Glen Montgomery the Third
Posts tagged Post Production
The Human in the Machine Interview #3: Editor Eric Brodeur
Oct 11th
The Human in the Machine is a continuing series of interviews with industry professionals focused on the relational aspects of the editorial process. Blog pages and bookshelves everywhere are flooded with technical information on the craft of editing, but there seems to be little out there on the human side of it all. Even though much of our work is technical based, what is at the heart of it all is spending 10-15 hours a day locked in a room, usually with other people, creating stuff. What makes those other people come back to your edit suite instead of walking down the hall to the next one? Why do so many editors and directors reference a “psychic relationship” where they instinctively know how the other would proceed with an edit? Some of my questions don’t even pertain to editing alone, but all work that involves relationships and collaboration. I think, especially in school, so much of the curriculum is geared toward the tech side instead of the human side. As much as it doesn’t seem fair, a big part of this industry is not based on raw talent and knowledge but on politics, connections, and people skills. You can either fight More >
The Human in the Machine Interview #2: Editor Agustin Rexach
May 24th
The Human in the Machine is a continuing series of interviews with industry professionals focused on the relational aspects of the editorial process. Blog pages and bookshelves everywhere are flooded with technical information on the craft of editing, but there seems to be little out there on the human side of it all. Even though much of our work is technical based, what is at the heart of it all is spending 10-15 hours a day locked in a room, usually with other people, creating stuff. What makes those other people come back to your edit suite instead of walking down the hall to the next one? What keeps those other people from killing you, or what keeps you from killing them? Why do so many editors and directors reference a “psychic relationship” where they instinctively know how the other would proceed with an edit? Some of my questions don’t even pertain to editing alone, but all work that involves relationships and collaboration. I think, especially in school, so much of the curriculum is geared toward the tech side instead of the human side. Unfortunately, I know too many great guys who are wicked machine operators but fall short in the More >
Scene Breakdown: The Dark Knight part 1
Sep 7th
In the second installment of my series of breakdowns, I chose something a little more modern and with a little bit more action. There were two other films that crossed my mind but I decided to hold off on them till later and went with a flick that has been sitting out on our desk for while. I knew that I wanted to look at a scene with a little bit more action motivated cutting, but at the same time didn’t think I was ready for a complete action scene. I feel this scene from The Dark Knight has the elements of action that I wanted but also has long sit-down dialogue editing as well. From numerous film editor interviews I have read and listened to, a common thread appears; although fast cutting action scenes and montage are fun to put together, the simple conversation scene can be the most challenging and rewarding. When you don’t have images flashing and speeding around to hold the audiences attention, even more care must go into the pacing and rhythm of the conversation to keep the viewer enthralled. This scene has a bit of both, an intense back and forth between our hero, More >
Don’t pull that cord!!! some XDCAM pdw-u1 gotchas
Aug 18th
When the company I started at transitioned into high definition acquisition, due to our purposes the XDCAM format was the only solution. We certainly looked into some of the P2 cameras, but there was not a trustworthy or economic way of archiving the raw footage then. See our primary client was a large aerospace company that, in addition to full productions, needed plenty of events and processes solely documented. This massive amount of raw footage may or may not be used down the road, but it had to be there just in case. We had a warehouse full of old media captured for them over the years; Betacam, D2, One inch, film, you name it we had it stored there. Well, in the new HD era then, and even more so today, the majority of capture is tapeless. We couldn’t rely on hard drives or use the extremely expensive P2 cards as an archival medium, so we went with the full size Sony PDW-F355 camera that shoots to 23 Gb and 50 Gb Professional Discs. These discs are about the same cost as the 40 min digibeta tapes we were accustomed to shooting with and you could pull them out More >