Ballet Spotight

Here is a spotlight on a ballet company i recently done.

Spotlight

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

Look more carefully at the motivation points for the cuts in the interviews. Right now I have no idea why I'm on a certain angle at a certain point. And kill the flop effect on the woman's second soundbite. There's absolutely no reason you have to flop her there. The frame is awkward, but more because of the huge hole to her right, and flopping doesn't improve things. It's very obvious.

The third photo frame looks mis-positioned.

I'm personally not hot for the "clicking photos" technique. That could be just taste, but the introduction of the interviewees with those headshots didn't really appeal to me.


www.derekmok.com

I think you're improving - I like the opener and also the photo effect. It's much more understated and cheesy than before. The interview footage is still awkward though, like Derek says. Framing not good, no reason for the B cam, cutting for no reason.

Framing not good, no reason for the B cam, cutting for no reason.

can you be a bit more specific about b cam. I am thinking that you mean flipping the shot as i gather from mok.

Look more carefully at the motivation points for the cuts in the interviews.

I really was just trying to cut out the talking head. shane had suggested that i cut out the talking head as much. I just cut to thing that somewhat supported the statements.

maybe i am not reading you right derek. i did think that my ending was not good but if i had ended any other way i would have had t6o extend the piece for another 37 secs.

i think i remember you telling me to get in and out faster.

thanks i am learning from you guys. I felt that this piece was a lot better than the previous ones i have posted.

BTW i finally figure out how to hide a transition. thanks joe even if your just an angry man:-)

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

oh yeah mok. how was the music transitions?

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

PSSS

framing? what would you suggest on my next piece. when do i frame left and right as opposed to center.

I know that this is not an exact question but any thoughts would help.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

> when do i frame left and right as opposed to center.

What's in the frame? Also, with interviews, it's generally not a good idea to have the interviewee so far off center, speaking to the edge of the frame, which threatens to cut off their face. It's disconcerting and distracts from the viewer trying to listen to the responses. Dead-center is usually not done, either, if the eyeline of the interviewee is not directly to the camera.

> Framing not good, no reason for the B cam, cutting for no reason.
> Look more carefully at the motivation points for the cuts in the interviews.
> I really was just trying to cut out the talking head.

This is the problem. How are those shots different, anyway? Multiple cameras on the same interviewee is something of an overrated device in the first place. But I don't see enough thought put into exactly what each shot is supposed to do.

An even bigger problem was your cut points. They seem completely arbitrary. Think of cut points in an interview/dialogue scene as a person (you, or the cameraman) looking at a conversation or speech taking place. When do you turn your head to look at the other person? If it's a single-person interview, it's like listening to a long speech live -- when are your eyes fixed on the stage absorbing the speaker's body language? When do you choose to take a sip from your drink, or look down at your notepad? Is your cut point one place where you might conceivably get up and leave the auditorium?

If you're going to try to use two shots on an interview:

a) Make them more different. Say, one medium-wide which shows a banner behind the interviewee, and a close-up to get details of their expression.

b) Be very careful about exactly why you want to cross the axis. This is the second time I've seen this in your promos. Having the interviewee blast from looking left to looking right and back is very, very distracting. If you're just doing this because you want to avoid jump cuts, you'll need to study jump cuts more. There's no reason to cross the axis. For another prime example of bad coverage on interviews, look at the Aerosmith music DVD The Making of Pump. The camera operators were so concerned with getting "arty" shots that they did a slow tilt from the band member's foot on almost every segment, and got so many ECUs of nostrils, lips and arms that you'd think you were watching a soft-porn video.

c) Make sure the camera isn't wide for no reason. Look at the background and see if the location supports the wide. Gosta's medium, for example, shows a huge yellow-ish wall above his head for no reason, but there's a sliver of black to the left. His eyeline is also too far left, damaging the connection between him and the viewer. The interview location was not picked all that well, and the framing and coverage didn't help it. Robins' shot ("Robbins?" is even worse, with a huge black hole to her left, but there's nothing to see. The toy cart on her ledge isn't nearly interesting enough to justify such a skewed frame. And she's way too far right; watch it on a TV instead of the web and it'll look even worse, like she's been displaced and is talking to your cat, not you.

d) You usually can't lose with the classic angles: If the interviewee is facing right, then put them slightly frame left.

