There's definitely a tedium associated with editing. It is the process of delving into each and every moment captured on the set and attempting to make a cohesive whole from it. This is also the stage at which the new creation begins to get up and walk about. If writing is the conception, photography is the birth and formative stages, then editing is the final shaping of adolescence before sending the child to the refining stages of college (deeper post-production) and finally into a life of its own.

For me, this is my first editing period, ever, where I find myself continually second-guessing choices I made on set. I am continually seeing moments I failed to optimize, failed to capture properly or overlooked. I noticed a weakness in my writing/directing hyphenate. When directing my own material, it's far too easy to overlook or dismiss issues as unimportant - and then they come back to bite me in the ass later. There's nothing yet that is detrimental or destructive to the end product, but it also isn't the best work for the story. The question will be - can we make it work in editing - or do I have to go back and shoot more material to really get what I need?

I'm not sure if the factors here are because we were rushed, I was thrown by the lack of precision in some of the performances, I was overwhelmed with the logistical nightmare that this production was to put together - or all of the above in various combinations. I'll keep my eye out for those gaping holes and decide if we need additional shooting.

Progressing through the edit, I'm feeling a lot better about the coverage. As Dan and I start to build the connections and relationships in the elevator, I feel this thing really coming together. I still feel weak about the first few scenes - but we'll see how it all comes together.

10/18/03 - We're pretty close to finally getting a first cut. As with last time with Dan [on The Night Before] there's a considerable amount of refinement & rough polish even to this first assembly. From here, it'll be time spent massaging and really shaping the film. Pretty soon I'll be bringing in Ryan Harper and Chris Probst to have a look-see.

So after viewing the first full cut away from the edit bay, I feel a lot stronger about what we have. There are, of course, some areas that need a lot of work - but there are also some real sweet spots. Overall, I think we're working well. This film needs a LOT of sound work and more so than other projects, we're really only looking at about 25% of the product here. Maybe 33% - the other to parts being sound design and score. I've burned a bunch of possible temp score tracks to CD, but none of them really stood out to me as fitting perfectly. We'll see what happens.

At the very least Dan and I have found fixes for most of my major problems. Some of them very creative - stealing an earlier moment of April reaching for the buttons and playing it as her trying to follow Anthony out of the elevator - some harsh - like cutting all of April in the office hallway. But at least for our first screening for producers will be clean with these cuts and changes. [Editorial note: The hallway sequence was a killer for me. We cut a whole scene were April sees her dead friend in her friend's old office because it was too over-the-top and then her walking down the hallway - which was originally planned to be much more elaborate to make us think that someone was watching her and show her paranoia - became rather flaccid and dry. We cut the hallway completely, but eventually put a couple shots back in to bridge the gap between her office and the elevator and add to the overall mood without any specific instance going on.]

Screened for Chris Probst and Ryan Harper in separate screenings. Both were very happy, gave notes that Dan and I will consider and implement as possible.

Time to bring in people for the first test screening. Woo hoo! [Editorial note: Test screenings are very important to me. It's not like the studios where we fill a theater with an audience and play the film, but much smaller and much more precise as to who we're playing the film for. For a whole passage from my journal on my philosophy of how I work these test screenings, read here.]

10/27/03 We had our first test screening tonight. Overall there was overwhelming praise for the film. People were extremely complimentary. Of course, as they were invited to, they started to pick it apart - but surprisingly, there was very little to pick on. "Scary" was used to descibe it. "Suspense" was used several times in positive descriptors. All-in-all, the general consensus was that it was good to very good with some excellents thrown in. All added the caveat that their comments were nitpicking because they had been solicited to. My confidence in the film is definitely boosted. In studio terms, this screening was through-the-roof!

10/29/03 We're so close. Our last edit session before I leave for Phoenix and my wedding. Talked with Ryan Harper today re pick-up shoot. Have to figure out a budget for it. I'm thinking $500 out of my ass here. I think it's important to have. Do we need April? Can I work with an April wig and wardrobe? Need to determine that tonight. I want, at least, to get very close tonight so that we can get Buck a QuickTime and start him working while I'm gone.

We need to go through the elevator mechanism shots tonight. Also need to look at all of April's moments - can we really optimize this by re-shooting some of her elements if we bring her back? We'll see how tonight goes.

