Editing

Editing is one of my favorite parts of the filmmaking process. I’m a believer in that films get made three times. First, when you write it. Secondly, when you film it. And thirdly, when you edit it. Each one of those steps gives you a chance to evolve it. In many cases you can’t help it. While you’re on set for instance, you find inspiration in the moment and end up doing things that you hadn’t thought of before. Or in the editing room, you find that certain things play out much more nicely in a different way than how it had been scripted. The challenge is in finding the balance between evolving, and staying true to the original vision of the script. If you get too creative after the fact, you run the risk of undermining the script you worked so hard to make just right. I’ll give at least one example in the next session.

For our production, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the final product remained very true to the original version. Shown below are are several revisions of the book trailer. This will give you a precise idea of how the production gradually became stronger. Note that each one generally becomes tighter and more interesting. That comes from simply working on it for hours on end.

I edited the Towers of Midnight trailer using Apple’s Final Cut Pro software.

As always, Brad and Tess were my creative “brain trust.” They were the ones who would look over each version of the edit I produced and offered suggestions. I was smart enough to take most of it.

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