e) Tthink about whether there are more interviews in the piece, and how they interact. Orchestrate it so that not all the interviewees are always facing right with similar backgrounds, for example.

f) When I shoot interviews, I actually think one slightly adjusting camera is more useful than two angles. Slow creeps (as long as there aren't major camera mistakes) can allow you to listen to the person and intensify the interview without distracting from it. Unfortunately, 80 per cent of camera operators today have forgotten how to do slow, languid, smooth moves. They always think of cuts, so if they think they need a close-up, they do fast zooms into the face and then fumble for focus rather than "linking" their intended frames together. In other words, in-camera editing. MTV Unplugged had some nice examples of slow, confident, eminently usable movements. For event shooting, it really helps to think of your camera as the only one, rather than rely on other angles. If Laszlo Kovacs hadn't done that, The Last Waltz would not have been able to use the performance of "Mannish Boy" by Muddy Waters, since a communications accident had made Kovacs the only existing camera. And since Kovacs was doing so many minute, barely noticeable adjustments, that extended medium stayed alive for a long time in the film.

[en.wikipedia.org]


www.derekmok.com

> i think i remember you telling me to get in and out faster.

Well, you can't always take the notes given on one piece and apply them to another. Your interviewees on this piece are more engaging than the hair stylist.

I think you could probably benefit from thinking about editing a little less visually. Strange note, perhaps, but half of this kind of editing is sound. Sound in terms of sound editing, pacing, structure, script. Very often, you'd want to edit the interviews first so that they say what you need, then figure out where to use B-roll to cover up the edits, where to use coverage on the interview itself, where to just jump-cut or cross-fade the interviews. If you have two compelling bits of interview back to back, and they belong together, then rather than fumble around for techniques, sometimes it's just best to jump-cut them together. Scorsese did that on The Last Waltz, possibly because the members of The Band were a bit drugged up (especially Richard Manuel) and rambled a bit on camera, so he did it to tighten up their interviews, but he didn't insert lots of B-roll just to cover up the edit. The result is tight, tough interview segments that get across their stories and ideas extremely well, even if some of the edits look ugly. But ugly edits are well worth it if the content comes through.

So start editing more with your head and less with your eyes. If your rhythm, pacing and cut points aren't supported by the psychology of how we listen and absorb story, no amount of visual "smooth" editing will work. We're not watching cuts and transitions; we're watching everything in between them.

> i did think that my ending was not good but if i had ended any other way i would have had t6o
> extend the piece for another 37 secs.

Not sure what you're referring to there. The end photos look fine, though they'd be better if you could get rid of the edges, make them blend with the black background. And I might try to darken the one with the grey background, or go the opposite route -- give the photos hard borders.

I might also try to find a more impressive shot as the last moving-image shot of the piece. That wide holds a bit long and isn't all that visually attractive, though it functions. Maybe at least use colour correction to give it more contrast.


www.derekmok.com

the main real reason to use two cameras in a short interview is to have something to cut to when they goof up and correct it with a second take.

off center is definitely more interesting than dead centered but being THAT FAR off to one side you want to have them looking at the empty side, NOT the side theyre crammed toward - UNLESS there is something of mention in that space behind them.

like derek says. if you use two camera angles, its generally a good idea to use a medium and a closeup. not a wide and a closeup and not a floor-up and a chin down. unless of course you have some contextual reason to do so.

and whats up with horizontally flipping the image? thats totally doofy!

Hahaha... I spotted the flop on Robin the moment i saw it- did you notice the parting of her hair shifted during the flop? Also, she has a mole on the right side of her face (or is it the left side), but flopping makes it very evident.

You need to pay attention to what's in the background of your subjects as well. There was a moving sack or something right behind Robin's head on her first shot. I thought it could have been the body of a dead person or something.

The change in background color between your two cam shot of Gosta is something you'll definitely need to fix. Then again, do you need to use the B-roll on him? They awkward and sounds like bad 'advice' i tend to get from bad producers. (wth do you need to see 2 sides of a talking head?)

Ease off on the transitions a bit and focus on content and pacing. The silhouette shots of the dancers are cool, and even better if you had different angles and sizes of them. That's something you can string into sequence when an interviewer is talking about form or movement of the dancers.

You need to choose your shots carefully when you're doing cross dissolves- around 2:26, that looks a bit weird having the wide shot of jumping dancers dissolve into the face of Robin.

