Chapter 41 Editing Requirements
Chapter 41 Editing Requirements
The paid editor naturally had no objection to the request made by the client, and he decisively stated in the meeting that he would complete the initial cut of the film as soon as possible.
As for other dubbing and composition work in the later stage, we have to wait until the editing department completes the initial editing, and work with Wang Hao to cut out the first version of the fine cut before we can design it based on the video sample.
But before that, they can also organize the corresponding sound materials and conceive the composition according to the general style of the film.
It's a chain of steps, from rough cutting, fine cutting, color grading, special effects, synthesis, dubbing, composition to the final film. There is no way to rush.
Fortunately, all the special effects in the movie "Buried" were made with props, which can save a lot of post-production time.
After arranging all the follow-up work, Wang Hao made a special trip to the movie channel to report the progress of the film's production to his uncle, the producer. By the way, based on the progress, he withdrew part of the remaining production money.
"Okay, just do it. When the movie is ready, I'll contact people to hold a screening. As long as there are no problems with the movie, we can proceed to the next step of promotion."
As Lu Guotao spoke, he signed the request form and handed it to Wang Hao.
"TV movies need promotion, don't they just show it directly?"
Wang Hao took the list and asked curiously.
“Generally speaking, TV movies are broadcast directly and do not need promotion, but aren’t you making this movie for fame?
If you really do this, no matter how good the movie is, who would care to know who the director is? So you have to promote it for you.
And the key is that we have our own publicity channels, so you just need to cooperate with us and appear on a few programs.”
"That's no problem!"
Wang Hao naturally agreed to such a good thing. After communicating with his uncle, he happily returned to school with the post-production funds and began to edit the film with the editor.
In his previous life, Wang Hao didn’t know much about film editing. After all, it was considered a professional skill.
However, this body of his in this life was the one in which he systematically studied at the Beijing Film Academy's directing department for four years, so all his memories were left intact to him.
With the help of these memories, although Wang Hao had never actually tried it, he had gained a lot of understanding of film editing.
Generally speaking, the first step of editing is to process the material, that is, to roughly select, delete, arrange and combine the film images according to the storyboard script drawn by the director and the style, intention and tone of the entire film.
After all, it is impossible to shoot a movie completely according to the storyboard script. Sometimes, just in case, the director will shoot many seemingly useless "waste shots" or save one more take.
Therefore, the actual shooting images of many movies are often two, three, or even four or five times the released images.
At this time, in order to meet the appropriate film length requirements, some redundant images must be selected.
At this step, what Wang Hao filmed surprised Mr. Zhao An, who was in charge of editing.
Because there are very few "waste films" shot by Wang Hao, but the content he shot is very usable.
It was as if he had already transformed the contents of the script and storyboard into pictures in his mind, and connected them together to form a complete work.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have been so sure to only shoot these contents, and to shoot them so accurately.
This special ability made Zhao An couldn't help but sigh when editing. If Wang Hao had been born ten years earlier, even if he couldn't become a great director, he would definitely be a top photographer.
After all, in the film era, this kind of precise shooting ability can save a lot of costs and film. For example, Hollywood, because of sufficient funds, usually has a film-matching ratio of about 1:20. Domestic directors are a little more economical, but many also have a ratio of 1:10-15.
However, Wang Hao's film matching ratio can reach an astonishing 1:4. Such precise control does not make him look like a novice at all.
It’s a pity that digital photography technology is advancing with each passing day. In the future, when making a film, the director will be able to watch the camera images in real time through a monitor and even replay them. The ability to save film is no longer so important.
Wang Hao doesn't care about this at all. His future will only be brighter. Some advantages, if they are gone, they are gone.
After processing the visual materials, they started the rough cut.
In this step, the editor needs to re-order the materials that have just been finalized according to the script and storyboard.
Different sequencing methods and different editing contents will create very different atmospheres and stories told.
Therefore, this requires that the script at the beginning of shooting must be complete and detailed. Only in this way can the editor tell the story in the best way.
Otherwise, it is up to the editor or director to do what they want.
Wang Hao did a good job in this regard, so they completed the rough cut very quickly, which can be said to be far beyond other projects Zhao An has participated in.
However, this extremely fast advancement speed only came to an end.
After finalizing the selected clips and shot sequences, the entire film has begun to take shape.
What they have to do now is to sublimate it based on the proportion, structure and rhythm of the rough compilation.
This step is called "fine cutting".
The key point of fine editing is to no longer focus on the entire film, but to edit its details, strengthen and consolidate the rhythm and structure determined by the initial cut, and to slim down and refine the film.
So this time, a lot of movie clips have to be deleted.
The decision at this point is very difficult: which ones to delete and which ones to keep?
This made Wang Hao very conflicted.
After all, as a director, these are all his hard work, so he naturally wants every frame to be preserved.
But the length of the movie is only so long...
Because of this, Wang Hao and Zhao An inevitably had more and more differences of opinion, and they even often quarreled about it.
For example, when connecting some shots, Zhao An suggested using black mirror and sound effects directly to express the despair and fear of being trapped in darkness.
But this was rejected by Wang Hao, because he considered that their work was a TV movie and would be broadcast on TV rather than the big screen.
On TV, the expressiveness of this kind of picture will be much weakened, and it is far less impactful than facing the darkness in a movie theater.
This reason successfully convinced Zhao An, but the debate about editing continued.
(End of this chapter)