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Building the Film

Lesson 19 from: The Art of Filmmaking and Editing

Jeff Medford, Ross Hockrow

Building the Film

Lesson 19 from: The Art of Filmmaking and Editing

Jeff Medford, Ross Hockrow

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Lesson Info

19. Building the Film

Lesson Info

Building the Film

You see, PluralEyes synced all our audio for us. Now, let me make this point. PluralEyes is really good for syncing, for events and things where you have a long audio source and lots of little clips. In this situation, it's not as necessary as it would be in the event space because I know I have a number of audio clips, a number of video clips and I know where they go. It's not as hard to line that up. Once you know this clip number goes with this audio number then you know it's in order after that and then if one audio clip is like a mistake recording, you just skip that, so it's pretty easy to do that. I'm not going to edit off of this specific timeline with the lineup audio. I'll tell you why. Trying to edit off a timeline sort of eliminates the bin, which is really important for my workflow, and should be important for your workflow and not to mention our in studio audience is following along on their computer and they don't have PluralEyes yet. So I want to them to be able to keep...

up with what I'm doing. So, this would be how I would edit a narrative normally anyway, so I am just gonna go back to our regular timeline that's empty, and I'm gonna build this film without the external audio. So we won't line up the audio until we're done editing the film. So you have to deal with the onboard mic of the camera and that's another unmentioned reason why we use an onboard mic 'cause you're gonna have to listen to the onboard mic for hours and hours of editing and you don't want to be listening to, (mimics static) crazy sounds and all that stuff. So, keep that in mind. Good point. It's for your own sanity. Now, one thing I want to talk about, the reason why I have this timeline named Base is because everything I do I always build a base for something. So when we go through this, I want to make this point about editing. Is that camera on? It's significantly easier to modify something that exists than to create something from nothing. Remember that, because what we have right here is an empty timeline. So we are far away from the finish line. We want to get as far away from this blank timeline as possible. So the rough cut, the first cut I make of this film, we'll just lay it down almost as quickly as we possibly can so we can get away from this blank timeline. So instead of saying well what clip goes next? What should we do here? What should we do there? We have a narrative base, as I like to call it, and then from that we start to massage it, and we make tweaks to this, and this audio clip here, and this clip's too long, let's shorten it, and I don't like this shot, this shot's too overexposed, this shot's underexposed. We want to be there. So every single project I've ever done in my life and ever will do, how I edit it is I get through the rough cut as quickly as possible and I don't worry about the little tweaks. I don't try to make it perfect as I go along because as your film evolves, the way you're going to edit it is going to evolve. So for example, if I edit a wedding and I'm sitting there for six hours trying to edit the first 30 seconds and I could be so proud of myself when I'm done, I've gotten it perfect. And guess what, once I get to the second minute of that film, the intro is probably going to change. So you've just wasted your time. So instead of trying to go perfectly as you go, you want to go in a circle, you want to go through it over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. You don't really know if an edit, a cut works until you see how it leads into it. So you gotta watch it from the top. You gotta keep watching it over, and over, and over again. And that's why Jeff's role is so important is because by the time I'm done this and I say it's done, it's perfect, my opinion is so skewed and so biased, and I'm so numb, I've seen every clip of this about 850 times. Whereas if I give it to someone who's never seen it before, he's gonna look at it with a totally fresh pair of eyes and a fresh opinion, and have different things to say about it that I might be numb to seeing. So that's why it's really important. I say never put anything out until you've let some strangers who've never seen it watch it. It's kinda similar to when you're editing photos. Have you ever gone into Photoshop and you've done some color correction and this and that and you're staring at the same image the whole time and it's evolving before your eyes and when you're done you look at it and you're like, this looks really good. This is exactly the way I want it. You close the project, then you open it back up like an hour later, without having gone through that process and you're like oh god, what is wrong with this? Or similarly, when you'll be done you'll say this looks really good and you bring up the JPEG for reference, kinda where you started, and it looks better than everything you just did, we've all been through that. So it's kinda similar to that. Okay. So let's get into... Some down and dirty. Can I just make a point about how the video tracks are not additive but audio is, or can you do that? Yeah, I can. When we get to it we can do it? You have it planned in the program, great. I have it planned, okay. So let's start. Now when you're doing commercials, and narrative film, and things of that nature, you're gonna have multiple takes of things. A lot of times if I'm trying to get through the cut quickly, that first cut, I'll always go to the last take of the shot, because it's usually, seven out of ten times gonna be the best, as far as the performance of the on camera tone is concerned. That doesn't mean that's the rule of thumb and that's always gonna be that way. But if you're gonna go through and get a narrative pad down quickly, that's probably your safest bet. And then once we are done with the narrative part then we go through all the takes and we start to look, all right, I like the way he said this line here, I like the way he said that there, I like the way he said this here. So this is all that getting it over as quickly as possible. So the first thing I wanna do, is I wanna have a medium shot of Kevin waiting for action man_. I'm not gonna start with that wide shot. I'm gonna start with this. I'm gonna make this screen full screen here. Like we saw before in the original when we had Jeff play action man's_ back and shoulder. So we have him starting here and I'm just gonna play. And I have my fingers on the I and O keys, so I can make in and out points while it's playing. And what did you do to get your screen to be full screen like that? I pressed, I don't know what the name of this button is. The tilde. The tilde? Is that what it's called? Well, that was the access screen. You pressed the tilde. Okay, great. Yeah. I don't know the name of it but I know what button to press. It's to the left to the one. Yeah, okay. So, I'm going to press play. Rolling. I'll cue you. And action. I'm gonna go back here 'cause I want him to pull that phone out in the shot. Make my end point there. Sorry, I'm 47 seconds late. Okay, that's gonna be our first shot there and I'm gonna drag this down to the timeline. Now of course, we have audio that's not Kevin, which doesn't matter because we're going to get the audio from Kevin. So that's how I want my first shot to start. And I'm not gonna mess with the audio yet. I'm just gonna put that on the timeline 'cause remember, we're not being stingy, we're not trying to make this perfect. We're just trying to get the visual pad down, and we will get into the audio and audio editing later on. I'm going to go to our crop shot that we used. And I want to point out that this shoulder shot, the shot we just selected was a safety shot. Realistically, I don't ever have to show the two shot if I don't want to and this film would work. Of course, it would feel like it doesn't have any context and where the characters are placed in the scene would feel like it has no context, so we want to use the two shot. But I'm just saying that because we attempted the cropping of the two shots there's a lot of problems that can happen there and it could cause us not to use it in editing, so we needed a safety. If you try something really creative like we did yesterday, that has chances of failure for whatever reason, always shoot a backup or safety so that, in case stuff happens. Insurance, right? So let's go to the last shot of Action Man entering the scene and let's pick a shot of him coming into the scene. And rolling. And action. Sorry, I'm 42 seconds late. There is a traffic... Is that a cellphone? And what I'm doing when I'm backtracking there, I'm just pressing the arrows in the direction I want the cursor to go, so I can make my out point right where I want it. Is that a cellphone? And as soon as he says "is that a cellphone", that's where I want my out point to go. Now, I'm gonna bring this on the timeline and I want to make this very very important point here. When I just dropped that clip unto the timeline, this is editing. This is how you do it. The universe doesn't explode, there's no shooting stars, the planets don't line up. It's one clip ends, the next clip begins. One clip ends, the next clip begins. The magic is in the story. The magic is