Hi. I've read alot about film editing, and how it's done, and what to avoid and such, so I know I can manage editing my first film, I just want to make sure that I'm not doing something completely wrong or inconveniently, because MAN does it take a long time.

Alright. I have 8 MiniDV Tapes of footage, comprising about 5 hours of footage that correspond to the 7 "sequences" that I broke the script into for filming.

My plan is to have 7 bins in Final Cut Pro, named Sequences 1 through 7. Inside each of those bins will be a seperate bin for each "shot", and inside each of the shot bins, will be the actual subclips of the different takes and outtakes of that particular shot.

I wrote out a shot plan, consisting of the 101 shots in the film, and each shot is numbered, so if I want to know what a particular shot is without actually browsing through it in the viewer, I can just look at my shot plan to see which shot it is.

Today, I captured the first sequence into Final Cut Pro, and broke it down into bins and subclips the way I just described. It took me about 2 hours to do that. That means I have about 8 more hours of work simply creating subclips.

THEN, i'll have to go through all the subclips, picking out the takes that could potentially be used, and then I'll actually begin editing.

Once I begin editing, I have my "sequence 1", with it's 17 bins and 50-something subclips, and I have to use all of that to construct a 1 minute long scene. The whole process, from the initial experiments, to rough editing, to finally figuring out exactly which shot I want where, to fine tuning it, let alone audio mixing (a whole other story), doesn't seem like it could take less than 20 or 30 hours PER sequence.

Is that right? Or did I shoot too much footage? Or am I doing something inconveniently in FCP??

I'm all for putting dozens of hours of tedious work into a 5 minute film, I just want to make sure that that is how it's supposed to go.

Thanks!

I will never ever go shopping with you. Planning, writing shopping list, checking your shopping gear, dress accourdingly, do some exercise, check your wallet, picking the right cart, plan your route, etc...

Of course planning is right, it saves you a lot headache. But one can overstate. Mostly I ingest tapes of 40 min in two parts of 20 min each. I look at the shotlist/script and select the best shots in the viewer. If I find the right one I put it on the timeline. If I see shots that are not needed at that moment, I write their timecode in the shotlist for easy retrieval. After a few hours you have a rough edit. If you are looking for alternatives of a shot, you doubleclick on that shot in the timeline. In the viewer you scroll forward or backward to see if there are better shots surrounding the shot that you initialy choose.
I use one bin for video, one for voice-overs and one for music. That's it.
If I'm done I'll use the media manager to put the shots I've used into a new project. I save the (sliced) media plus the project on harddisk or dvd's. Then I clear the capture scratch folder. Ready for the next job. You need a lot of hd space for this way of working, but 80 euro for 320 GB (= 25 hours DV) is not gonna stop you.

So loose a bit up, and save lots of time.

Shooting too much footage is never a bad thing, but capturing too much footage might slow your process right down.

I might be a bit of an old schooler, but i like to log the tapes before i go anywhere near an edit suite, and use batch capture to only capture the shots i want to use, sitting with each tape and logging in's and out's may take a long time, but it only needs to be done once and it saves that clicking in and out of bins and clips that gives all editors repetitive strain injuries!

I think shooting more, but digitize less, you can still plan as much, but i think you can smarten up your editing times before even capturing a frame by logging more strictly.

Just my thoughts anyway!

Shooting too much footage is never a bad thing, but capturing too much footage might slow your process right down.

I might be a bit of an old schooler, but i like to log the tapes before i go anywhere near an edit suite, and use batch capture to only capture the shots i want to use, sitting with each tape and logging in's and out's may take a long time, but it only needs to be done once and it saves that clicking in and out of bins and clips that gives all editors repetitive strain injuries!

I think shooting more, but digitize less, you can still plan as much, but i think you can smarten up your editing times before even capturing a frame by logging more strictly.

Just my thoughts anyway!

Neil - do you note the clips that you require via the timecode?
I should do a little more batch capturing - I tend to review the tape before hand then find the spot on the tape and 'capture now'.

