Major Project: Pre-Production Editing Checks - Coverage List

In order to use my mind set, skills and overall thought process as an Editor to full effect for the creation of Double Exposure, I have been making sure to stay involved wherever's necessary in the pre-production of the film. This will benefit all of us during production days, and definitely benefit the chances of the film being of high quality in the post-production phase.

So, as part of undergoing my role as Editor during pre-production, I have been reviewing drafts of the script to date to give my opinion from a post-production view point, and most importantly, checking, altering and giving feedback on our DOP's coverage shot list so far.

Before I completed this task, I thought it could be very helpful and supportive of my work, to conduct research into why and how an Editor should participate in the pre-production phase of a project...

Research

Gathering information from a particularly helpful source, I found the following quotes to be the strongest...

"Although the cinematographer and editor work in different phases of projects, by collaborating early, their synced efforts will result in a better final film." [1]

- I strongly agree with this, while I will be working with our cinematographer/DOP during post-production when he colourises the material. I need to have a strong professional relationship with him on the project in order to obtain the best possible shots for editing.


"The D.P. shoots and the editor takes the footage and turns it into a movie. However, the one phase where they should collaborate is pre-production, which Alfred Hitchcock considered to be the most important stage of filmmaking." [1]

- Again, this a strong point. If the best possible shots are not planned and then captured during filming, and if there's no chance to re-shoot, the final result will never be as strong as it could have been if the DOP and Editor had collaborated on shots in pre-production.


"If the editor participates with developing the shot list, he or she will have a clear understanding of what to expect upon delivery of the footage. Oftentimes the editor sees the footage for the first time while watching the dailies and then must make sense of all the disparate images they receive. However, if the editor participates in pre-production, then he or she has a clear sense of what the director wants in the final film." [1]

"Editors are storytellers, but from a technical end. They know how the pieces fit together to effectively communicate dramatic and emotional expression to the audience, as well as determining proper pacing of the story. All films will benefit if the editor is involved in the early stages of planning, working with the cinematographer so that both are on the same page about how the director wants the story to unfold visually." [1]

- These are key reasons as to why I am very pleased to be involved in pre-production, as it will benefit my work in both creating dailies/rushes (to be further explored in another post), and in post-production. Having been knowledgeable on why certain shots are used, how, and where in the story they are meant to be, due to collaboration and planning in the early phases of production.


"An editor can identify other potential editing problems ahead of time and suggest supplementary ideas for coverage. For instance, if the director is planning an extended take, an editor can see opportunities for alternate shots to cut to in case the extended take doesn’t work. The editor can also point out places where insert shots and cutaways can be used for the best effect." [1]

- This is my exact mind set during pre-production checks, and will continue to be how I approach my work during rushes editing in the production phase. While the Director and DOP may have a large focus on more drawn out master shots, I will consistently make sure that there a large amount of cutaways, establishing shots, and general coverage. This will ensure that nothing has been left out by the time we get to post-production, and that I have a lot to work with in order to tell the story to full effect.

Coverage List

Before checking and altering the final draft shot list to be created for Double Exposure, I have made a large amount of changes where necessary to the unofficial coverage list, created by our DOP. This will benefit how detailed the final shot list is, and allow me to only need to make small alterations to that list.

Highlighting my additions and changes in yellow, and adding Editor Notes under each scene, I carefully read through the DOP's general coverage shots alongside the Director's matching 7th draft of the script, altering all 23 scenes in detail. An example of this is below...

The Coverage Shot List document with my alterations can be found here.

While this is an overall version of the shot list, I noticed how the mindset of an Editor and a DOP differ when it comes to considering coverage. I think that while a DOP may think of the main shots, an Editor thinks of every area that could provide extra, but important material for editing. Along with alternatives to any risky or ambitious shots such as in Scene 18 above.

I think that by collaborating on this list, it will benefit the quality of the final shot list - which in turn will highly benefit the entirety of the film. Making sure that every single effective shot is captured, and allowing me to have full understanding of each shot when creating rushes and working on post-production.

The DOP, Director and I will be discussing my feedback and changes to the coverage list in a meeting this week, and I will soon be making changes to the official shot list and discussing it further here.

References

1. Effective Pre-Production: Collaboration Between the Cinematographer and Editor

Major Project: Contacting Editors & Update

As part of my research into the role of an Editor, I decided that a great way to get insight on working in the industry first hand, would be to contact production and post-production companies, and have their Editors complete a questionnaire. I also felt that by conducting this research sooner rather than later, it gives me a lot of time to wait for responses, and make further or extra contact if necessary.

I decided that by sending a questionnaire, I'm able to gather the answers and information that I'm looking for in an easy and simplistic manner - as opposed to contacting Editors and bombarding them with a long list of interview-style questions that they may not have time for.

Searching for Companies

When searching for the right companies to contact, I started simple. I made a list of common UK television channels that I could contact to gather information on who edits their popular television shows. This consisted of...