in the pace, not in the actual act of editing. If you can drag clips onto the timeline, theoretically, you can edit. Alright, now of course there's a lot of bells and whistles that go with certain parts of it but in theory, very basic editing, this would be it and you should in theory be able to make this film like that except for the crop situation. Now I'm gonna go onto the timeline and I'm gonna make my cut point perfect. And when I say I make my cut point perfect that doesn't mean I'm going through and making everything perfect, I just want to make sure that my cuts work well. So the moment he blocks the camera is where my cut point is gonna be. Why? I'll show you why. Let me make the cut point and I'll show you. So watch. Let's watch this here. Sorry, I'm 42 seconds late. There is... Okay. So, why did I do that? Here's why. I'm gonna show you what I did without having that cut point there. I'm gonna have them sit and then I'm going to have them sit. Now without listening to the audio, just watch the visual. I'm actually gonna turn the audio off. So you can't hear it, so it don't distract you from the cut. Watch this. Now that cut totally works. It's blurry on your screen because I have it playing at a quarter quality, which I'm gonna fix in a second. That cut totally works. It definitely works but it's not as seamless as the one I had originally had and I'll show you why. Because in film, where does your eye go? To the action, to the movement. So your ideal cut points are always in the middle of the movement. If I have a baseball game and I wanna have two cameras on the pitcher and I want to cut from a camera from the front and a camera to the side and he's pitching, where's the ideal cut point? Right at the top of the release. Not before he winds up, not after the ball's thrown, but right at the top of the release is gonna be the most seamless cut. So I'm gonna make this again and I'm gonna show you. And it's off a little bit. You also have to think about how the movement plays out. So I'm gonna move this over a little bit and I'm gonna extend this out just a little bit so when he's sitting right there and there. So I'm basically trying to find the most seamless movement of his body. A little fast. A little fast, yeah. It's a little fast. So the way he sits in one of the scenes is a little faster than the other. So probably what I'll have him do is the moment he covers Kevin's face would be my cut point then, since the speed in which he's sitting is working and ofcourse, your ideal cut point would be where I wanted it. His body movement didn't match perfectly there. So now I'm dictated by the movement of the actor. So keep that in mind. First, it's what you think is best, then you have to look at what's actually happening in the scene. So that looks like it works there. And the reason I'm using the part where he covers the frame, I'm trying to use that coverage of him covering the frame, as a cut point, so it's like he blocks your view and then you go to a new view. Cut point meaning? Cut point where the clip changes to the next clip, okay? So I'm gonna turn the audio back on. And I'm not gonna spend too much time on this cut point as we can always fix it later again. I've already spent more time than I wanted to on this cutpoint originally because again, we're just trying to get the base down. We can always ALTer the cut points later. Sorry, I'm 42 seconds late. There was traffic... Is that a cellphone? Okay. So, that works for me. Now, we have a big challenge ahead of us. I'm gonna change this to half quality so people aren't losing their minds when they see it. Now we have an interesting... not a problem. Here, we're gonna make the crop work for the first time. So, I don't know if that image got out on the internet of Kevin's on screen, but if it did, awesome. If it didn't, we're gonna do it right now live. Since we have the students following, when you're using a clip if you could give what the number is. Okay. They can see the number too though. Do you guys want me to say the number out loud? I can, okay. Sure. Alright, so I'm gonna go through the last shot of Kevin of when we used the crop clip and I'm gonna find... I'm gonna find his response to "Is that a cellphone?" Sorry I'm late, 47 seconds late. Traffic. Is that a cellphone? Ah, no. It's a heartbeat monitor. Traffic? I thought you traveled by boat. Alright. And that's all I really want from the two shot. So the key here is gonna be making the crop work in the timing of the line. So, that's what'll dictate what's going on here. See if that works. Sorry, I'm 42 seconds late. There was traffic... Is that a cellphone? So why am I putting this clip on the backend of this? Because number one, I want the... is that a cellphone, then his response. They need to come back to back. The second thing is I'm putting this on a new video track is because I'm gonna have to drag this video clip actually on top here like this. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna hold ALT and I'm gonna drag this video on top here, so that when he was his response I'm gonna movethe audio to be even here. So now you see me. So here's where we're gonna get crop happy here. So I'm hoing to go to the Effects bin. I'm gonna go to Video Effects. I'm gonna go to Transform and I'm gonna go to Crop. And I'm gonna drag the crop, right? I'm gonna hold down the mouse on the crop and I'm gonna just drag it right on the clip and drop it. So you see that green line that just popped up on top of that clip? That means the clip is now effected. So I can double click this clip and it's gonna pop up in our source screen which we originally made the in and out points in. I'm gonna go to Effects Control and this is where I effect the crop. And this is where I'm gonna make the line and this is where we're gonna see if it works. I'm really putting myself out here so if it doesn't work I apologize. I'm gonna crop from the right. I'm sorry, I'm gonna crop from the left side. I don't know my right from left. And you're gonna see, once I start to drag this cursor right here to the right you're gonna see me disappear and Action Man come in on the right where I'm sitting on the playback screen. And you can see the line move across the screen there. And the idea for us is to hide that crop line the best we can. And you can see right there full screen that it's kind of working. We'll have to do a little adjustment but for the most part it's pretty solid. And I would say about 50. No. About 48.2 is where the ideal left crop is going to be. Hope you guys got that there. And you can see where there's impefections in the crop is on the bottom base of the table. The shadows are a little bit different. That's gonna be really easy to fix later on. Though I'm not even worried about that. And to be honest with you, 99% of you probably won't even notice it. Jeff, can you even see it? I don't even notice it. You don't notice it? It drives me crazy. Okay. But you see how this worked and you see why I removed everything from the middle of that table and I gave us a very straight shot though, so because anything moving there would really sort of ALTer that process and you'll see if somebody hit the tablecloth you'll pay attention to the crop line as the film goes on and you'll see the mistakes there. And now let's see what our film looks like here. Sorry, I'm 42 seconds late. There was traffic. Is that a cellphone. Ah, no. It's a heartbeat monitor. Traffic? I thought you traveled by boat. Alright, so why did the left side of that screen disappear? The other clip was shorter. Exactly. The clip underneath is shorter. So I'm gonna press ALT and I'm gonna drag this right here and now, let's watch it again and see if his reactions match up to what Kevin's saying. Sorry, I'm 42 seconds late. There was traffic. Is that a cellphone? Ah, no. It's a heartbeat monitor. Traffic? I thought you traveled by boat. That just proves how good Kevin is as an actor because the reactions match up perfectly. (group laughs) Oh man. God, I hope Kevin's watching this right now to see that. That little face right there is priceless. And if we can get a screenshot of that and post that, that is funny. Okay, so as much as I'm addicted to the two shot and our little crop situation here, we got to get in a little closer here. So, the basic theory of conversations and film scenes and shot sequence is to start wide and work your way in. So, we started medium because there was only one person there with this first shot here and we wanted to establish Kevin. And we don't necessarily want to give away the idea that someone's gonna be sitting at that table. So we start with Kevin to establish his character first. Then when we cut to the wide shot, it's sort of, remember, there's a climax in every film, there's a climax in every scene and there's a climax in every shot sequence and there should even be climaxes between cuts. What's the climax here? Somebody's sitting. Who is it? Right? Then we reveal. So every little second has a climax and that's how you have to think about in editing. Every little reveal is the viewer being given a gift. Think about it that way, right? So every reveal is the viewer being given a gift. So once Kevin sits... Ross, how do you expand the footage there? Uh, you use this right here. So you guys can see my screen there. You're gonna want that because a lot of times, you're gonna wanna bird's eye view when your project gets bigger to see where you need to go, and then you're gonna wanna zoom in to make very minor edits later on. So this is a