The framing looks awkward at some points around 1:30. You might do better to slide the frame left only when the talking head starts coming up.

The framing of your interviews is something i understand. For months, i keep telling my producers to give them proper headroom/lead room in shots, not to cross the line of action... but they think they're going for cinema art when they do incomprehensible stuff like making my subjects face the edge of the screen, or have crap line up one edge of the screen (00:33). Hell, sometimes i storyboard what an interview is supposed to look like, and they still come back with shots like that. I think some guys close their eyes when they shoot.

Btw, the end photos are pretty cool idea...

Yep, Mok it is Robinson as her last name. thanks for that.

Planned fixes:

1. gosta interview - For the extra space on the mediums i could help somewhat with a increase in frame size.

2. The empty space left on ms robinson intv. I could ad a graphic maybe animated. This idea though makes me think i will be distracting the interview with a graphic that isn't uniform.
I could also crop the edge and ad stylized b-roll to it. I could also leave as is and frame better in the next one.

3. tooo much b-roll or not corresponding b-roll - I need to revisit shots to see if they may work better or rearrange the ones i have.

4. stills - contrast and edge feathering

5. no horizontal flips on the robinson intv.

The 3rd voice that you hear detailing a brief history has no on cam footage of her face. She doesn't wish to be seen.

Did i miss something?

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

stypes

I dont see how i can fix the wind blowing the umbrella on the patio behind her or the alignment of the frame laying against the wall behind him. I will have to be more attentive in the future to make that better.

@1:53
At one point during edit i had no crossD's anywhere but towards the brief history the hard cuts started looking a bit blinky to me. I thought that the soft 10 - 15 frame crossD would smooth the cuts a bit. Maybe i do need to take one or 2 out.

the frames i kinda like. The blown out b&w has a lot of luma and i like the way that the blk frame gives a contrast buffer into the color shots.

i do have more of the shadow dance in b-roll. maybe i should use more of it.

My framing is not yet developed i just started shooting with pro stuff 3 years ago. i liked it better when i had a partner who was a camera geek and all i had to do is make it flow.

I do need to think more about what being seen other than the subject.

i had to shot this while they practiced and i could not stage them very often.

oh yeah and i also agree with the awkward trans to the 2nd part of her intv.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

Haha... So that was an umbrella? Apologies on the rather grim analogy- was just watching The Conversation over the weekend. From what i recall, the umbrella doesn't move that much later on, so instead of opening her interview with the moving body bag-like object in the background, you could try shifting that interview further back (or even better, b-roll your way out of it).

Cross dissolves are supposed to be smooth. Pay attention to the placement of objects, as well as the relation between shots. Personally, on documentaries, I like to cross dissolve two images against a narration/soundbyte to create meaning.

The frames were okay, it was the way it started out. You had a gap on the right. Nothing was happening on the right of frame or even close to the center of it, leaving it fairly disproportional for a while. Then, it was the choice of shots later- with that shot size, you can actually zoom in on the shot and crop out the portions of the frame with nothing happening (sort of a pan and scan), or you could try flopping some shots. It's more of where the action was happening that i didn't like so much- some of the action overlap the talking heads, there are a few awkwardly framed shots. Then there was one where the dancer seemed to hit on the box just when you did a flash transition (kinda reminded me of banging on a spoilt tv to change channels).

I agree with Derek on editing with your 'head' rather than your 'eyes'. It is the way to create that natural flow and relation between your images and sound- they combine to create meaning to the audience. Editing has less to do with "transitions", but more to do with images and lining up shots, the timing of the shots, the timing of the shots over the audio underneath it, the relationship between one shot to the next, between a sequence of shots to the next.

To add on, you could try introducing both characters in the same manner to introduce some uniformity to your piece. (since both have the same photo clicking effect)- you could also apply the same fonts, the same drop shadows, fade from black, b/w photos.

Also, depending on the purpose of the piece, introducing a climatic moment could help tighten things up a bit.

> The empty space left on ms robinson intv. I could ad a graphic maybe animated. This idea
> though makes me think i will be distracting the interview with a graphic that isn't uniform.

In most cases, don't try to fix editing issues with effects. Bad framing can be fixed with either judicious cutting or by blowing up the picture a bit so you can slide it. But if you put some swirly, swinging graphic to try to fill the hole, then your frame may not look as empty, but you've just put in an element that doesn't help and would most likely impede your interview.

