Completing a Half-Hour Broadcast Documentary

Posted by Nick on 3 August 2011

INTRODUCTION

I run Pro Juice with my business and creative partner, Arlo Enemark. It takes up a fair whack of my time. Primarily though, I am an editor and have worked commercially as an editor for about 7 years. So I thought it might of interest to some people (particularly young editors or those just starting out) to share with you what happens in the edit suite on a half-hour TV documentary.

THE BREIF

I’m booked to cut a half-hour documentary for the ABC (in Australia) Artscape Series. It is an ‘artist at work’ film and is primarily a process driven film. I’ve got 4 weeks to digitise and complete the offline edit. Then there is a 1 day online and 2 day sound mix. A motion graphics artist has 3 days booked on the project and a composer is onboard too.

WEEK 1

Day One: Turned up to the suite at 7am and found 20 x 1/2 hour digibeta tapes ready to be ingested. Got the 1st one playing in and opened up the file of tape logs. A quick scan revealed that there must be more boxes of tapes hidden… looks like 50 tapes… about 25 hours… 50:1 ratio.

My Producer rolled in about 10am after graciously allowing me to go online at 9am and secure Row E Level 1 tickets for AC/DC’s concert in Melbourne – Sweet! Back to work.

While changing tapes we discussed the film, what had been shot and what is still to shoot. It’s a film about an artist that had been commissioned to produce a series of works for the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. Sounds a bit dry but his techniques of etching, drawing and use of colour is quite amazing. We discuss a number of stylistic techniques that the Producer would like to explore including transitions, night vision imagery, time lapses and other stylistic devices that will match the artists’ body of work.

There should be a full script completed by the following Monday (1st day of official editing). There are 3 more days booked for digitising, so as I listen to the tapes roll in, I’ll read through some of the tape logs, check out a draft of the script and probably start on some of the motion graphics ideas.

It’s the start of a new project, so the energy levels are 100%, I assume the story is strong and I assume we will have enough time. We will see!!!

Day Two: Digitising… Import 3 folders of P2 files from a flash USB drive. Nothing exciting today. Pretty much spent the whole day reading the latest HDVideoPro magazine and listening to interviews as they digitised into the FCP suite.

Day Three: Digitising… Still! Started producing some graphics and effects while listening to the footage roll in.

The film involves themes of surveillance. Data gathering and night vision so I’m developing some effects to do with that. The main effect will be a transition whereby we zoom out of the artists’ studio, through the clouds and into space before zooming back into new locations such as East Timor and Canberra. I’ve colour graded the effect to be like a cross between night vision and thermal imaging and added a cross-hair that zeroes in on its target.

Day Four: Finish digitising and cheer in the weekend.

WEEK 2

Day Five/Six: Arrive at the suite again at 7am. All the tapes are in except for 2 so I load those in and enjoy a Monday morning coffee. My producer rolls in at 9.30am and slams a script on my desk.

We go through the script together and chat about the structure and how we feel it will come together now that I have seen the footage. It looks like it’s about 40-45 minutes long. Not bad for an assemble edit.

I like this part of the process where I don’t really have to concentrate on searching for story elements. Rather I am searching for the parts that my producer has identified in the script and I am purely laying them in. It is a great way to acquaint yourself with the footage and gather an understanding of the intended structure of the film and whether you feel the story is strong and or interesting. I spend Monday and Tuesday laying it all up.

Day Seven: It’s official… we have a film. The assemble feels good and has come in at just under 50 minutes. So we’ll be cutting it roughly in half. Wont happen quickly and it’ll probably get longer before it gets shorter.

My producer and I sit down and watch the assemble through. We let it roll all the way through and hold ourselves back from stopping the film to chat about what works and what doesn’t. We reach the end and we both have pages of notes to discuss. The basic structure feels good.

We decide that a good way to move forward is for me to set the tone of the film by cutting the pre-title sequence with some temp music. Producer leaves, I edit the pre-title sequence.

Day Eight: Producer is not happy with the style of the opener I have created. We re-think it and I re-edit it. We wanted an effect where multiple pictures and video appear onscreen at the same time within frames that animate across the screen. I missed the mark, but now feel I have a greater understanding of what needs to be achieved. Off I go creating the sequence.

After lunch, we look at the edit and… bingo…. I’m on the money.

Our composer comes in and we all chat about the feel of the film and the style of the music that we wish to have composed. Our composers’ background is double bass and we want to mix that sound with some atmospheric effects. Sounds like it’ll be great.

Day Nine: With the tone of the film set by the pre-title sequence, I can now move forward with confidence about the rest of the film in terms of look and style.

I spend the day cleaning up the assemble and generally tightening the edit to be able to show our heads of department a rough cut the following Monday.

My producer is working alongside me today and identifying new material from the transcripts and tape logs that we wish to insert into the film. It’s a fantastic process to be involved in when you have a highly organised producer with a strong sense of story and confidence in their approach to the material.

By the end of the day we have a solid assemble and I output a low-res quicktime for each of us to review over the weekend.