very important toggle there. Touch it? What? Okay. So once he sits down... oh, again. We start wide and work our way in a little bit, so we're not even gonna get in to the real close up shots until a little bit later in the scene. I wouldn't go right to a closeup here because why? There's no reason to do that yet. Now this isn't drama; this is comedy. So it's gonna be edited a little bit different than a drama would. And I'll show you the difference between that. So what we're gonna do is go into some medium shots of Action Man, and I'll tell you why we're gonna go on Action Man in a second. Let's just watch this back one more time. Sorry, I'm 42 seconds late. There was a traffic. Is that a cellphone? Uh, no. It's heartbeat monitor. Traffic? I thought you travel by boat? Okay, so we wanna go into a re-action shot of Action Man, and the next line is... We need to try and pull up a script here, so actually, I'm making a mistake here. I wanna pull up the script. I go into my desktop. I'm gonna go into untoggle folder. I'm gonna go to create a live script here, and I'm going to make another desktop, and throw it on there. And the reason why I'm doing it, if you have a Mac... Sucker. (laughter) You can go between scenes here. If you have Windows, you hit ALT + tab and do the same thing. No, it doesn't like split screen? No, ALT + Tab. I don't believe you. No, that didn't happen. They can't see your screen. There's no proof. Okay, so don't you travel by boat? Action Man looks disgusted by Kevin's question. So we wanna show a reaction of Action Man being disgusted by Kevin's question, and then we go into Kevin's line. I know you're impressed by the slide. Don't worry about it. Is this how you would normally be doing it, or would you use that sort of seamless way that you were alluding to earlier? That was complicated, but like you can go along and it highlights? Would you normally do that? No, no, no. The XML, no, I wouldn't normally do that. I would do that for a very big, big project or a documentary or something. Yeah, no, I wouldn't do it that way. I don't know what's happening here. Okay. This is fine, and I'd like to have the script, like, you have a couple monitors. That's why I would put the script up on one monitor and edit. If Scott's watching right now, he edited my first three feature films without a script, and you can tell. Just kidding. But, you wanna have the script so you know where reactions go, where transitions should go, and you don't have to necessarily follow it like it's a map, but you want the initial idea, you wanna stick with it, yes. For larger projects, when you're importing the video, would you first separate the video into sections, so that when you're editing, you know, like for example, for this, we could have all the Action Man sequences in one part and all of the Kevin sequences in one part? Absolutely. I would separate it by Action Man close up, medium wide, Kevin close up, medium, wide. And how I would do that is i would just lift it where the project been stored. I would right click, click New Bin, and then I would label it, 'Action man_CU', it's close up. M is medium, W is wide. And then I would just put all, I would just drag the clips into those folders, and really easily, I can just open it up, go to video and then it's over here, and then I would drag it into the folder. So let's find Action Man medium shot, and see if we can get a reaction from him. And we'll go to the last one as usual. Again, we'll not gonna get into the watching every take until later. Don't you travel by boat? Whatever. Do you mind telling me why... Okay, so I like his reaction there, which is pretty good. He even makes a noise, and we'll probably have good dialogue for that because the mic was over top of him, and I let it go a little bit into Kevin's next line, and I'm gonna show you why I did that in a second. So I'm gonna drag this down. Jefferson, seem like you have question? Oh, sorry. He just likes your Mac better. Yeah, I know. He's like, how do you do that with a Mac? It's amazing. Old claims, Ross. Remember what I said yesterday. Somebody wrote that on my Facebook. (laughter) Bold claims, Ross. Thanks Scott for giving me that name. Alright, then I'm gonna go into a shot of Kevin with his line. I'm gonna find his next line, which is... let's find out. "Whatever, why don't you tell me why I'm here?" So let's go; let's get a little variety here. Let's go over the shoulder. Let's stay over the shoulder for right now, and the reason why I'm doing that is the more we establish Action Man's body, the more people are gonna believe they're sitting at the table together. So instead of doing it the complicated way, which is a two shot and the cropping, I'm gonna go for the over the shoulder shot as of right now, and then I'll slowly work my way into Kevin when he makes an important line. So you have to, you know, as an editor, you wanna be a good listener and decide what's important and what's not. Him saying, "Whatever, why don't you tell me why I'm here?" is not an important line in the... If we were to put every line and give it a number of importance, that line would be at the very bottom. It wouldn't be that important. So, ask yourself, "Is this line important?" "Does this line have story-telling power?" Yes? What would cause you to go back wide once you already closed in? Just a change of scene? Would it ever happen in this kind of an environment? Yeah, and we will to establish contacts and remind the viewer. And, you know, if a scene's longer, it's how we work. We start wide and work our way in, we work our way in. If you wanna either work your way in slowly, so the scene builds intensity, or work your way in, come back out, do it again, come back out, do it again, and that's not the only way to do it. My directorial style in a lot of situations to open up especially a film, and you saw it with the Happy Ending intro that we played on the first day, it's a series of several close ups, several close ups. And then I come wide. And the reason why I like to do that, and it's common in filmmaking for directors to do that because when you have a close up of something, close up of something, close up of something, you've drawn so much attention to that specific detail. When you come wide, the viewers automatically looking for where those details are in the scene, so it gives them something to do, Where's Waldo. So it's just another way to do it. Like I said, these are not science. There's no way to do it, but it's just a different style. The basic way would be to start wide, work your way in. Alright, so let's find Kevin's reaction to this. Traffic? I thought you only travel by boat? Whatever. Dude, wait. Anyway, tell me what this meeting's all about. Alright. I'm not really a huge fan of the way he said that, so let's make the in and out point and then go check another take. Let's see if we can find something a little better. Anyway, tell me what this meeting's all about. Okay, so I'm not a huge fan of that. I think we all agree that's not the greatest delivery in the world, so let's find the profile. We're a little early there. Uh, traffic? I thought you travel by boat? Do you mind telling me what this meeting's about? I like that a little better. So let's use that one. You're good with that? Mm-hmm. Producer. It's better, it's better. Kevin, you're fired. I'm gonna start making my comments towards the end of it. I know, I know. Just not now. I'm trying to get you a relief so that I don't have to hear it later. (laughter) You know I'm all worn down by the time we get to the end, so I'm all moody, like, "No! I'm gonna change it." And actually, I'm wanna make that point when, when Jeff and I start to do talk about changes, sometimes I'll argue and I know I'm wrong because our group, we are very big on movie logic. So we always, we'll watch movies and we look at the scene and, you know, the guy's running from the monster in that scary movie and then he gets to the river and there's conveniently a canoe with a paddle there. And everybody looks and says, "How did that get there?" So this movie went through all this pre-production meetings, read throughs, story-boarding, and nobody, no one said, "This doesn't make any sense "and it's not realistic." So we always get very frustrated with that. So the way we go about movie logic is we argue about things until we can't argue anymore. And whatever the best idea that floats to the surface wins. So if Jeff says, this take is terrible, he picks his nose in that take or something. I don't like the way he said that line. If I choose it, I'll defend it. I'll find every way that make sense and it doesn't make sense to defend it just to hear every defense he has for his suggestion to make sure it is the best idea possible. And we all do that. And you know, sometimes it'll seem like it gets heated but it's not. It's just so that, you know, we all have that same goal in mind. We want the best idea to rise to the surface, and if he says change and I say okay... There's no human to human conflict. Yeah, there you go. And of course we always have to conflict. That's right. Do you mind telling me what this meeting's about? Okay, so I'm gonna bring our previous clip up, and I'm gonna move the audio away. So let's find out where he says his reaction. Yeah, funny. For that big line there, I'm gonna press ALT, and I'm gonna move the audio, both tracks, over here. Do you mind telling me what this meeting's about? And I'm just gonna bring this right there. Yeah, funny. Do you mind telling me what this meeting's