chevallier, at Bam Library

Moderator

Paul Ruban

Podcast Host

Myriam Poirier

Editing

Pauline Decroix

Main Title Sound Design by

Jane Tattersall, adapté en version française par Pauline Decroix

Mixed and Mastered by

Tony Bao

Music generously offered by

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