It's the same for the unmotivated cuts. Stop being "visually bored" and looking for eye candy, or trying to go into coverage shots where you don't need them. Get the content right first. Make the story and message solid and muscular. Then you'll know how much gravy you need. Unnecessary cuts don't make the piece more exciting; they make the piece more fidgety, more nervous, more amateurish.

> Then again, do you need to use the B-roll on him?

Hmm, I could be wrong, but I think strypes means coverage, not B-roll. I think he's referring to the low angle medium.

> At one point during edit i had no crossD's anywhere but towards the brief history the hard
> cuts started looking a bit blinky to me.

A slightly "blinky" cut is far better than an unmotivated dissolve, in my opinion. Don't put things in just to make the cut "smoother". It's much more important to think about whether it's a big enough moment for a dissolve.

> My framing is not yet developed i just started shooting with pro stuff 3 years ago. i liked it
> better when i had a partner who was a camera geek and all i had to do is make it flow.

I think you'll find it helpful to find some narrative-fiction projects to edit. It's the basis of all editing. I've never met a narrative-fiction editor who can't cut documentary or promos, but I've met plenty of documentary, promo, music-video, trailer and commercial editors who don't do well in narrative-fiction film. And find a comedy, or an intimate drama, or a gritty realist action film. Not a flashy MTV horror film.

The point is that in many forms of narrative fiction, you have a lot fewer tricks you can do. If Heat started using white flashes, slides and lighting effects during the shootout scene, it'd look ridiculous. Or those Tony Scott subtitles during GoodFellas. Or CHV effects in Four Weddings and a Funeral. Cutting this stuff is great training; you have to work with the simplest tools to find the best solutions for getting the viewer to like the scene and the film. You can't even use dissolves, in many cases. Taking away the toys really focuses your ability to find real solutions to make the scenes work. And it hones structural and rhythmic sense, because in narrative-fiction films, you can't just make things fast, fast, fast and get away with it.

> climatic moment could help tighten things up a bit.

A moment of rain, snow sunshine and other exciting weather reports...
I think you mean "climactic"!
Sorry, couldn't resist.

> Editing has less to do with "transitions", but more to do with images and lining up shots, the
> timing of the shots, the timing of the shots over the audio underneath it, the relationship
> between one shot to the next, between a sequence of shots to the next.

I'd agree with that. Things like "is a dissolve smooth" are far less important than "what the dissolve means". Only film professionals mind things like a little camera bump or not-quite-smooth stop to a dolly, and I'm not making films for them. If that particular take is the "magic" take for the actor, use the damn thing. It's all down to the Walter Murch checklist of Rule of Six:

Priorities when judging a cut:
1. Emotion
2. Story
3. Rhythm
4. Eyeline
5. 2D continuity
6. 3D continuity

Similarly, if my outgoing shot has a little jerk at the end but a dissolve feels right for the moment (eg. end of a "chapter", time passage, in a character's head when the character is sad), I'd do it in a heartbeat. And if it's the best take for acting, then let the jerk be in the dissolve. Even The West Wing does it, and if it feels right for the scene, the only people who will be bitching will be some film producers and DPs, people who are watching cuts and not story, looking for techniques and not content, valuing "perfect smoothness" instead of rhythm, pacing and emotional effect.


www.derekmok.com

updated

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

why are you still floppin that pedrag dude?

I missed that. I am re-encoding at 1 am eastern with the final tweaks.

I just removed the flop.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

Derek, thanks for the word and Walter's rules... here's another pretty important statement, more specific.. Since this is a translation, Rule 3 means to cut 'on action', i'm not exactly sure what rule 4 is, rule 5 is something we pretty much break constantly in today's age of MTV editing, don't really understand 6 either..

Edward Dmtryk's 7 rules.
"Rule 1. Never make a cut without a positive reason.
"Rule 2. When undecided about the exact frame to cut on, cut long rather than short"
"Rule 3: Whenever possible cut 'in movement'"
"Rule 4: The 'fresh' is preferable to the 'stale'"
"Rule 5: All scenes should begin and end with continuing action"
"Rule 6: Cut for proper values rather than proper 'matches'"
"Rule 7: Substance first?then form"

Hmm.. Personally, i'd go with a shorter shadow distance on the text, but that's just a personal preference. Good job on the deinterlacing- i can't tell you how distracted i was by it in the initial cut. Much better overall... The audio might need to be tweaked a bit- they seem a little muddy on my speakers. Probably notch up the nasality (1-2khz) few dBs. And yea, my bad- i meant to use coverage to cover up the part when the umbrella's moving distractingly in the background. But well, we could go on all day, and you could start rechoosing shots all over again, and we'll never be done... When you're done, look at it one more time, and move on.

