One of the precepts that I wanted to build this site upon is the “Democratizing of Film-making”, but what the heck does that phrase really mean – really?! To me it’s the process of opening the door for others and empowering them to make films as good (or better) than the “Corporate Film Industry.”
I’ve come across another community of people in an open round table discussion around “The Art of the Edit.” This open dialogue among three people really is eye opening to the process and methods that editors take to present a visual dialogue. Hosted by John Flowers ( @lifezero on twitter ) and with guests Paul Del Vecchio ( @pauldv on twitter) and guest Mike J Nichols (@TheEditDoctor on twitter). This is going to be a show to keep tabs on as it develops, so be sure to subscribe to their mp3 rss feed in your respective application!!!
One of the things that I hope to emphsise here is technique – and not just technology. All of the technology in the world won’t make your film / project any better if you don’t have the technique down! One of the things that I realized today was, looking at my lack of blogging over the past week – was it’s all been all tech all the time here – which was not what I wanted this site to become. With some inspiration from Paul I’ve restarted work on my web series “Life In Drive” (btw – I’ll just go ahead and get it out of the way… I’m a huge fan of Paul Del Vecchio, his “go and do it” attitude and DV Rebel style has been such an inspiration – and I feel that he’s of of the upcoming directors of my generation!).
If I could pull one thing from all of our conversations, don’t wait to start your project – don’t wait for a camera to ship to shoot your film (all of Paul’s stuff is done on a DVX100a – but you’d never know it because of his post-production and color grading done in After Effects.) and don’t use technology as a crutch! It’s not going to make a good film-maker better but can make a great film-maker worse!
As visual storytellers we have to know what kind of edit to use, and when to make the cut – how to set a pace, and some of the other rules of film-making. Editing it’s self would have to be defined as the juxtaposition of time and events to suit a story. But as Paul said in part one of this conversation – some rules have to be broken, and you as an artist will have to make that call! Part one of this series has many “ear worms” that will be going through my head all week – or until part two! Hope that you all enjoy!
>>> edit – after posting this Paul DM’d me on twitter with a link to Mike’s twitter profile…