WEEK 3

Day Ten: We meet bright and early Monday morning with our motion designer to discuss the title sequence and the additional graphic elements that he will be creating. He heads off confident and begins working. We have him for 3 days over the next 2 weeks.

My producer and I then discuss our thoughts on the film and begin editing to get the film into some kind of shape that our superiors can be confident that they have commissioned a good film.

It’s a solid days work of tightening existing scenes but leaving the structure in tact. We are not too concerned with overlay material at this stage and are concentrating on the interviews and thought tracks that tell the story and the rhythm of the film.

We output another low-res quicktime and upload it to the server for the heads of department to review.

Day Eleven to Thirteen: We receive feedback early Tuesday morning and it is mostly positive. As we expected, they want to see more process of the artist working and a greater sense of progression from his original concept to the completion of the work. We expect both of these threads to come through when we cut the overlay and montage sequences more to time and place.

Our greatest problem so far is the feeling that we leave main theme of the film too many times to explore other parts of our artists’ life. We must decide on what the most important aspects of our artists’ life is, and concentrate on that. It’s a hard job when he’s been painting and drawing since the 70’s.

This is always my favourite part of the editing process. You know you have a film but you start challenging yourself to make it the best film it can be. You try restructuring, alternative takes of interviews and deleting scenes that you know will not make the final cut.

Day Fourteen: We review our edit and it has come in at just under 40 minutes. Still got just over 12 minutes to come out. We need to upload a new version of the film for review by noon so as we can get some feedback before the end of the day. We set the film encoding and uploading while we head down the rabbit holes that make up the ABC building and find our motion designer.

Reviewing his work, we are happy with the data drizzles he has created but he’s missed the mark on a matrix-type effect. Re-brief and he’s back off again.

We know we will be getting feedback later today but we make some harsh editorial decisions about things that are just going to have to come out. It’s always more painful for the producer/director as they are much closer to the material. Often it’s a good idea to cut out scenes before they arrive at the edit suite and let them see the film without knowing those scenes will be missing. It then creates good debate about their relevance to the film and the reason they existed in the first versions of the cut.

We finally get our feedback and it is similar to the first… more process. That’s cool. We still have 12 minutes t cut out so, again, it will seem like there is more process as the film becomes shorter and the story more succinct.

WEEK 4

Day Fifteen to Seventeen: We allocate ourselves 3 days to make a 30 minute rough cut that we would consider 90% finished to have reviewed by Wednesday evening.

We make some more hard decisions about losing scenes and cut down existing scenes. It always amazes me at how long you hold onto certain sequences, shots or thought tracks and then one day they just don’t seem necessary anymore. Sometimes you help a shot because you liked it and other times you realise that a particular story element is being told by the pictures not and you no longer need the dialogue to drive it.

This is also our time to really fine tune the overlay and ensure that every shot is telling the audience something they need to know. When you only have 28 minutes to tell a story of piece of art being created as well as contextualising it within the artists’ career, every screen moment counts.

Our composer has left a CD of music at front reception when I arrive for the afternoon shift on the Wednesday. I lay in the new music and see what’s working and what’s not. I had left her a copy of the film to take home so I call her and discuss the music. We talk about what changes we can make and what additional sound elements are needed.

We upload the new rough cut and await the feedback.

Day Eighteen: Feedback in and its approved. They are happy with the film and we just need to fine cut it to time. 2 minutes to be cut out. It should happen naturally as we watch and trim.

Our designer has uploaded his graphics components and we lay them in. Almost there… a few tweaks that can be sorted out and re-integrated the following morning.

New music arrives and I lay it in. Our composer has come in and we go through the film together fine tuning in and out points as well as some levels. More work will be done in the mix, but it’s always best to get it as close to the mark as you can before sending it off to the sound mix.

We get the cut down to time and decide to leave it for review on the final morning.

Day Nineteen: Last day! I get in early and watch the film by myself. I’m happy with it. I make a few minimal changes and my Producer comes in armed with coffee and muffin. We lay in the new graphics from the designer and sit down to watch the film. It works. A few minor adjustments… 2 frames left… 3 frames right… and we’re locked off.

I then prep the film for sound mix and online. I consolidate all the tracks and delete unnecessary video and audio clips. I like to make the audio tracks as easy to identify for the sound mixer as possible so I put all dialogue on one track, music on another, SFX on another etc. I make a text document explaining what I have done and put it with an exported OMF and DV Pal Quicktime on the ‘Sound Transfer’ folder.

The online happens in final cut pro too so not much to be done for online other than delete unnecessary material and tracks and make some notes about specific grading requirements.

Offline edit complete!!!

Pack up. Shake everyone’s hand and head over for cocktails and shooters.

CONCLUSION

So that’s how I went about editing one of my half-hour documentaries for the ABC earlier this year. I hope you have found it insightful and useful. I know everyone has different working methods and you may not like the way I work but you may find elements that will work for you in the future. If nothing else I think its always interesting to know how other editors go about their work and solve the problems that come along in every edit.

Happy editing.

Nick

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