• BBC
• ITV
• Channel 4
• Channel 5

I then moved on to finding production companies to contact, both in the UK and US. Focusing on both smaller companies and larger, more famous companies. This allows me to have a chance at getting a response from very large production companies, while at the same time being more likely to receive a response from smaller corporations. I decided on the larger companies to contact based off of general knowledge of who they are, and found the smaller companies through a helpful website that lists many [1]. The production companies were...

• Studio Lambert
• NBCUniversal
• DNA Films
• Pinewood Studios
• Warp Films
• Warner Bros.
• Universal Studios
• 20th Century Fox
• DJ Films
• Viacom

Lastly, I found a large number of post-production companies that I feel will be very helpful in answering my questionnaire - as they are the most likely to have lots of in-house Editors. I firstly located these companies through another helpful online list [2], then through simple Google searches, and then through following the companies on Twitter, and researching other post-production companies that they follow themselves. These three methods allowed me to gather a large number of companies to contact. But another helpful way to find a few extra companies that I hadn't heard of myself, was when attending the RTS Futures Careers Fair, in which I talked to a lot of production companies, who told me of helpful editing companies that I didn't know about.

Alongside this, I located a former student of my course; Gabrielle Casey on Twitter. As she is now moving up her career path in editing and already has a lot of experience, I thought that she could be very helpful in providing her insight into the job role - along with the likelihood that she would be willing to help me in my research, having previously been in my position.

In total, the post-production companies that I made a list of were...

• Envy
• Halo
• Bang Post Production
• Silverglade
• Suite TV
• Splice
• The Farm Group
• Dynamic Post Production
• Encore
• Evolutions
• Atmotion
• Clear Cut Pictures

So, my list of contacts (including Gabrielle) totals at 26. I feel that this number gives me a good chance of receiving at least five answered questionnaires, which would be very helpful.

Contact

I found that the least time-consuming (yet still affective) way to approach contacting these companies, would be through email/contact forms. This allowed me to contact a lot of people in a short amount of time - instead of spending days attempting to speak to someone over the phone for each company. However, if within the next month or two I haven't received enough responses, I will begin making phone calls.

While the list above is the final list of companies that I got in contact with, there were several companies that I considered. However, I found in my research that many production companies include in their FAQ's that they do not help with student research. Such as Paramount Pictures and Dreamworks Studios below...

While disappointing, information such as this helped me to filter out the companies that would definitely not be able to help me and the ones that potentially could.

Before sending out emails and filling out contact forms on company websites, I created a long and short template of what I wanted to say to each company, carefully deciding on the information that I wanted to get across. Below is an example of the email I sent to Warp Films, this is the general longer template that I sent out when possible...

I think this message provides the most crucial information, an interest in their company, and gets across how eager I am to learn, without the email being too long.

When restricted to a word count, such as when filling out an online contact form when I couldn't find an email link, I sent a shorter version of the template, as can be seen in an example below...

"Dear Pinewood Studios,

Hi, I’m a student that has a very high interest in editing for film and television. So, I decided that it would be very insightful to learn more, directly from an editor’s perspective.

It would be amazing if any of your editors (at any career level) would be interested in filling out a short questionnaire on their thoughts or experiences in the industry? If so, please let me know where to send the e-document, it would be greatly appreciated!

Kind Regards,

Megan Waters"

Although I couldn't include some useful information when sending out this message, I think it still gets straight to the point and provides what's necessary.

So, I contacted all 26 people/companies by email and contact form using the above messages as a guideline.

Creating the Questionnaire

Once my emails and messages were sent and I was waiting for my first responses, I used this time to create my research questionnaire. This process started by conducting research on questionnaire templates, while simultaneously deciding what types of questions I would like to include. Although I couldn't find a questionnaire template that matched my own research topic, I found some helpful layouts online, such as the one below...

This helped me in learning key things to include, such as my name, the purpose of the questionnaire in a title, a short description with thanks, and a thank you message once finishing the questionnaire.

When deciding on my list of questions/topics before creating the questionnaire, I decided on general questions such as name, age etc. and then thought hard about the areas I really want to learn about. Alongside this, I used a book called 'First Cut: Conversations with Film Editors' by Gabriella Oldham [3]. As this book is full of questions asked directly to Editors, it was extremely helpful in creating my own questions that I hadn't considered before. From this research and thought process, my initial list of questions that I wanted to include were as follows...

• Name
• Job title
• Top 3 responsibilities
• Age range
• Education background
• First professional position
• Genres/areas of work
• Years in the industry
• Pressure levels
• Hours of work per week
• 3 key editing tips
• Memorable experience
• Why did you want to be an editor in one sentence?
• 3 favourite things about your job
• 3 words to describe yourself
• Further career goals

Once this list was ready, I moved on to making the questionnaire on Microsoft Word. I thought that this would be the perfect software as almost every company is very likely to have and use Word - therefore able to open and use the document with ease, and this software allows with interactivity when created for specific purposes - such as questionnaires.

