PRODUCTION: NEW ROLE - EDITOR

For this project my role isn't only as the Director of Photography, I'm also the Editor for our documentary. Since during Pre-Production my focus was on being the DOP and we move closer to Post-Production, I've begun to start researching into what it is to be an Editor for a documentary and also how to go about editing a documentary.

Already, speaking with my tutors Simon & Helen, the main point they've made which is important is the communication between the Director and the Editor. Although it is my job to work through all the footage and assemble it, the Director gets the final say and will help shape the documentary with me. Looking online I found an article by Mark Heidelberger who is a writer with 22 years of experience as well as holds a Masters Degree in Fine Art. He used many different research formats and put together an online article about what you need to be an Editor for Documentaries.


Mark Heidelberger:
Mark breaks down the roles of an Editor into 4 sections: Choosing a system, Logging and Organising, Telling the story and the finishing process.

"Your first order of business is to select the hardware and software you're going to use. Even if a documentary is shot on film, it will invariably be transferred to video for the purposes of editing. So you should never have to worry about cutting actual film. Instead, you will use a nonlinear editing system, which allows you to access, trim and assemble any of the source footage in any order you see fit without destroying it. The three most popular systems are Avid Media Composer, Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere. Avid and Adobe are available for both Macs and PCs, while FCP is for Macs only. All of these systems are suitable for handling the large amounts of footage a documentary usually requires" - Mark Heidelberger

This is something I hadn't even considered and it's technically the first point an Editor should consider. What software am I going to be using for the edit. Since our documentary is being done completely digitally, I don't have to worry about transferring from Video to digital. The most expereince I've had with editing software is with the Adobe Creative Cloud. I have used Final Cut Pro in the past, however, I've always preferred the Creative Cloud as it has the following programmes:

Adobe Prelude (Logging and organising)

Adobe Premiere Pro (Editing)

Adobe Audition (Audio Editing)

Adobe After Effects (VFX & Text animation)

Adobe Photoshop (Photo editing and text creation)

All of these software's work together as well, once I've organised my footage in Prelude, I can simply click and send it all over to Premiere. If I had a piece of audio that needs serious editing (e.g. noise reduction, effect added, etc.) I can select the audio and send it to audition, and with graphics and photos I can edit them in Photoshop or After Effects. I've also used the Cloud since 2015 so I've had a lot of experience with this software.
With Final Cut Pro, I've never liked the layout and the issues with audio editing. It's also only available on Mac's. I find the lack of audio editing options puts me off the software and I've not had a lot of expereince editing with it.

The next section that Mark explains is about logging and organising the footage from the shoot.

"Much of the job will include inputting footage into your editing system and organising it in such a way that you can find and access it quickly. This is particularly important with documentaries since there are often large amounts of footage to deal with, no script to work from, and few (if any) slates to demarcate the heads and tails of shots. The footage is usually provided to you by the producer or director on a hard drive. Upon connecting the hard drive to your system, you can begin the process of logging the footage, which consists of watching and labeling it according to the content. Editors of scripted films can use the scene number or slug line for logging; but documentary editors must come up with a description of the scene." - Mark Heidelberger 

Mark explains that the issue with documentaries compared to scripted productions is that a clapper board isn't used so the shots aren't marked. Often in scripted productions (e.g. films, tv dramas, etc.) the 2nd Camera Assistant will mark all the shots with a clapper board and the script supervisor will note down the mark and add it in with their notes of the take. All this is given to the Editor later on and then used to organise the footage prior to the assembly. With documentaries, this doesn't happen. So going through the footage and organising it is something I'll definitely look into doing. More than likely I'll break down all the footage into the days of filming. Such as Day 1 - Tanya, Day 2 - Conor, Day 3 - Tanya Performance, etc. and then in those folders break down the footage and organise it so interviews, actuality, GV's and locations are all separate and organised. More than likely I'll be logging the footage after each shoot as I'll have the SD cards from the camera and I'll be able to organise as we go.

Marks section on Telling the Story is where the most amount of work as the Editor comes in.

"Your most fundamental role in the process is helping the director tell the story. You'll have to search through all of the footage in order to determine which parts are essential to conveying the message or narrative intended. Trimming dozens of hours of video and constructing it into a coherent 90-minute film without the aid of a script takes patience, discipline and an inherent understanding of what makes for a compelling story. Footage may be in the form of an interview, reenactment or news-style observer. You may also be tasked with locating stock or archival footage and still photographs that can be inserted between the filmmaker's footage to aid in the storytelling. Any preexisting material you find should be thoroughly checked to ensure you have the proper clearances to use it." - Mark Heidelberger 

The only difference with this statement is that our film will be a maximum of 20 minutes. Also, more than likely I will be working off the A/V script which Jemma and Victoria have been working on as a structure for the documentary, rather than having no guidance what so ever.  But I'm aware that I'll need to trim through the footage and interviews to help really tell the story. One of the bits which I do need to take note on here is "Your most fundamental role in the process is helping the director tell the story" so Jemma and I are both going to have to work closely on the edit and although it is my job to assemble the edit and put it all together, Jemma as the Writer and Director is telling the story and will have a huge input on the edit so I'll need to work off her feedback but also offer suggestions to the edit as well. This also notes that it can be my job to find the archive photos or footage which in our documentary will likely be looking through Tanya's Instagram and finding any photos of their Drag persona 'Miss Zodi' which is relevant for the edit.

Finally, Mark talks about the final touches to the edit;

"Because budget limitations are common, you may have to perform a number of additional functions that contribute to the polished look of the film. This includes sound editing, color grading, online editing and format conversion. Sound editing entails cutting, connecting, blending and overlapping different tracks so that it all sounds like a unified whole. Color grading centers on adjusting hues, shades and color temperatures to achieve a desired look or effect. Online editing is the process of reassembling the final cut of the film in a high resolution format suitable for a distribution master. And format conversion is simply laying the finished film off to various media types, such as Quicktime, MPEG or AVI files." - Mark Heidelberger 

This definitely applies to our documentary, as currently for Production it's looking like I'll be doing both camera and sound due to budget and if that's the case I can safely assume that I'll also be editing sound and colour grading. Thankfully I'm comfortable editing sound as I've had some experience doing this during my time at a Radio Station. Colour grading for this documentary I'll need to do a little research for as I'm not hugely confident grading. However, we do have a tutor for the grade part of our editing process so I'll be able to speak with them during this.

(All information gained from https://woman.thenest.com/documentary-editor-do-14551.html)