> "Rule 1. Never make a cut without a positive reason.
> "Rule 2. When undecided about the exact frame to cut on, cut long rather than short"
> "Rule 3: Whenever possible cut 'in movement'"
> "Rule 4: The 'fresh' is preferable to the 'stale'"
> "Rule 5: All scenes should begin and end with continuing action"
> "Rule 6: Cut for proper values rather than proper 'matches'"
> "Rule 7: Substance first?then form"

Nice. Rule 2, 4, 6 and 7 I definitely agree with. Rule 5 isn't something I subscribe to, though...sometimes it's good to let the final shot rest a bit.

I think the main thing is not to get into predictable patterns -- for example, cutting dead to the beat with music. End every scene the same way and it flattens out the film. I believe subconscious rhythmic "resets" can be healthy; it rejuvenates the audience's attention span. If every scene felt in medias res, the pacing can be just as flat as if every scene had a dead-still opening and end.


www.derekmok.com

What does rule 4 and 6 mean, though? Then again, i'm seeing rule 5 again, and i'm not too sure what he meant here. Think i've to read up more on Dmtryk.

There are some summaries of these rules, and more, here:

[www.kabul-reconstructions.net]

I have my own interpretations. Of course, other people will take something different from these, and I think that's a good thing.

1. Content, then form.
- People are watching what's happening, not how it's cut. "Ugly" is often necessary.

2. A film?s first viewing should evoke an emotional reaction, not a critical one.
- This is one of my staples and I couldn't have put it better myself. If the audience is aware of whether it likes the film or not, the film has probably already failed.

3. Film should be cut primarily for the picture.
- I'd agree with that, as long as people don't misinterpret that as saying "sound don't matter", or that cinematography (pretty lights, perfect composition, completely seamless camera) is more important than acting emotions, information, logic. Acting beats, after all, are a part of the criteria for judging "picture".

4. All properly made cuts are unnoticeable.
- But there's a distinction between a "shot" being noticeable and a "cut" being noticeable...

5. Never make a cut without a positive reason.
- That article explains this as "Stay with a shot as long as that shot is the one which best delivers the required information...the only reason to use another shot is to improve the scene". Which is true, but a little hard to use in a practical way. A bad editor would say that all his cuts do make the scene better. And then you have something like Takeshi Kitano's Brother, where a hostage scene was cut with no shots whatsoever on the actual hostage side until the hostage taker is killed. Most editors would consider it insane, but that kind of insanity is really the raison d'être for the whole Kitano canon!

6. Cut on action whenever possible.
- I completely disagree with this one. I think in most cases it actually dirties up the cut -- you're seeing the action twice, which makes the cut less well motivated. And also, if a character's psychology dictates, cuts on action can be bad. For example, imagine two people in a sit-down dialogue scene in a medium two-shot, and one person makes an internal decision, then gets up to leave. You'd almost always want to cut to the single/OTS before the character's internal decision, rather than cutting on the action of him getting up out of his chair.

Older films (which are usually shot pro-scenium, and often don't get in too close to the actors) are cut this way, and they look pretty quaint now. Even Akira Kurosawa.

7. Scenes should begin/end with continuing action.
- I really think this one depends on the situation.

9 Cut for proper values rather than proper matches.
A) Ignore the mismatch. If a cut from wide shot to CU should be made for dramatic value, the audience will ignore the mismatch. The important thing is to know where the viewer will be looking. Dramatic requirements must always takes precedence over the mere aesthetics of editing.
- This is one I adhere to.

C). If all fails, precede the desired cut to B by replacing the end of A with a CU.
- I call this "band-aiding". Using some shots to hide weaknesses in others. I'm sure every one of us has done this. But I think this has to be predicated upon the "band-aid" shot being well motivated. If B and A truly belong together logically, let them be.