about? Alright, very important, learn this, 'cause this is probably the most important thing I can teach you. We'll just call it L-cut. And here is why this is called an L-cut. It's basically, you're hearing Kevin's beginning of his response before you actually see him. It's just another example of a little mini climax. I wanna see him talk. So when the cut happens in the middle of the conversation, in the middle of the spoken words, the cut is disguised by the audio. You've already seen it, so for example here... So I'm gonna play this here full screen. This is would not be the proper cut right here. Do you mind telling me what this meeting's about? It works. I'm not saying it doesn't work. I'm just saying that it can be better if we do it this way. And we're bringing that audio a lot earlier, so that when the cut happens, we're too engaged into what Kevin's saying to think about the cut. And the best cut is one you do not see. Do you mind telling me what this meeting's about? And then I would probably move the cut a little bit more, so you don't hear that (tongue click) and so it happens right on that. What he just shared with you is one of the kind of Aha! moments in editing. When you hear somebody's voice without seeing their face, you've just primed the brain to expect to see something, and it's all these little subtle things that create interest in your film and story telling in your film. If every single clip that you have, you're showing somebody speaking, and when they're speaking, you see the person, and then when somebody else's speaking, you see the person, that's popcorn cutting, right? Yes, which will happen in this film a little bit because it's comedy. But if every clip that you see is like that, then you've never primed the brain to expect anything different. You've never given it something to be like, "Oh, I hear a voice. "Where is that coming from? "What am I about to see?" When you use L-cutting, you automatically increase interest and intrigue in your film because of that, because you're priming the brain to expect to see something different in a few seconds, 'cause you're hearing it first. Does that make sense to everybody? And another thing to that, one very important, pie half of the idea of an L-cut is the power is not just in the words; the power is sometimes in the reaction to the words. So to make a conversation feel like a conversation, like Jeff and I are having a conversation right now, it wouldn't just be about him saying, "Ross, your hair is way crazy today." My reaction to that would be the punch line to that joke, right? So I would be like, "What do you mean? "At least I have hair," right? You would wanna see my reaction before I said my line, so it's about the... what Jeff explained about, you know, anticipating who's talking and the reaction. So you'll see this happen, and I've already done it before. Why I chose this first take of him, and he goes... We did that for his reaction, specifically. And for no other reason. Do we have a question from over there? Oh, I thought you were like flagging me down for a question. Sorry. I got a question. Yes? I guess it's more of a comment that you could affirm. Isn't it also true you often see in movies when they're cutting to completely different scenes that that sound, even from a completely different scene will often happen in the scene before? Absolutely. That's an L-cut as well. So what she just said is very, very good point. So you'll hear, and we're gonna do it, because we have our Photoshop Everyone movie file here. And we're gonna bring that in, and we're gonna intercut into that, so that we're not just looking at Kevin talking in four different vantage points, and we're gonna make it a little more interesting. It's a great point. It's all about increasing the watchability and interestingness of your film by putting little audible clues in there, to keep your brain saying, "Oh, what's next? "Oh what's next, oh what's next?" Yeah, and a lot of reason why a lot of filmmakers will L-cut from scene to scene, which is very important, like I said before, the standup comedy reference where I say, you wanna know how people are gonna react. So when we have a joke made in here or something like that, when Kevin holds the Photoshop DVD up and goes like this, that's probably a time we wanna put a beat, a pause in, so that the audience has time to giggle, right? It won't be five seconds; it will be a second. So give 'em time to smile, and then go back into your story. That's important. In the middle of conversations, giving reaction time for viewers to feel the emotions you want them to feel, because that's why they're watching. To feel something. When you're going from scene to scene, because scenes have closure and they feel like they've ended, the L-cut is very popular there, so that you can't stop being engaged. Because if the scene were to end, and we were to fade out to black... I watched a film from somebody, and every scene faded to black. And the film, I came up to him and said, listen, my criticism is that every scene fades to black, and I wanna be done watching it every time it fades to black as opposed to it having flow from scene to scene to scene, because if you give time for the viewer to wind down, they will. They'll do exactly what you want them to do, so if you have the audio coming in from the next scene, then they have no time. And then as soon as that scene start, they've already been engaged before they see a clip. So that's why it's so important. So let's keep going here. Do you mind telling me what this meeting's about? And I'll even go as far as to say that it's too long, so I can shorten Kevin's, the time in the gap in where they're talking, so I can take away the pause. There's too much pause in between these lines. Nobody would pause that long. So he would say... Yeah, funny. He would probably start talking right there. So I would bring in, I would shorten this a little bit, bring this over. So now we get it, and watch how much smoother it got. Yeah, funny. Do you mind telling me what this meeting's about? Okay, so now we're getting somewhere. Do you mind telling me what this meeting's about? And our script says, "Mind telling me what this is about?" Action Man pulls a DVD from his pocket and places it on the table. Mind telling me what this is? Okay, so Action Man pulls the DVD from his pocket. So now we wanna go into that two thirds view of Action Man here. So let's find out where he pulls that DVD. It's my movie. No, it's heartbeat monitor. Don't you travel by boat? Very funny. Actually, that's a great reaction, so we're gonna remember that for when we go back into this, because you can see how films evolve so quickly, like we both, immediately we love that take and the audience is smiling. The angle of his face. It's significantly better. As a matter of fact, let's see if we can put it pretty seamlessly here. I'm, uh, 42 second late. There was a traffic. Is that a cellphone? Uh, no. It's a heartbeat monitor. Traffic? I thought you travel by boat? Yeah, funny. Yeah, so we're just gonna do that now. Why wait? Grab the sneakers. Don't you travel by boat? Very funny. Whatever. Okay, so let's bring this down here. I thought you travel by boat? Very funny. And then I'm gonna hold ALT (laughs). Kevin's the character. He's the character. And you can see how quickly we made that change there. And what you're doing there was changing the size of the audio. Yeah, I'm just getting rid of our stand ins audio. Travel by boat? Very funny. Do you mind telling me what this meeting's about? And when we get into the cleaner audio, that (tongue clicking), if I don't take it away, Jeff will tell me to take it away, so. It's true. Yeah, so I gotta do it anyway so that I don't have to hear him tell me to take it away. But that's the producer in your head prior to him making his suggestions. After years of hearing the (tongue clicking), he's picking his nose, his licking his lips, he sort of conditioned me... How long did it take for me to get in your head, Ross? Uh, you're still not all the way in it, but you're getting there. You've burrowed your way in. You and Scott gave the same critique, so you guys are both in there as a team. Travel by boat? Very funny. Do you mind telling me what this meeting's about? And I'll cut this back in two, because I wanna have a little bit of intensity here. We haven't gotten to the true funny part yet, because it's Kevin; it's naturally funny. Do you mind telling me why you're here? Why don't you explain that? Okay, happens a little fast. I'm gonna bring it down, but I'm gonna look for some other takes to see if it happens a little slower. Action! Is that a cellphone? No, it's heartbeat monitor. Don't you travel by boat? Whatever. Why don't you tell me why I'm here? (laughter) It's my movie. Whatever. Do you mind telling me why I'm here? Do you mind telling me that's all about? I like that a little better, so I'm gonna go... If I drag a video clip on top of a video clip, it disappears. What disappears? The video clip you just drag on top of. The one that's underneath? That's not underneath it anymore. Because it's gone? Because it's gone. Another point I wanna make is that audio is layered and vide is not layered. So what that means is if I were to put 50 million audio clips one stack on top of the other, they would all play at the same time. And that's how we get ambient audio, dialog track, music, all playing simultaneously. Video, the top clip plays. So you can see my cursor is on a clip where one video clip is on top