Hmm... I guess my conclusion in response to reading your replies, is that i'm doing nothing "wrong" and that it's just my super-strict organizational mind that makes me do it the way I do it.

See, for me, when I begin editing, I want EVERYTHING at the tip of my fingers. And I can't put together a rough edit until I have in front of me, a subclip of every different take, so I can pick and choose completely freely.

Let's say I shot a particular scene from 7 different angles. When I rough edit, I'll take bits of the scene, from the different clips, and put them one after another, and see whether I like the angle changes or not. There's no point in dropping clips down into the timeline for me, because they'll be completely changing order later anyway.

Overall, I shot about 400 "takes" corresponding to 101 shots, and if I don't have direct access to each of those 400, I can't efficently edit.

At least that's how I feel. So it's good to know that what i'm doing isn't "wrong" by any means.

Thanks!, i'm off to break down my second sequence into subclips!

There's nothing wrong with capturing everything you've shot and certainly nothing wrong with organizing it.

It can take an entire editing TEAM of people months to edit a 90-minute feature that was shot with a lower shooting ratio than what you've got going on. The fact that you've spent a couple hours of one day capturing footage is completely fine and normal.

I don't think anybody should expect to complete even a 5 minute film in a single day or even a weekend. Give it time, let the footage work. Investigate the performances, listen to the dialogue, tweak your edits, feel the pacing, think about what you might foley, work out your credits, figure out your music. Any one of these things can take hours and hours and then, after you're done, step away from it for a day or so and look at it again, you may be amazed at what you see still needs tweaking.

Whether you have OCD or any psychological issues is up for debate :) but editing is a time consuming process, as it should be.

I basiclally follow the way Neil laid it out. I have no problem with shooting ALOT, but now the bulk of my efforts goes into storyboarding before any shooting is ever done.

If I storyboard effectively, then I already know exactly what I'm looking for when I begin the log and capture process. I capture everything I NEED, plus a few shots that are questionable in terms of their potential usability. When I get the flow together in the timeline, there are always a few alternate takes that I might prefer over the others, but for the most part the tedium of storyboarding and an efficient log and capture process makes the editing process go far more smoothly.

If I only have a basic concept in my mind, then I overshoot everything, and capture everything, I find that the editing process gets bogged down with too many options at every turn, along with trying to 'fix' things that seemed to work in my mind, but didn't quite turn out on the screen. This makes the editing process a very challenging chore.

-Jon

I think what's great about this whole thing is that FCP really leaves it up to the editor to decide how they want to do things. There is no "one way" of editing.

I just spent another 2 hours and 10 minutes, breaking down my second tape into subclips of takes and outtakes.

I now have 47 bins and 194 subclips, as well as my shot chart. Now, I can look at my chart, and say "I wanna look at that shot", and it's right there, numbered and labeled, in FCP.

I guess i'm just a super organized person...

Thanks for the help!

I think you probably require OCD in this game!
Lennon - I don't suppose you can post any screen grabs of your methods...even a photo of your shot plan?
That would certainly help me out a bit....I thought I was organised (and imbibed with a healthy dose of OCD - seriously) until I read of some of the methods posted by folks on here (yourself included).
As my projects are getting larger and more convoluted it would help, nay be necessary if I could organise correctly.

Cheers.

Here are 8 screenshots from FCP.

