N’Sync
Today I’m syncing up the film from Ashley and Kisha’s love scene with the audio track. Because my older model cameras don’t burn timecode onto the film, and because the nature of the action doesn’t allow for picking up a slate for most shots, much of the syncing has to be done off of visual cues. It’s tedious work, made more tedious by the fact that we shoot two cameras which makes for twice as much work. I’ve been at it since about 9:00AM this morning and have about 75% done. My eyes are tired and I’ve sort of hit a wall. Time to bitch about it to the blog, right?
Although this work is done on editing equipment, it’s not really editing, it’s prep work – there’s no creativity, and next to no craft. On a bigger production this work would be done by an assistant, some hotshot kid just out of film school getting paid $5/hour, or maybe even an unpaid intership. In exchange, she’d get a chance to watch the master work. It’s not as bad a deal as it might sound. There are very few real artists when it comes to editing. I wish I had had a chance to apprentice myself to someone who really knew what she was doing.
BTW: Using “she” in the above paragraph isn’t just a way to be clever and PC. Back in the early days of Hollywood, the entire editing process was regarded as “women’s work”. Men did the directing and photography and once that was done, the tedious, detail-oriented job of putting it all together was left to women. As a result, editing is was one of the first places that women rose to prominence in filmmaking.
Anyways, I am at the very begining of the editing process on Ashley and Kisha. In fact, editing the love-scene is easy compared to the much more difficult task of turning the raw footage from their interview into a story. Then the two elements are merged and hopefully a sweet and sexy little film is the result. Kisha had one of the best orgasms I’ve had the pleasure of filming. Maybe knowing that’s at the end will make it easier to sit through 15-20 minutes of my pretense.
-T.C.