of another video clip, and you can only see the top clip. And when that ends, you see it switches. So that's very important to understand. So that's why most of the time, you'll end up with more audio tracks than video tracks. I try to keep my video tracks no matter what to a maximum of six or seven. Sometimes, it gets out of control a little bit, especially in an event, like the Expedia video we did. It had probably 40 video tracks, 'cause it got crazy. But, you know, another conversation for another day. Mind telling me what this meeting's about? You mind telling me that's all about? Hmm? Alright, so let's make this cut a little more seamless here. Telling me what this meeting's about? So what I'm gonna do here, I'm gonna do the L-cut a little backwards. I'm gonna bring in Kevin, Action Man virgin on top of the end of his sentence, assuming it works well. So I'm gonna press ALT, I'm gonna hold ALT, and I'm just gonna drag this video in a little bit. So we gotta watch it from back here to make sure the conversation flows correctly. And I'll show the full screen after I determine it worked or not. Travel by boat? Very funny. Do you mind telling me what this meeting's about? Do you mind telling me that's all about? So it works, but it's a little early. Mind telling me what this meeting's about? Actually could go right to the end here. So I just noticed, Kevin starts to lean forward when he says what this is all about, and then he leans backward when he starts to pull for the movie. Can't you synchronize those two movements where he's leaning forward and he's leaning backward and make it a little more seamless? Absolutely. Do you mind telling me what this meeting's about? He needs to be moving back already by the time Kevin's moving forward. Story of my life right here. (laughs) Meeting's about? Do you mind telling me that's all about? That's perfect. Okay, now, here we're getting to our first cutaway of the story here, and we're gonna get the shot of the Photoshop. Now, in my vision of this, I wanted to show the empty table. Let's get to the shot so you can see exactly what I'm talking about here. The empty table right here, and then that you see the DVD coming to play. That's already not gonna work. I could tell you that right now. But we want to hear what's going on with the audio of what we're seeing here. So he place this. That's all about? When we get there, we're gonna let that audio ride, but show this clip. So let me do this, and then I'll explain what I did here. I'm gonna start here. And I'm gonna end there. And the reason why I'm ending there is because when he pulls it back, I will cut to, and somebody asked this question yesterday about does it matter about where the placement of the movie is in this shot, and the answer is no, and here is exactly why. So I hope that person is tuning in so they can see why it doesn't matter. So let's find out where our ideal in point is for this. That's all about? I'm gonna place this right on top here, and I'm just gonna get rid of the audio for this, because we don't need it. So I'm gonna hold ALT, and I'm gonna delete it. Didn't we record boom audio for that? Yes, but we don't need it because we're using the audio from the prior take. When we go in the line of the audio, we'll get the clean sound of the movie hitting the table. And let's say we forgot to get the movie hitting the table. Guess what we would be doing at lunch break? We would be going over to the table, throwing any DVD on the table, and recording the sound. With a boom mic, shotgun mic, any mic really. But if you don't have it, you know, whatever mic you used, use the same mic. And if you don't have it clean, you just get that, that something that you can get after effect. Mind telling me that's all about? Okay, so now we're gonna find Kevin picking that up. And that's probably gonna be best in a medium shot, so we can see him actually pick it up. Anyway, tell me what this meeting's all about. It's my movie. Oh, my movie! How to Photoshop Everyone. Excuse me, my movie. Yeah, no. That's clearly me. See, Kevin with a K, Kubota with a K. Alright, going too far here. So let's back up. My movie, How to Photoshop Everyone. Now, right there, when he says, "Ah, my movie! How to Photoshop Everyone," that's the time to show a reaction of Action Man being like, "What? How could you say such thing? "Blasphemy!" Right? And all of that is said in the facial expressions, because we show, we don't tell. So let's see if we can make this match perfectly with him picking it up. So we're gonna get that perfectly there. Right there. That's all about? Ah, my movie! And you could see that that's getting very seamless, and I'm going to make it even more seamless in a second. Let me just ALT here, bring this audio here, bring this audio here. I'm gonna bring this up so we stay organized and everything's on the same track. Okay, now. Yeah, did you wanna show this moving slightly instead of just static, it's there on the table? No, because then we would get into the problem that our friend brought up yesterday about the continuity of where the movie is, that the more attention that we draw to that, the more perfect we have to be, and we more wanna use the sound of it hitting, because, and this is a great question actually. Do we wanna draw attention and show the movement of the movie? We could, but really what matters in the scene is everyone's reaction to what's being said, so it's just more about the people. We obviously wanna show it. When we get into the tweaks and the audio, when we find some clean way to make it happen, it's possible. But really, it's about making him pick it up seamlessly as opposed to throwing it seamlessly, 'cause I thought when I watched this clip of you tossing it, that we could, you know, we could actually show the action of him moving it. So, but then I would never be even use this clip at all. And actually, I'll show an example of that, of why we could eliminate this clip ALTogether. That's all about? Ah, my movie! Just wanna make sure this cut works. Do you guys see what I'm doing there? Everyone at home see what I'm doing there? And I'm gonna make it big screen here so you guys really can see it. Look at his thumb. So the moment his thumb touches that and starts to slide, see how his thumb's not there yet, that's our cut point. That's where we want the clip to cut. So I'm gonna go here and then drag it and move it over, and now watch it. Ah, my movie! See how much more seamless that cut is? That was three frames, right? Yeah, three frames. It's not three seconds. It's 3/24th of a second, and that's how you think about editing. Not in seconds, but in frames. A second is an eternity in a film. And also just to clarify for people who might not know, when you're hitting the forward or backwards button, that's moving it frame by frame. Yes, thank you. Actually, yes, that's actually true. The arrows of them going frame... Right, it's not time; it's frames. Yes. That's all about? Ah, my movie! Let's see if Jeff's idea works here a little bit. Mind telling me... See how the timing would mess up? We have to move all of that over to the right a little bit, so we're not gonna do it, but this could work. That's all about? We could cut this shot out completely. And input? Yeah, hold ALT. And then I would bring this all the way out to there, probably. Mind telling me that's all about? Still, again, not as seamless as him picking it up. We could make it a little more seamless, but really, I think the best way to do this is to get it seamlessly over there, and then have Kevin pick it up. And again, we could do this all three ways. In my opinion, this is the best way, but when we get the audio lined up, then everything's a lot cleaner. Sound is a big part of editing, and like cutting on peak sounds, like when that DVD hits the table, to me that screams cut point at times because it's a peak wave and if you cut right on the sound, it's like, you know, it's like when you hear the loud bang, your eyes close really quick. It's that same idea. You know, you blink and then the shot is changed. Telling me that's all about? Ah, my movie! Oh, wait a minute. Where did our shot go? There we go. That's all about? Ah, my movie! How to Photoshop Everyone. Okay, so now you need to find a really pissed off reaction of Action Man saying my movie. Angry reaction? Angry reaction, I apologize. That's my movie, How to Photoshop Everyone. Excuse me, my movie? Okay, so there is one. I'm gonna bring it down here. And a lot of times, when I see one I like, I'll dump it on the timeline, and I'll go back and see if I can find something a little better. I don't think we made it this far. Whatever. Why don't you... Let's go to a close up profile. There's one. You tell me that's all about. That's my movie, How to Photoshop Everyone. Your movie? That's me! That's me! Okay, not a fan of the way he said the line. I like the reaction but I don't like the way he said the line. Point I wanna make here is you know how in this shot you can't see his hands? So if you did have a continuity problem of where the DVD landed, how his arm was moving, what hand was being picked up, you'd know that he's leaning forward and doing that. You can't see the action, so if you were to have a continuity problem, the way to get over that would be to just go in tight so you can't see where hands are being placed, and that would be the way to overcome that. Excuse me, my movie? So let's bring this on top here, and now I'm gonna start adding layers of video, and the reason why is 'cause I'm