DAY 7 - Shorter!

The art of omission, the art of cutting down and eliminating excess fat and content is something I'm learning ever more about.  My first act of the day was to take a 15 minute interview between Erik Beck and the director of Paranormal Activity and reduce it to three to five minutes.  The story of that film is quite interesting within itself.  Made on a budget of under $15,000 by a man who never picked up a video camera in his life, Paranormal Activity is the horror film sweeping the nation.  It's been called one of the scariest films ever made, drawing its horror not from exuberant gore and special effect villains, but from what's not seen, what's invisible.  It's a "imagination of the audience" kind of film, like Blair Witch Project.  Actually, the formula is incredibly similar.

Anyway, unrestricted by video I was able to form questions and answers however I wanted, cutting out whole chunks without worrying about jumps.  The cuts aren't perfect.  When I listen through I can tell where I've made adjustments but that could be because I'm aware of it.  Erik took a listen to it while I was shooting BTT and his only comments that I remember were, "Good.  It could be shorter, though".  Doesn't really instill too much confidence in me but, regardless I sent it to him and wasn't asked about it for the rest of the day.

Speaking of Beyond the Trailer, that was probably the highlight of my day.  Nothing out of the ordinary happened but the comfort level was mind-blowing.  Comfort with the process, with the Panosonic HVX, lights, sound equipment and just being able to walk around the room knowing what I'm doing and how to do it is a great feeling.  (Though it may seem I harp on this a lot, for me it really is important.)  I really enjoy working with Grace and every time we shoot these things it gets easier and easier.  Jokes were told, laughs were shared, insights on film and Apple's imminent takeover of the world were rampant.  Thank you, BTT, for making my day.

With that footage in the can and the Paranormal Activity interview "finished", I went back to Working Class Foodies footage and tried to put together more pieces of the rough cut.  When I went to watch a previous episode to double-check on how title cards were done, I found this: Bratwurst with Theo Peck, my first rough cut episode.  At first I was excited, but after watching it, discouragement hit me hard.  My work had definitely established a process of the show, but Rebecca fit it all together in such a cohesive, engaging and entertaining manner, doing things I never would have thought of.  Her vision for the episode and use of the footage worked so well!  My discouragement is unsound: I'm not the director of these videos, merely a helper putting labels on the pieces and putting a few together.  I never expected to be anything more, but watching the video made me realize I have much further to go as an editor.  Or maybe these thoughts are all senseless worries?  Probably.  From now on I'll take it as a learning experience, not a blow to confidence.  Sorry for the personal-esque ramblings.

By 3:00 pm I was without much to do.  Strange, I know!  Ryan put me to work answering messages on the Indy Mogul Youtube account and I rode that wave until 6:00 pm.

What did I learn today? When you think it's short enough, cut off another minute.  Things are never too short for the Internet.  People's attention spans are really that ADD.  And, for what it is, it works.  Get used to being the skeleton of the video.  Other people will make it a whole, living breathing entity and may swap out a few bones in the process.