Editing

I have just finished my third day of scheduled editing with Jonas; we have one more scheduled, and then it will be up to us to try to squeeze in at odd opportunities to do any more tweaks after that.

I thoroughly enjoy editing with Jonas. I find that we are frequently on the same page and recognize the same cut points, and when something is right we can both feel it. And where we have differences of opinion he is always happy to try both ways, and we can discuss and argue over the point without having to be careful of each others' egoes - we both just want what's best for the film.

The only problem with Jonas is that it's hard to leave him alone. If I need to go and do something else, I can come back a few hours later and I always find that almost nothing has changed. The problem is, he likes editing the montages too much. I understand that; editing a montage has an element of instant gratification to it, whereas editing drama dialogue scenes is where the sweat is. So Jonas always seems to remember one thing he wanted to tweak in the montage... and three hours later he's only changed a cut or two! Not to say that he's lazy - not at all - he just loses sight of the big picture sometimes!

Anyway, the cut is going well and we have had fantastic feedback so far. The only real problem we have is with sound. Our recordist was as lazy as possible and radio mic'd everything, and as a result everything is full of clothing rustle! One major scene has no sound at all because he didn't even radio mic it! It may not have dialogue, but it should have had laughter, heavy breathing and footsteps, and it's his job to know that. It makes me so angry to think about. Even worse, he doesn't reply to me, so I can't get a hold of him to record any sounds in the post sound suite. Grrrr!!!! Looks like it's going to cost me a box of beer and a lot of begging to get another student to help me. It shouldn't have to be like that though; this is a team project and he has let us down.