starting arc off video here. Okay, now. I want everyone to notice that I'm holding this clip next to another clip, and that line that's going straight down the center, that's snapping. Basically when I go there, it's almost like a magnet that kinda snaps it together. If you press S, the letter S on your keyboard, it'll turn off. So if that's annoying you, turn it off. I find it very useful, so I leave it on. How to Photoshop Everyone. Excu... So I'm gonna ALT, get rid of audio here, get rid of the audio here, drag this over a little bit, and then I'm gonna go right here. Movie, How to Photoshop Everyone. Excuse me? My movie? Now we're gonna get in to popcorn cutting, because now its' gonna be... Popcorn cutting make things go back and forth, back and forth, really snappy. So one of you, my movie. No, it's my movie. It's an argument. So we're gonna cut quicker, and we're gonna popcorn cut it. We're not gonna use an L-cut for this part anymore. So let's find Kevin. And notice the last shot of Kevin we used was this shot. Pretty wide. We're gonna get in closer to him now. We're gonna work our way into him. So let's find a good Kevin Kubota reaction shot here. Traffic? I thought you... You mind telling me what this is? Ah, my movie! How to Photoshop Everyone. Excuse me? My movie? Yeah, no. That's me. You know, Kevin with a K, Kubota with a K. Alright, so I'm gonna bring this down. My only issue with that shot is that we can't see the DVD, so we may have to go back to our medium again just so he can reference the DVD. Let's see how he says it there. These are all things you wanna keep in mind, so obviously, my idea was to work my way in closer, and then now I can't see the DVD. I wanted him to hold it up a little bit higher, but that's a... Excuse me, my movie. Yeah, no. That's clearly me. See, Kevin with a K, Kubota with a K. Alright, so you can get rid of that. I just love the acting in that shot too. We all agree that that's a significantly better reaction, so I'm gonna go here. Now, this is gonna be our first cutaway of the film going into the Photoshop Everyone. Excuse me. My movie? Yeah, no. That's clearly me. See, Kevin with a K, Kubota with a K. And we just see, make sure that reaction works. My movie? Yeah, no. That's clearly me. See, Kevin with a K, Kubota with a K. Alright, now, I'm gonna go to my finder window, and I'm gonna grab a clip here. And it should be HTPE master file. And I'm gonna bring this right in there. Uh-oh. Alright. While that's importing, we could take a question if you want to, 'cause this could take a minute to conform 'cause it's a two and a half hour movie. (laughter) Any questions in the audience for starters? Alright, let's go to the Internet. Alright, if you see a reaction from another line that fits to what you want to show in the current line, can you use it? Absolutely, and we will. And I'm definitely gonna explain. That's a great question. I made that point yesterday that reactions are universal. They can go anywhere. So if you have a great facial expression that you're not being able to use in the part where it went naturally, then you can get something from another take or use it in another spot if you like the reaction, 'cause sometimes, I'll see a facial expression, I'm like, oh, man, I really wanted to use that here and it doesn't work. But later on down the line, it will work. Right. Next question from Lovenote. Did Ross go through... Did you go through an edit and get... sorry. Did you go through and get rid of footage that you knew you were not going to use prior to editing? In this or just in general? Perhaps both. No, I never delete anything, because there is always a use for something. You never know what a shot of someone's foot will be. You never know when you're gonna need a cutaway. And honestly, the first time I've opened this project is right here live, so I'm experiencing it with you guys for the first time. I thought about last night going through and making sure everything works. I swear that I have not opened this at all. I downloaded it on my computer this morning while drinking coffee. So I'm seeing it all for the first time so you guys see. Yeah, exactly. No, that's perfect. We have Duke from Park City. I'll see you there in a week at Sundance. What happened to organizing clips, wide, medium, close in different bins? Is that later? No. Actually, if I had more footage, I would do it. But because I have two shots of each clip, I didn't do it. Just I didn't feel like it was necessary for something this small, but it absolutely is necessary for something bigger, and now that he called me out on that, I might just have to do it, just so our viewers at home can see how we do it. I can do it pretty quickly with this, so I will do it when we get back from the break next time. Sorry, Park City. Sorry Duke. Go jazz. Do we still have questions? Yeah, give me one more. A question from Jeff Cools, can the editor overcut a scene? Absolutely. Absolutely. You can overdo it. It's very easy to overdo it. We call that over-producing. It's just too many cuts and it starts to look like a music video as opposed to a conversation. The idea of a conversation is to make it feel and look like a conversation as if you were sitting right there having the conversation with that person. The time to over-edit is in montage stuff and things like that, so how you dictate that is by pace. So you kinda see how we're doing it. We wanna pace the conversation here as I got to the part where they start going back and forth. I'm gonna cut a little faster, whereas in the beginning, I cut a little slower. I start to change the speed in which I cut based on the feel of the scene, and that comes with experience. There's not a magic bullet point that's gonna make you successful of that, so can we get back into it? Our first cutaway of the story here is the chef. So I'm gonna find out where he says he's the greatest human being that's ever lived. That was at the end of the scene, right? Kevin with a K. At the every end of the scene, yes. Okay. When he was telling her where to go. And this is a two hour clip, so you can see browsing this is a lot more difficult. The shadows, the highlights, everything's a beaut... Oh, write this down. My name is Kevin with a K. Kubota with a K. And he's actually the single greatest human being I've ever met. (laughter) Okay, boom. Right there. I don't know how I found that that quickly, but that's a miracle. I'm gonna bring this down, and let's just see how it goes into it. I'm gonna reference my script here. Ah, it's my movie. Excuse me, my movie. Yeah, Kevin with a K, Kubota with a K. Single greatest human being I've ever met. And that's the cutaway here. And you see how I have a new scene setting and the reaction, or the transition, I'm sorry. CUT TO, and then that, and then I'm going to come out on Action Man. So let's see if we can make all this seamlessly work. Now, as an editor and the writer, I can make the decision to get rid of this idea Altogether in editing later. I'm not committed to cut this on script. Now, if you are the editor and you have a director, someone telling you what to do, I wouldn't do that without getting permission first, but a lot of times, you know, an idea on paper might not translate to a film correctly, so you have to decide that in the moment. In my head, when I was writing this, this would work. Now, we're gonna find out if it really works. With a K, Kubota with a K. My name is Kevin with a K, Kubota with a K. With a K, Kubota with a K. And he's actually the single greatest human being I've ever met. (laughter) Okay, so we're gonna have to make that work with a good cut, and I know what to do here. Somebody asked about scaling 720p footage and coincidence but it's gonna happen right now. So the clip we brought in to this, assuming this was a 720p clip that you shot at 60 frames a second, bringing it in to Premiere in a 1080 timeline, we'll make it look like this, a box. And have no fear. You just double click it, go up to effects controls, go to Motion, go to Scale, and just type in 150 and press Enter. Boom! And now it's full screen. They got that? Awesome. Kubota with a K. And he's actually the single greatest human being I've ever met. (laughter) So shouldn't we have him say, Kubota with a K and have Kevin say Kevin with a K? Yes, we should. With a K. See, Kevin with a K. Kubota with a K. That's weird. See, Kevin with a K. Kubota with a K. And he's actually the single greatest human being I've ever met. (laughter) Can we layer their audio so you can still hear Kevin and him saying it simultaneously? In theory, it would seem like that would work. It might feel a little jumbled. We won't actually know if it works until we get the real audio lined up. So right now, the transition's so choppy and kinda rough because the on-board mic is so much louder than the boom mic we used in How to Photoshop Everyone. When we actually put the real audio in, it will be a lot more seamless, and then we can see what the cut looks like. So right now, we're just gonna leave it where it goes and we're gonna go get to it when we come back. Now, considering for continuity, the only part that we will see of Chef Tony before this clip is just his hands lighting the candle, is that correct? Yes. And I'm not trying to establish that this is him. Okay. Until the very end. Yeah, because they're referencing the How to Photoshop Everyone, and when he says, you know, I've since blown up my cabin and I escaped on boat, I'm gonna get that clip and I'm gonna show it actually happened. So