Pictures 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are a sequence of showing Sequence 2 being opened, all the way until reaching actual clips. Pictures 6 and 7 show Sequence 3 spread out like that, with the shot plan for sequence 3 right next to it. Picture 8 is just a shot of Sequence 4 partly open, because there were reshoots involved with that one.

http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/742/picture2zu3.png (http://imageshack.us)
Shot at 2007-07-14

http://img66.imageshack.us/img66/403/picture3of8.png (http://imageshack.us)
Shot at 2007-07-14

http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/8831/picture4np5.png (http://imageshack.us)
Shot at 2007-07-14

http://img66.imageshack.us/img66/9402/picture5ha1.png (http://imageshack.us)
Shot at 2007-07-14

http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/3094/picture6ys1.png (http://imageshack.us)
Shot at 2007-07-14

http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/2846/picture7xh0.png (http://imageshack.us)
Shot at 2007-07-14

http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/9777/picture8iu9.png (http://imageshack.us)
Shot at 2007-07-14

http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/4335/picture9ft6.png (http://imageshack.us)
Shot at 2007-07-14

That's great Lennon. Yes - ever so slightly OCD'ish, :) , but I guess in the long run your life will be a whole lot easier.
I'm not a quarter as organised as that but I really should aim to be.
Thanks for posting those.

ps: what are the slightly 'frazzled' film icons for (shown below in 14 and 16)?:

http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/3094/picture6ys1.png

That's great Lennon. Yes - ever so slightly OCD'ish, :) , but I guess in the long run your life will be a whole lot easier.
I'm not a quarter as organised as that but I really should aim to be.
Thanks for posting those.

ps: what are the slightly 'frazzled' film icons for (shown below in 14 and 16)?:

http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/3094/picture6ys1.png

Those are subclips. That's what subclips look like in FCP.

As you can see, inside each "Sequence" bin (there's 4 of them), I have one large clip named "Sequence 1" or "Sequence 2". Those clips are the entire tape, captured from beginning to end. Then I went through the whole clip creating subclips of each take, and sorting them out in the folders.

I guess my question was "Is there a way to be this organized without so much work?" and the answer i'm getting is "No".

However, i'm happy to put the time in to have my stuff be organized.

Thanks!

You'll get faster as you go along. I can now cut a 5-10 minutes a day, if it is a narrative work, but I used to take more than a day to cut a minute before. It's just a matter of experience.

Cutting down a tree doesn't take very long.

Slicing it up into quartersawn lumber and other portions doesn't take much longer than that.

But sorting the wood into the proper grades, then building a nice set of cabinets with perfectly mitered joints. Well THAT will take some time.

Same with production and editing.

Editing is the finishing part. And the closer you get to a finished product, the more time you'll spend. You'll find that applies to a lot of other artistic mediums as well.

I think what's great about this whole thing is that FCP really leaves it up to the editor to decide how they want to do things. There is no "one way" of editing.

I just spent another 2 hours and 10 minutes, breaking down my second tape into subclips of takes and outtakes.

I now have 47 bins and 194 subclips, as well as my shot chart. Now, I can look at my chart, and say "I wanna look at that shot", and it's right there, numbered and labeled, in FCP.

I guess i'm just a super organized person...

Thanks for the help!

As the others have affirmed, vast patience, an affinity for detail (OCD, perhaps), and the lack of aversion to repetition are all essential qualities in a film/video editor. And just as the keystrokes for the editing functions you use most often will become second nature to your fingers, so the most useful organizational systems for your media will become apparent in time.

Everyone has technical cutting techniques of their own, as you say, but -- it seems to me the breaking of raw footage into "take" subclips is wasting you a little time. Personally, I leave strings of takes intact for each camera setup, then just play them back and set Markers at the heads of takes (hitting M as the clip plays), and then at any point in the clip where I like a line reading, or the camera move worked best, or the action timed out right, etc. So I end up with a clip for each set-up and a reveal-able list of "take markers" and "good stuff markers" strung beneath it. This method has the added benefit of allowing you to scrub through other takes on the way to extracting the one you want from the master clip, which is not such a bad thing -- undiscovered jewels have a tendency to wink at you from the river of footage.

Anyway, I'm sure you're well into the process by now, so I hope you're having fun!

As the others have affirmed, vast patience, an affinity for detail (OCD, perhaps), and the lack of aversion to repetition are all essential qualities in a film/video editor. And just as the keystrokes for the editing functions you use most often will become second nature to your fingers, so the most useful organizational systems for your media will become apparent in time.

