Listen to this post: 

We got almost everyone on our team to writ e a guest blog post so you could meet them. The timing of this newest one is great because it’s been a long time since this blog had any info on the documentary! Please meet our Editor, Emily von W. Gilbert. The audio recording is my voice. Emily’s really a behind the scenes person, not one to steal the attention by projecting her voice in the microphone. Please enjoy this creative post to introduce you to Emily’s experience of the editing process. (Also, I tried putting the image descriptions right into the post like I usually do. But after more than 30 revisions to get the formatting correct, and it still was super wonky, I took them out. Click on any photo, and the typed image description should pop up with the picture as alternative text.)

For any of you readers on the more literal side of things like I am, be warned: this post has a lot of metaphor and spoof, and it isn’t really what our process was for editing this film. In fact, I didn’t even understand this was a spoof even after the 45th revision of the page. Thankfully, Cynthia clued me in. So funny, that. We all have such different ways of processing images and words, which makes collaboration and community so neat. And this is precisely what makes Emily such an incredible editor, that she can see a series of pictures of just about anything and tease out a story from them. That’s why I often work in collaboration: as sarcastic and satire-oriented as I am myself, I often don’t recognize it when other people use it!

If the pictures Emily chose for this post don’t look familiar to you, they are all from the TV show “Twin Peaks.” If they do look familiar, double-enjoyment.

What Is Editing?

by Emily von W. Gilbert

What does the editor do? The editor chops all the footage into little pieces and puts it back together into a film.

How does the editor do it? The editor channels his or her inner Log Lady.

Let’s start at the beginning!

A producer or a director tells the editor that they have a project, a little bit of what it’s about, how it was shot, what they’re hoping to turn it into, and how much money they have to do it.

 

 

 

The editor listens:

And then says “Sure, why not?”

 

 

The director/producer hands over a hard drive that has all the materials on it. The editor picks up the hard drive and morphs it into a log that can talk (but only to the editor.)

Time passes during which the editor talks to the log and the producer/director wonders what the hell happened.

One day, the editor comes back to the producer/director and explains that the Film is not really about what the producer/director thinks the Film is about:

…And disappears for another one to two months.

…………………[♫♩♫ musical interlude]

After this time, the editor returns with a rough cut of the Film – as the editor sees it.

The producer/director notices right away that a lot of things are very different about this Film from the Film in their head – the one that they shot. People have disappeared. Time is warped: things that happened after now happen before. What seemed like someone talking about one thing now seems like they’re talking about a whole other thing.

 

 

 

 

 

The producer/director points this out to the editor:

 

But what has happened is easily explained! For while the producer/director sees a log with some bark on it, the editor sees this:

And although the log gets upset by such misunderstandings, the editor knows that the producer/director cares just as deeply about the Film as the log does, and that this is just part of the process of going from a rough cut to a finished Film.

 

 

 

 

 

The editor responds with a really thoughtful breakdown of all the important themes and plot points, ideas about arcs and counterpoints, and how to shape the Film to reflect its inherent truth:

NOW the director/producer really GETS it! They sit down and watch the Film together:

 

After the screening the director/producer and the editor have long, productive conversations about the Film, and if what the Film says is indeed what the Film is intended to say.

 

 

 

The editor relishes these moments that heighten our collective understanding of why we’re making the Films we’re making, and how we can make them even better. Film-making truly is team work!

And so, with every stone turned and every question answered, the Film has now transformed from a loose collection of possible moments into an elevated totality of its own, and the editor’s work is done.

*Thank you brianandkatz for the sound clip from freesound.org.