we're taking some assumption that when watching this, the people will understand these references a little bit? Or does it matter or not? It will a) doesn't matter, and b) the reason I wrote it with the flashbacks is so people can get a visual connection with the characters. And then they get it, 'cause he goes through each character and what they taught. And you'll see when he goes through his monologue and he does the voices. That's why I had him do the voices yesterday. So I might do a little cool inter-cutting, you know, almost like a little mini kinda teaser to the thing there. So during that monologue, where he explains what each character did in the movie, will be our time to catch the audience up with what happened. So good question. So it's okay if they're questioning at this point? Yes, it is okay. So I know you're gonna get to this later, but also, wouldn't you possibly try cross fade between the two, as it's transitioning from Kevin with a K and then Kubota with a K? If the cut doesn't work, yes. But if the cut works, then no, because what I might do is get a whoosh sound effect, like a Lost sound effect? Somebody do the Lost sound effect where they flashback, which is known quantity in the world, right? People hear that sound effect and they think flashback, and most people watch Lost. You'd have to catch up. Don't waste your time. 60 years of my life, not gonna waste it. They're all dead. It could just be two really long weeks. That's true, and you can marathon through it, and you probably would, because it's addicting. I would do that in maybe like a flash to wide or something. I really feel strongly against using transitions like that, but there are times, if you tastefully do it, that it works. But I always try to make a cut work first before I go into my transition bin. So, sorry, you were looking like me and I know you if you have a producing critique. Greatest human being I've ever met. (laughter) Alright, so what's our script say is next? Alright, see where you're confused. That's me, Action Man with an A. Okay, so let's go in here. That's where you're con... That's me, Kevin with a K. Kubota with a K. No, see, that's where you're confused, because that's me on the cover. Action Man, with an A. Beautiful. Okay, let's see where he goes here. And really, actually, what would be a lot smoother now that I'm thinking about it is if we let him finish it out, his line. So we're gonna do something. When you're computer starts to stutter like this, you just save it quickly. Kevin with a K, Kubota with a K. And I think that might work better. Let him finish his line. Kevin with a K, Kubota with a K. He's actually the single greatest human being I've ever met. And then I would bring in the audio here a little early. I would ALT, and I would go underneath this like that. And here's something I wanna make a point of. That laugh track in the background there is good, but we don't cut audio off. Most of the time, we always put a little fade on it, so you can right click and add a fade to it. And of course, it'll put it on the video if you don't have them separated. So the first thing you have to do is you have to right click, and you have to unlink the audio from the video, then right click on the end of the clip and put a fade on it. And then I will shorten the fade to start right there. Greatest human being I've ever met. See, that's where you're confused, because that's me on the cover, Action Man with an A. Okay, and that clip's gonna bother me every time we watch because the audio you could hear the volume; it's so different. Again, to reiterate, once we get our actual audio in there, it'll be a lot smoother, and then we can start to experiment it with overlaying the audio, things like that. Maybe we can get him to line up perfectly from the other, you know. He is Kevin. He probably says he's a creature of habit. He might say things the same way. We may be able to get it to line up from the other scene. There's all sorts of experiments we can do there. So Action Man with an A, and I think this is where Kevin holds up the thing. I think you're the one. You're confused. Action Man with an A, why are you making that face? I think you're the one who's confused because that's me. So let's get that line. Okay, so we're not gonna do that. We're gonna go get Kevin's facial expression here, and the facial expression is where we want the close up. (laughter) Here is the close up. You know, I think you're the one that's confused because that is me clearly me. See? (laughs) Doesn't he do it here, though? I think we need him do it here. Wait for the bus? Rolling and action. So I show her... No, okay. So we're gonna grab it from here, and I'm already making my first... yes? Did you do it at the end there? I thought you had him do a take really close up with him making face? I thought I did too, but maybe I didn't. I guess not. Okay, so the first thing I'm cutting here, let's go over to our script here, and it says, Kevin stares blankly. Why are you making that face? I think you're the one who is confused, because this is me. This... Kevin stares blankly. Why are you making that face? Let me ask you a question. If I just get rid of this, does the story still make sense? Yeah. Absolutely. You know what it's doing? It's slowing us down, so we're gonna get rid of it. And I actually stopped correcting him to do it in this shot, because I felt once he was saying it, it was slowing down the flow of the scene, which was tough to judge because he wasn't actually in both seat the same time, so I had a hunch that this would happen and it did. I know that little (tongue clicking) is gonna drive me crazy. But I'm gonna do it anyway. With an A. No, I think that you're the one that's con... You're mocky. Getting rid of it. Yeah, it drags too long. Action Man with an A. No, I think that you're the one confused because that I clearly me. See? Okay, so I'm gonna L-cut this a little bit for the sake of pace here. That's where you're confused because that's me on the cover. Action Man with an A. No, I think that you're the one that's confused. Alright, so while my computer catches up, why don't we take a couple questions from the World Wide Web here? Perfect. We have from Carlyle Dortensie, why wouldn't he import a clip from the bin? Does the video have double audio tracks? Because it's recording stereo so it's actually coming out of the right and the left channel. Okay. Yep. A question from Joe the Flow, how long should a sequence be? As long as it is good. And I like a film. (laughter) Right. A question from Blue Night. I'm not sure if you've answered this already, but how do you sync the master audio to these multi-cuts? Okay, great question. As we did the PluralEyes before, so when we're done, what I'm gonna do is go actually hues the sequence of the PluralEyes to reference it, so I know this clip. We used this clip, 7383, and that synced with audio track 003. So I know when I go on to the regular timeline where we have it synced and I find the number of the clip, I know that goes as audio track three, and I know that it's relatively similar, the same time, time code as I would say to get those clips. You'll see how quickly I do it. It's very easy. And that's something you should know how to do, to line up audio. Yes? So there's essentially no b-roll in this, and I assume that's 'cause you didn't have a whole lot of time, but is it also because it's comedy, or was there any reason to not having b-roll other than the lack of time? Well, wouldn't be the lack of time would be more about the lack of, you know, production set. But in a conversation, there's not as much b-roll as there would be in like a wedding film or an event, something where it's like a whole series of a day compact into four minutes. Conversations are back and forth, so it's just about the people. That's not to say you can't use b-roll. And I would go as far as to say that our How to Photoshop Everyone cutaways are the b-roll. Oh, okay. Yes, so when that happens, you'll see that we start to change up the view, and that's part of the reason why I did that. One question from... This will be our last question before we break for lunch. Physicspressions ask, how many layers is too much in Premiere? 99. Because that's as high as it goes. There's no such thing, like the first time we did the Skype party, I did the film and then Jeff wanted to make an edit I didn't agree with, so I said you do it. (laughs) That's how passionate I was about that cut, so he was like, "Fine, I'll do it." So I sent him the sequence and then I get a phone call a half an hour later and he's like, "Dude, this is like an archeology dig." And he could just see all the layer, all the ideas that failed or was written over, so it was like 50 layers a video. And he's like, "I've no idea what's going on here." I just wanna make this one change, and I have all these video tracks here. And so there's no such thing, but if I were polite, I would've deleted a lot of things I didn't use so that he could get in there and make the tweaks. Well, it is really interesting because he leaves a trail of failed ideas behind, which is not a bad thing. And part of what Ross does and does so well is, like he said at the very beginning of this program, the scariest thing in the world is a blank timeline. So his goal is get it unblank as soon as possible. It doesn't matter if the idea last or doesn't, 'cause you have to start somewhere. And then he just basically repeats that process over and over and over again, making it better with each pass.