Everyone has technical cutting techniques of their own, as you say, but -- it seems to me the breaking of raw footage into "take" subclips is wasting you a little time. Personally, I leave strings of takes intact for each camera setup, then just play them back and set Markers at the heads of takes (hitting M as the clip plays), and then at any point in the clip where I like a line reading, or the camera move worked best, or the action timed out right, etc. So I end up with a clip for each set-up and a reveal-able list of "take markers" and "good stuff markers" strung beneath it. This method has the added benefit of allowing you to scrub through other takes on the way to extracting the one you want from the master clip, which is not such a bad thing -- undiscovered jewels have a tendency to wink at you from the river of footage.

Anyway, I'm sure you're well into the process by now, so I hope you're having fun!

I've actually taken a break this last week. I'm well over half way through organizing the footage though. I think i'm gonna seriously begin editing at the beginning of august, because that's after all the summer guests have left.

Thanks for the info. I still feel I need to be able to point and click at a single take, any take, at any moment, and have it start at the very first frame, and end on the exact frame that the camera quit rolling at.

Creating a separate bin for each shot is where I would draw the line - that's just overkill. You'll find when cutting together a scene, you'll want easy access to all the possible shots for that scene. having as many as 10 bins open at the same time will not facilitate easy access. Say you want to try different takes of the second shot in the scene, but that changes the relationship to the fourteenth shot, which then changes shot ten - you'll find yourself jumping back and forth between multiple bins. No good.

If you've used good naming conventions, which it looks like you have, you can have one bin per scene, then all the clips will sort by name into scene/shot/take order. Look at the fields available to you in the log & capture window. That will give you a good start as to proper naming. It's scene first, shot second, take third.

this is because you'll want to be sorting properly by clip name, whether you are in List+Thumbnails View, or Icon View. I have no problem with sorting into subclips, as then you're sure you have the complete heads & tails for each shot, camera start to camera stop.

Remember also that this is non-linear editing - you can easily duplicate/copy/paste bins, sequences and clips, while always keeping just your one original copy of the digitized footage. That frees you up to edit in any style you end up preferring. So experiment! Try editing multiple versions of a scene on one timeline. Heck, try editing the whole film on a single timeline! Or, you could edit each scene on it's own timeline, but copy & paste into a master timeline to check the overall flow. There's more than one way to skin a cat.

The important part about the organization step is for you to become intimately familiar with the footage, to take any notes that will help you jog your memory and make good decisions later, and to organize the footage JUST ENOUGH to allow easy and reliable access when you need it. Anything more than that is counter-productive.

So keep those shot-by shot bins if you must, but seriously, make a whole-scene bin with Icon or Thumbnails, and copy all those subclips into it. See if that doesn't make more sense to you.

Lennon, it seems like you mentioned wanting easy access to multiple angles of a scene next to each other on the timeline. Have you considered using FCP's multiclip function? This would let you work with the scene as though it were a multicam shoot, letting you 'take' each angle as you see fit in real-time.

Just food for thought... it may not work for you, but it sounded like a viable option from your workflow description.

-gb-

Gregs concept is pretty good, assuming the timing on each scene is exactly the same.

AVID has a 'script' editing function. It allows you to paste your script into it, and the actual TAKES show up next to the text. You can click on each thumbnail, and have it play independantly. Just as you would mark a script while shooting it, the SCRIPT view marks the scripts and provides thumbnails for viewing in context with the script. (Now they have SCRIPT SYNCH in Media Composer, which SYNCHS the actual takes with the written words phonetically... pretty handy.)

As to how long it's 'supposed' to take... "How long is a piece of string?"

It's as long as it needs to be.

Every editor has their own workflow. IF it's working for you, then fine. In the film world, good takes (Circle takes) and bad takes are noted in the script and camera log, then when they go to the lab, only the 'selects' are printed. You can do the same thing in your log and capture, you don't HAVE to capture bad or busted takes. This used to be the standard procedure, as storage was at a premium... but with storage so cheap now that you can capture everything... you can find yourself getting bogged down in the minutae. Lost in the trees without seeing the forrest.

