The Crooked Cut: Alternatives to the straight cut...

As opposed to straight cuts, or even L-cuts, what kind of options are there when someone says "we don't want straight cuts"...

They might be saying they want dissolves, or other types of transitions at the edit points.

deb

Could be a signal of a client who loves Page Peels. Yow.

Usually if you're ordered to go transition-crazy, try flashes. They always love that stuff, can't get enough. Especially if you stick in clicking cameras. Though I've pretty much overdosed on that and Cross Zooms.


www.derekmok.com

Quick additive disolves are a nice alternative to flashes.

I once had a producer he wanted five frame dissolves because the cuts were too "hard". "Just make the cuts softer", he tells me, "like short dissolves". I tried to tell him that the cuts appearing "hard" was due to the shot selection and lack of coverage, but he thinks he knows everything. I showed him what five frame dissolves looked like and he loved it.

Was it P.T. Barnum who said, "no one ever went broke underestimating the tastes of the public"?

> I once had a producer he wanted five frame dissolves because the cuts were too "hard".

Lots of producers are so concerned about "smoothness" that they're not watching content. Of course a dissolve would be "smoother" than a cut. But many of them never get around to the question of: What does the dissolve mean? Does it fit the tone of the piece? Does it interfere with the immediacy of the onscreen subject/actor/narrative scene? Imagine if 24 tried to use dissolves because "the camera was too bouncy" or "cuts are too abrupt". The show would've been demolished.


www.derekmok.com

derekmok Wrote:
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> The show
> would've been demolished.


Well it's a damn good thing no one is ever going to see the movie I was working on. A first time writer/director (whose experience is all in theater and dance) paired with a first time editor (my experience is all in assisting on docs and PBS) is a recipe for a disastrous product!

Not at all. Directors who come from the theater are arguably more visual, better story tellers, and certainly more musical than those that do not. They also care about words. Yeah, yeah, its a generality, but so is "first time director." My God, name your favorite film director and chances are he came from the theatre. This first time director with background in theatre and dance is a recipe for a kick ass good project.

Michael Horton
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First-time talent can also result in more freshness.

I think Mike is thinking about Julie Taymor here, and maybe Sam Mendes. Elia Kazan is more famed for great acting. My main directing partner has an intensive background in theatre as well.

Your current director isn't the one asking for five-frame dissolves and no cuts, is he? That would be a disaster in a narrative film.


www.derekmok.com

Michael Horton Wrote:
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> Not at all. Directors who come from the theater
> are arguably more visual, better story tellers,
> and certainly more musical than those that do not.
> They also care about words. Yeah, yeah, its a
> generality, but so is "first time director." My
> God, name your favorite film director and chances
> are he came from the theatre. This first time
> director with background in theatre and dance is a
> recipe for a kick ass good project.

I would agree with you, but when the director essentially forgets that it's his or her job to tell a story, then all the visual elements and good dialog are in vain. I guess the key is that the director be aware that the two mediums are inherently different.

derekmok Wrote:
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> Your current director isn't the one asking for
> five-frame dissolves and no cuts, is he? That
> would be a disaster in a narrative film.

No no, that was the producer.

I would completely agree on the Julie Taymore idea. That is one very good example of how a theater and dance background can make for a great film. Even Baz Lerman, whose movies I can't stand, has shown what kind of creative approach can be translated to film.

Still, if the fundamentals of movie making aren't there, flashy dance numbers and long-winded monologues aren't going to save the film. I'm not saying it's impossible for someone whose experience is on the stage to make the transition to film. I'm I'm saying is that if the understanding that the two formats are different isn't there, the result can be horid.

Quote

Directors who come from the theater are arguably more visual, better story tellers, and certainly more musical than those that do not. They also care about words.

Absolutely true.

Interesting too how more than a few spent their most formative years immersed in Shakespeare.

I am certainly thinking of Julie Taymor and Sam Mendes and Baz Luhrmann. Pity, they but a rare crop of young contemporary directors who have come from the theatre. The theatre has lost a lot of relevance in the USA and few are coming out of it as before. And yes I like Rob Marshall too. But I'm really thinking of directors like Arthur Penn and Sidney Lumet and Orson Wells and Elia Kazan and Mike Nichols and on and on and on. Love these guys.

Michael Horton
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Baz Luhrmann
at one time I thought I was the only one who loved
Moulin Rouge

I usually employ the flashes from TMTS, or a default dip to color, or the Nattress film flash, occasionally the additive dissolve (but there's no control to broadcast safe ranges on that), but that being said, I'm getting tired of going on flashes or *urghs* crash zooms. I even tried the earthquake at one time... And yea, many of these people are page peel addicts- a good recipe for disaster. I can easily name the last producer i worked with as a blazing example- came up in the first ever email i got from her on that project ("use more visual transitions".

I was thinking of Frame in Frame edits? Any interesting ideas/examples on that front? More than "not using straight cuts", I'm thinking they're also talking about stylized edits. I'm finding that the use of certain shots to facilitate a transition (eg, a speed ramp on passing cars), keyframed brightness or glow for flashes, etc... was there any interesting theories on superimpositions?

If someone asked me to do a project and specified that they didn't want straight-cut, I would interpret that to mean that they wanted a lot of composition work, so lots of layering, graphics, maybe text and so on.

Not just 'straight cutting' like you see if feature films or news where one single full frame picture follows another single full frame picture. Dissolves and simple transitions like wipes and flashes would still come under the straight-cut banner, in my book.

Compositing is an interesting avenue. It would be cool to pick up a good aesthetic sense in this dimension. I'm still pretty much new to ideas in this area... I usually end up throwing in loads of cheesy low end corporate ideas. And i absolutely hate going into the editor's toolkit and digging up a cheesy background for a promo... urghs!!!