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

Great 3-day workshop! I work for a college, teaching students to communicate via the video medium, as well as producing video for promo and events. This video is super useful to me... The most basic info was review, but it's great to see another team's approach to explaining and teaching the concepts. Some of the more advanced materials is on level or a reach for what I'm doing, so it's teaching me to move forward with my abilities. Just a note to the Creative Live folks, I love the idea of viewing for free and buy if you like to see again. I was able to catch a half hour here and there, which was enough to convince me to buy the whole thing. I wouldn't have been likely to plunk down $99 for a video when there really is so much out there for free. The difference, and reason it is worth it, is because this is so well organized and complete, and discusses a broad range of budgets as well as info for a range of skill levels. This live for free then pay to download model is great.

a Creativelive Student
 

TERRIFIC workshop! Extremely helpful/educational ... and rather entertaining, too. (Bear in mind, I'm new to the cinematography end of things.) I'm pretty sure, no matter where you may be on the experience scale, you'll get enough ideas from this program to make it well worth your watching. I love the way they prioritize equipment needs & wants, and help us sift through the PILE of options out there. And their "$750 starter set-up" was definitely an eye-opener. (Um ... that's AFTER your camera and lenses, guys.) It's critical (and difficult) to maintain audience interest over a 3-day course ... otherwise, even the best material will go right over our heads. But Jeff and Ross were perfect together -- playing off, and feeding, each other continuously. Sometimes their banter is used for clarifying potentially confusing concepts ... and other times just for chuckles. All-in-all, I would recommend this to any but (perhaps) the REALLY advanced cinematographers out there. (Scorsese ... keep your wallet in your pocket.) For anyone considering purchasing the videos, consider this: Most of us who've already bought them ... did so AFTER watching a considerable amount of the workshop for free. That should tell you something of the quality of this material. Thanks, Jeff and Ross, and Creative Live!

Tyrone
 

I am thankful that I found CreativeLive and signed up for this class. For a couple of years I have been looking for a comprehensive course to teach me about filmmaking for the independent artist. I have sought the professional guidance of "people in the business" but they were more interested in taking your money than helping. And they were very condescending and arrogant. At CreativeLive I have found people who are like me and willing to share their knowledge with me. This particular course gave me the foundation to know what to purchase and where to start in my first efforts of filmmaking. This course, though very informative, I would wish if was a bit more technically than theoretical. Ross is great at what he does but I felt spent too much time on too many theoretical aspects of filmmaking and not enough fundamentals. Jeff was better at explaining the technical aspects of filmmaking but did not speak as much as Ross. Overall, I find that Jeff and Ross were wonderful teachers and I learned so much from them. I am looking forward to enrolling in additional classes at CreativeLive and hopefully if Jeff and Ross teach more courses, I will sign up. Thank you so very much Jeff, Ross and the CreativeLive team!

Student Work

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