Although I'm very experienced in Word, I needed a bit of extra guidance in creating a professional, interactive questionnaire. So I used two separate websites together to help me in a step by step process from beginning the creation, to adding each feature, to testing the questionnaire, to saving it in the correct format [4] [5].

With the help of research and rethinking some of my questions, the completed and functioning questionnaire can be seen in screenshots below...

I'm very happy with the end result of my questionnaire, I think that it's well structured and easy to use, professional, and has questions that will really help with my research. As I reworded and changed some of the questions, the list along with why they are useful is below...

• Name: This will help me to distinguish who each questionnaire is from.

• Job Title: This will give me insight into how high in their career path they are.

• Age (range): Allows me to distinguish the types of age range alongside their job title and years in the industry.

• University Degree: Gives me insight into the types of degrees Editors typically come out before starting their career.

• How long have you worked in this industry? (year range): This shows me how long it may take to get to the job position they're at, and how much experience this person has.

• What was your first professional position in this career path?: This indicates how an Editor may break into the industry.

• Which production types have you worked on? (tick boxes): This provides knowledge on how many areas an Editor may work in.

• Which genres have you worked on? (tick boxes): This also shows how many different genres an editor may experience working on. Also, along with the above question - if they have worked on a short film and/or thriller, their experience and insights are even more helpful for my major project work.

• What would you say are your top 3 responsibilities?: This allows for comparison with my own responsibilities and insight into the job's tasks.

• What are 3 things that you enjoy about your job?: This gives me insight into the positives of working under this job role.

• Which part/s of your job put you under the most pressure?: Insightful in what I may experience both in the major project and as an Editor in the future.

• What was the most memorable project that you worked on and why?: Allows for comparison to my own work and examples of what I could experience.

• What are your 3 key editing tips?: Extremely helpful advice on what to do and what not to do.

• What are 3 important skills that you feel an Editor should possess?: Also extremely helpful advice on the type of attitude, traits and skills that I need to possess.

• In short, what do you think makes a good Editor?: Insightful words on the best way to work successfully in the industry.

I think that the answers that I receive from these questions will be extremely helpful for not only my work in the Major Project, but for future reference when I begin my own career path to become an Editor. I think that the information I receive will be a combination of insightful experiences and career steps, alongside very helpful tips and advice for the best ways to work as and Editor - directly from professionals in the industry.

Results So Far

Within the last week, I have received mixed responses from my sent emails and messages. Firstly, I received email replies from 20th Century Fox, BBC and ITV who sadly told me that they either did not have the time to respond to all of the research-based questions that they often receive, or that they do not typically provide information to outside sources.

Similarly, Channel 5 and Studio Lambert responded saying that they couldn't help me themselves as they do not have in-house Editors, but they kindly pointed me in the direction of companies that may be able to help such as Viacom and Clear Cut Pictures, who I proceeded to research and contact.

Although so far I have mostly received responses from people that can't help with my research, I have also received more positive responses. Firstly, former student and current Editing Assistant Gabrielle Casey was extremely co-operative and sent me her completed and very helpful questionnaire soon after receiving my message.

Alongside this, the post-production companies Envy and Atmotion have recently replied, saying that they are very happy to help and answer my questionnaire. Having eagerly responded and sent them the questionnaires, I am now waiting for them to be sent back.

I'm happy with my results so far, and I hope that more of the companies that I've contacted will respond soon and be happy to help with my research. Once this process is completely finished, I will write about my final results, and present the finished questionnaires that I've received.

Update (April)

Months after my initial contact with many companies, I received no further responses. And unfortunately, the post-production houses Envy and Atmotion didn't proceed to complete a questionnaire for me. Following up with this, I contacted these companies by telephone and they said that they were unable to get to working on it right now. I then contacted the other unresponsive companies that I had previously contacted by telephone, who also told me that they were unable to help me. This was a disappointing result, however I'm very pleased to have received a questionnaire back from Editing Assistant Gabrielle Casey. Here is her questionnaire below...

I found this completed questionnaire to be extremely helpful in learning about working in professional, industry standard editing. Learning about how quickly you can progress if you work hard, and the broad areas that you can work in was very inspiring from this. Gabrielle's answers also provided a lot of helpful advice for me before editing, including making sure to get to grips with the technical side of editing, always making copies of work and backing it up, and the type of calm, but hardworking attitude to maintain in my work and future roles.

Although my results were disappointing in quantity, I'm extremely pleased that I attempted to make contact with so many companies, and managed to learn a lot and feel very inspired from just one questionnaire, I feel that this process was very beneficial.

References

1. The UK's top 40 film production companies

2. The UK's top 50 post production companies
3. First Cut: Conversations with Film Editors
4. Create forms that users complete or print in Word
5. How to Create Fillable Forms with Microsoft Word