Can you save your film in the edit?
I’ve been there many times. With almost two decades of experience screwing up, I consider myself an expert in getting acceptable video from footage that really don’t belong together.
Start by watching the video:
Here are the steps:
1 Change the story
This single tip is the most powerful and the most practical. You might have visualized something in your head, or on storyboard, and what happened during principal photography will remain a secret you take to your grave. At the end of it you’re left with footage that no longer matches your original vision.
You can’t change the footage, but you can change the vision!
How do you do that?
Take a break and try to work on other stuff for a while. If possible get an editor on board who’ll look at your footage through completely fresh eyes, and don’t tell them anything.
If you’re on your own, let some time pass, work on other things so you sort of lose the hangover from the shoot.
Watch your footage again. Try to be as objective as possible (which is practically impossible).
I suggest you create new storyboards by screen grabbing shots and then playing around with that. Move them around like a puzzle and find a new story.
It might take a few days or even weeks depending on the complexity of your project, but you will begin to get ideas on how the footage might work together.
I had such a situation on my first feature, The Impossible Murder. I could only manage to shoot about 40% of what I needed, and I still ended up with an 80-minute film. I managed somehow, and barely created a story out of all the bits and pieces I had shot.
Today that film has more than two million views on YouTube. I lost a lot of money on it, but many people found and continue to find the film quirky and enjoyable.
It’s weird, because it sucks, but the big lesson I learned was: It never sucks as bad as you think it does.
What my first film taught me is: If you’re smart about the edit, you can create a thread in the story that people can follow. As long as they can follow the story, you will find someone who enjoys your film.
And that’s a great feeling! It tells you not to be too hard on yourself. It’s great you want to be a perfectionist, but nobody else cares. Take the hint.
Give your shots more credit than you think they deserve. If you can manage that you will be able to find the thread to link your shots together. And that becomes a new film.
2 Create new “bridges”
Let’s say you forgot to shoot a few important shots in a scene, and now they don’t match. Maybe the scene’s missing crucial information. Can. this be fixed?
Let me give you an example of how I made this work. You take two shots that would never match each other, and try to combine them. In my short film Man May Love, I have a section that goes between two scenes that don’t flow from one to the next.
I used discarded footage and shot a scene with a mobile phone just to create such a transition. It doesn’t make the film a masterpiece, but it makes the film more easy to follow. By the way Man May Love is an experimental film, and this is what happens when experiments fail.
You can also bridge scenes through voice over, or text information on screen, or even stock footage. There are sites that offer free stock footage, see if you can make it work. I’ve seen some real shitty art films in my life, and they won awards. On that scale I’m a genius, and you’ll feel the same way when you create the “bridge”.
A bridge is a transition or a link between two scenes or shots. It is created after the movie is shot, in the edit.
Another way to create a bridge is to create graphics. In The Impossible Murder you had no idea about the physical space from the footage shot, because we had zero money for production design or props. So in post I learned Adobe Photoshop and created a map of the village that put all the interviews in context. I also found two friends to help me out with 3D animation to understand the spatial geometry of the house the murder takes place in. Crazy stuff, but it works.
3 Multiply your shots
You can use basic panning and scanning, or zoom in, or do what a lot of editors in Bollywood are experts at doing – crazy transitions that make no sense whatsoever. It hides over jump cuts and mismatched shots. It hides everything except the fact the film was poorly shot, but the audience, the only people that matter – they don’t care.
You can also edit like Michael Bay, which is similar to what you’d get if you put all your film in a shredder and dumped that on the screen. If he can get away with so can you.
You can reuse shots in many ways:
- Color grade them differently.
- Use different takes of the same shot.
- Add some animation or graphics to one, or just flip it horizontally, or vertically, or both.
When your back is against a wall, the objective is to squeeze through a story to save your film. You can do it if you look hard enough.
4 Audio
Audio is an amazing tool that will smooth over a lot of things. Need emotion or want to take it away? Music can help you with that. Try quirky music, or add sound effects when they are not expected.
You know how they have a “bang” when the killer pops up in horror films? It’s called a jump-scare.
Why not have a “bang” every second all the way through the scene? The audience will be terrified, not because they are expecting a bang, but because they don’t know if the bang will stop. You think I’m kidding? That’s what Christopher Nolan does in a lot of his films. Bangs and more bangs, enough bass for all the multiplexes.
That’s an extreme case. There are there better ways.
You can also add narration, voice overs, extra dialogues, monologues over a black screen or some random footage. The creative possibilities you have are endless with audio.
In my ill-fated film The Impossible Murder, I did all of these things, because I had to. I added a lot of narration to fill up the gaps. I added bridges to link all the scenes together. I reused shots to fill out the time for a feature film. I did everything in my power, including editing a cool trailer the film didn’t deserve:
You can it if you try hard enough and believe you can do it.
Don’t give up so easily. A lot of disasters can be salvaged in the edit. I’ve done it many many times, and I’ll continue to do it.
Now you can, too.
If you know any tips of your own, please let me know in the comments below.
thanks a lot man :) I followed you many years :) Remember I was frustrated over the complex learning on the a7d II :)) …..I am making such film now ! http://www.land4sale.no . I have my own musicstudio too so definitely will use many of your techniques . . . .the film has round 55 scenes; my family and friends is getting pushed to their limits( even my son ) .I shot all on FX9( Iam not very happy oabut that cam( its another story ;) ) I was sooooo tired many times, sweating , stressing !:) wors thing for me as a “loner shooter” ; one man band, was the intens nervousity, as we improvised most of blocking in my “imagination” and not many learned the dialouge before . Seeing you work and reading this arcticle mades me not feel a alone doing this !. thanks a lot. regards from Norway .