Establishment Rules

Whether and when to use establishing shots ☛ When I was at film school there was a lot of sniffiness about using establishing shots, an attitude which I also came across in some feature film cutting rooms. For some feature film directors and editors GV—or general view—is a dirty word. But what’s the beef? Why […]

Making Music pt.2

Laying Down Tracks In the last blog we looked at choosing the style of music for your film, and how it can place the sort of film it is or where it’s set. Now you’ve settled on a musical style, I’m going to talk about what strategy to use, where in the film to use […]

Making Music

Pt.1 Style counseling. Long before movies had sound, they had music. Not the 10,000 piece orchestra of Hans Zimmer*—instead, a single pianist on a cheap upright piano, or later a cinema organ, improvising to the picture as it played. Nonetheless, from near the beginning, moving images relied on music as a trusty guide, steering the […]

Executive Stress

When Money People Monkey with your Cut ☛ In the Oscars this year Harrison Ford unpocketed a set of notes that had been given by the Executive Producers on his 1982 film Blade Runner. His intention was clearly to ridicule the wrong-headedness of Hollywood executives and the way they blunder into the editing process; these […]

Don’t Forget to Pack Your Editor

Cutting on Location ☛ I’ve written before about the advantages of cutting during the shoot, but on my last job – a lovely British feature called Me, Myself & Di – I went a step further and was cutting on location with the crew. I learnt some interesting things to share with you. To clarify, […]

How to Travel in Time

The Art of the Flashback ☛ Flashbacks are on my mind at the moment. I’m currently working on two feature projects – one as writer, the other as editor – which are structured around multiple time periods, so my brain has got well-used to jumping around in time. Flashbacks are pretty common these days, but […]

“One for Lloyds”?

How many takes to shoot ☛ “One for Lloyds…” is a phrase often heard on movie sets in the UK. It means shooting a second take, even if take one was perfect; y’know, just in case. Lloyds is the centre of the British insurance market – I believe their policies once demanded that a minimum of […]

How Long You’ll Need to Edit…

…and When You Should Stop ☛ One question that I’m often asked when interviewing for a low-budget feature is: “how long do you think you’ll need?” The answer is… it’s complicated. There used to be a rule of thumb for feature films: 1.5 times the length of the shoot. This was based on the assumption […]

“Basically the audience is stupid”

“You and I know that basically the audience is stupid” these were the words of a client I once worked with. It was not the only time I’d heard this sentiment; I don’t get to hear it much, but when I do it usually comes from someone who’s been in the film industry for thirty […]

Brando recognition

When is a good actor not a good actor? ☛ A weird thing sometimes happens when two or more people sit down in a cutting room and look through takes. They will agree on which take has the smoothest camera move or focus pull, there’ll be little disagreement about whether the shoot looks better with […]