reflection on the editing process
Looking back at all our films, I think the post-production was the weakest side. The footage we got wasn’t very good for any of the films, but for each project I felt we could do much more with it than we did in post, and for our main film even more so.
The first problem is that our editor didn’t come to any of the shoots for our main film, so as much as the rest of the team explained what we intended with the shoots, and as much as the script explained as well, she couldn’t get an ideea as good as if she was present on the shoot. The footage would’ve been probably much easier to work with if she was there to give her opinion on it, also.
The second problem is that we had 2 weeks for post-production and our editor only showed me a rough cut 2 days before the deadline, when as much as I wanted to be involved more in the process, I couldn’t do more than tell her some observations and ask for a finer cut at least the day before the deadline. In the end, like in the previous projects, my opinion wasn’t taken into consideration in the editing process, which shouldn’t happen in a professional production.
The third problem is that, like in the previous projects, we didn’t have any sort of color grading, so no matter how beautiful some of the footage our cinematographers managed to film, it wasn’t properly given value.
For me, personally, the fact that in each project the post-production was the weakest meant that I had the opportunity to take the footage afterwards and edit it myself, learning more from my editor’s mistake than I would’ve done otherwise. In the end, I know our editor won’t choose this role in the future because she discovered it doesen’t suit her, but I think it was good for all of us to go through so many mistakes and learn not to do them in the future for our own editing projects.