[Editorial note: There was much discussion about picking up shots to extend the hallway sequence, as noted earlier. Chris was also passionate about getting more elevator shots. In the end, the decision was made not to do any additional shooting as anything we could do would not significantly impact the final film one way or the other. This decision was aided by the fact that April had moved out of state to be with her family, but ultimately it was decided that the movie would not be significantly improved by any additional shooting within our means.]

10/30/03 - We're back! Another session before I leave! Well the cut is coming along wonderfully. However, tonight we ran into technical glitch. About 10:00 Dan and I were happy with the cut and signing off on it for now - pending the decision regarding pick-up shots [see editorial note above]. All in all - every problem except the hallway sequence has been solved with a few nips here a few added shots there swap a take or two or an alternate performance and viola! We're golden. So after we're happy with the cut, I ask Dan to re-digitize the project with less compression so that I can show it to a few more people and perhaps submit to ICG [International Cinematographer's Guild Film Showcase, which Chris won for his work on The Night Before and then won again for his work on Descent] for Chris. The re-dig took from 10pm to 12:30am, most of it went wonderfully, but for a completely unknown reason some sections were six frames off. Now at 30 frames per second 6 frames is 1/5 of a second. Hardly noticeable unless the edits are very precise - as in an action sequence. But it's hard to tell if there are problems in other areas. Additionally once you have a mysterious problem like this - you get paranoid. 'Is that off, too?' You start seeing things that aren't wrong as wrong. 'Did we always cut that on the blink?' So we called it a night. Dan will go back in the morning and check for other problem areas against a copy of our last cut. That way, we'll know for sure if we're still on track. It's amazing to me how a simple edit can change everything. We first noticed the problem when Anthony's hand comes in the door. With quick action like that, it's easier to tell when it's not right. The cut fell in the right place but the footage itself was 6 frames off.

Ugh.

On the positive side, we made a lot of very simple changes that had a significant impact. That's the shebang. I'll show this to Ryan (pending Dan being able to fix the technical problem) and see what he says about the Hallway.

Back in the bay with Dan. It's Halloween afternoon 2003. I know I've said before I'm tired of doing free work, but it's times like today that really drive that home. Dan is a bit frazzled. He's got a tight deadline on a 'real' job and he's working his hardest to complete that and accommodate me before I have to leave town. I understand his feeling as he runs from room to room (literally) trying to ge done as quickly as possible to accommodate me. No I'm not naive, I know these rushes and crunches happen in the full-paying world, but the emotional inconvenience isn't there. I hate taxing people. I hate taxing myself. I've been extremely fortunate to find good people, like Dan, who are fans of the work and continue to work for free but MAN WE ARE ALL TIRED OF IT! Fuck... I'll be very happy on the day I can actually pay these good people for their work and time.

12/14 - Meet with Buck - reviewed score concepts. Buck's work thus far is inspired. By creating chords of pretty much every key in a scale he's created a very nerve-wracking sound that will create wonderful ambience and mood.

3/1/04 - The online is supposedly done. Being so removed from all of these post steps has been difficult for me. Part of that is the lack of control and supervision but a large part of it is the lack of communication/knowledge of what is or what is not going on.

3/18/04 - Met with Buck today. He's just been able to get back to the score after being slammed with Hellboy for so long. I expected to go in, hear some refinements on the concepts, give some notes and get a timeline for when he thinks he might have it done. I expected about 30% or so to be done. He blew me away with having it about 90% done - and WONDERFUL! We tweaked some things while I was there to get it to about 95% and he's doing more tonight. Then he's working on the song/source music for the murder sequence and we're golden! WOO HOO! Damn it sounds good!

3/20/04 - Problems with our online. The facility doing the work can't execute the composite work cleanly so I've now taken that on. I'll be doing the composites in After Effects here at the house. We're getting the HD frames captured and I'll work with those and spit them back out as frames to be laid down to tape. A funky problem came up that we actually have a 24p EDL that was mysteriously generated - we have no idea where from - but it's correct. This has become a severe numbers game to figure out where these frames go, which need to be worked on - how to relate the frame file names (203.tga) to it's specific timecode on the original tape and so forth. Woof. Suddenly I've got 10 pages of numbers and code and cheat-sheets here to keep track of what totals 48 seconds of screen time. Gotta love this hands-on shit.