For an overview of how different professional editors approach their craft, I highly reccomend "TRANSITIONS: Voices on the Craft of Digital Editing" for a good read.

the list sorts alphabetically, looking at your organization, I can save you a level by putting all of the individual shots in the same folder rather than the last set of subfolders and naming them 01, 02...etc. putting the leading zero will make them sort correctly. It also makes them faster to access.

Every editor has their own workflow. IF it's working for you, then fine. In the film world, good takes (Circle takes) and bad takes are noted in the script and camera log, then when they go to the lab, only the 'selects' are printed. You can do the same thing in your log and capture, you don't HAVE to capture bad or busted takes. This used to be the standard procedure, as storage was at a premium... but with storage so cheap now that you can capture everything... you can find yourself getting bogged down in the minutae. Lost in the trees without seeing the forrest.

That would be fine if you agree with the director's idea of a good take. Perhaps you want to use a reaction shot from a "bad take" ?

I do agree with your broader point about keeping focus.

If there's something usefull in the shot, it wouldn't be marked as 'bad' in my experience.

Here's an interesting quote that I think speaks to the philosophy of editing.

"... after fifteen years working professionally as an editor, I have no solid consistent methodology. The wai I tackle a scene has to do with the nature, quality, and quantity of coverage.... The material will always dictate the approach and the edit. I'm surprised every time that I start a new film that the first several scenes are particularly challenging. The tricks and pace that I applied on past films don't necessarily apply. The material is trying to find its own style and my job is just to let it." - Peter Schink.

Creating a separate bin for each shot is where I would draw the line - that's just overkill. You'll find when cutting together a scene, you'll want easy access to all the possible shots for that scene. having as many as 10 bins open at the same time will not facilitate easy access.

I agree with Scott 100%. I didn't realize you were making new bins for every shot. I'd stick with grouping them by scene.

I'd have to rename the subclips to make them sort themselves properly under one folder. Even within each of the "shot" bins, it seems they aren't exactly in the order I want them. I guess I should've been putting numbers starting with double zeros at the beginning of EVERY clip name.

Well, thanks for the help! I'll begin editing the film once i've finished sorting the footage the way i've been doing it so far, and if I find it's inconvenient, i'll put all the subclips of each sequence into one large bin for each sequence.

Thanks!

Lennon

Good luck Lennon - you've created a fascinating and open thread here.
You can spend an age sorting out and learning the production crafts to then find yourself having to (if you're a one man band/small company I guess) look up the next mountain that is post production.

Good luck Lennon - you've created a fascinating and open thread here.
You can spend an age sorting out and learning the production crafts to then find yourself having to (if you're a one man band/small company I guess) look up the next mountain that is post production.

Thanks! Post Production definitely looks like it's going to be a much larger mountain than Pre-Production and Photography were. However I am very much looking forward to it, and I think it's gonna be alot of fun. Did I mention i'm writing the music to the film as well?

I've got ALOT of work ahead of me.. :)

Thanks.

Yes...I've clunked my brains over the filming side for some time now - at the very least I have a certain control over the basics now (thanks in a huge part to this very forum). Recently getting a little more proficient with the editing side of things now...and then I can also concentrate on the music (which is my 'core' so to speak).
Graphic deign and photography...I'll leave to others I can ill afford to spread myself ever more thinly.
It's tough, frustrating (getting work in...getting the work done correctly etc) but ultimately very rewarding.

Its very interesting to see everyone's workflow here on this thread, thank you all for posting. I do agree with Scott though, importing all clips, setting up thumbnails, and renaming certain thumbnails even with explanations, yes, no, or more descriptive is the fastest way I have used to edit large amouts of data. But there is no perfect system, whatever works to fit your needs, whether suiting time constraints or cohesiveness of editing.
Thanks again for a great thread, and God Bless.

Hidalgo