10. Cutting Dialogue.
Editor must understand the grammatical structure of the English language
- One concept in my film education has been that film is more like a novel than theatre. Shots are like sentences in the narrative. You don't always have to open with "time, place, setting", but it has to make sense.


www.derekmok.com

Coo coooo cooool!!! Thanks for the article! BTW, wth is "fresh" and "stale"?

Btw, I totally agree with the making a cut only with a positive reason. Cutting out from a jarring mistake (the complete earthquake under the cam op when he discovers an ant nest in his pants) are some reasons why I absolutely had to cut sometimes and I absolutely hate it when that happens. Then again, there was that Walter Murch statement which i absolutely adore- something to do with examining prior scenes/shots building up to the moment. These are what you can actually do to help prevent unmotivated cuts- redrawing "secondary" character motivation/ meaning.

"Cutting on action" brings to mind The Conversation, which i just watched twice over the last weekend. Walter mentioned about the "cutting on action" convention and why he broke it in the Harry's room and the hotel room scene- in the first, it was to create an identity for Harry, and in the 2nd scene it help set up the identity for the film. Similarly to continuity editing, it usually depends on the situation/context.

Then again, in J Corbett's video... I'm particularly interested in how someone would sequence the dancing shots. I know this is pretty vague, but I'm kinda interested in where someone would find motivation for a cut... My take is that aside from what the narration/interviewee is saying, i usually pay attention to parallel action in between shots as well as a shot/reaction shot to create some motivation for a sequence. Occasionally I get stuck on an immobile camera (shot from the same location), or similar shot size.

i would guess that fresh and stale would mean that the most recent footage,pictures, and info is best. While older footage and such tend to feel old even if the viewer isnt a pro-critic.

i.e. I went ahead a showed the ruff cut of the ballet to the organizers (4 people). They all wanted to change out some of the pics i have in this piece and gave me a bunch of pics that were taken after i filmed. Some of the people in the pics are also in the footage which makes for a more homed in concentration on what they do here in this county.

I say as long as you are talking about now you need to show now. if you are talking about yesterday show yesterday( when available). I have often see pieces that show a new building and then try describe what it was like back in the day without any image reference. Its like trying to describe a new corvette by showing the 1974 model or describing the 74 model by showing a 97 calaway model.

well i am doing the final tweak and i will post later today.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

>
> I say as long as you are talking about now you
> need to show now. if you are talking about
> yesterday show yesterday( when available). I have
> often see pieces that show a new building and then
> try describe what it was like back in the day
> without any image reference. Its like trying to
> describe a new corvette by showing the 1974 model
> or describing the 74 model by showing a 97 calaway
> model.
>

Relate is the key word here. I had a docu recently and on the section when the narration was on past achievements and what a school planned to achieve in future. I decided to cutting to inanimate objects to illustrate a passage of time.

> i would guess that fresh and stale would mean that the most recent footage,pictures, and info
> is best. While older footage and such tend to feel old even if the viewer isnt a pro-critic.

I seriously doubt that's the intention of the author. He's talking about narrative film. Besides, to say "older footage never works" is another sweeping generalization that doesn't take context, narrative, tone etc. into account.


www.derekmok.com

Never saw a bunch of videos as similar to a bunch of vegetables... Had a conversation today and realized that the demands of post production can be similar to baking a cake, but that's another story..

Does he mean "fresh" delivery of acting as opposed to "stale" (over rehearsed) delivery?

> Does he mean "fresh" delivery of acting as opposed to "stale" (over rehearsed) delivery?

I don't think that's what he meant, although this is certainly a great thing to bear in mind. Lots of directors and producers I know aren't actually directing their actors -- they're trying to get the actors to say a line with a certain inflection they hear in their head ("line readings". Which almost always leads to stiff, phony performances. I've fought many a battle arguing for a genuine performance rather than a note-accurate emulation of the sounds in a director/producer's head.

But I think Dmtryk's point is that if the incoming shot contains something interesting, put it at the front of the cut to "motivate" the cut. The article above explains it like this:

"If you must include extra footage, always choose to place extra footage at the beginning of the incoming cut."

Unfortunately, the author is very vague as to what "extra footage" means!


www.derekmok.com

Haha. Thanks for your take on that... Guess i'll have to find, then read Dmtryk's book to figure out what he means...

Heh... I've never looked at a cut and exclaimed "man! that guy looks fresh!"

Done

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"