I am giving away a free year to SneakOn.com under the following conditions;

1. You can be on the “lot” tonight between 8-10 PST.

2. You can upload a short film, commercial, etc. that you worked on into the Critic’s Corner feature. Only clean, appropriate material right now as we don’t have a filter system up yet.

Leave your name in the comment section and I will give it away by 5 PST.

View his IMDB profile here.

I have been able to visit Lance a few times in the past couple years and it has been very interesting to hear about the workflow he has been involved in. Now they are all tapeless, but the first time I visited him (during Season 4) they had tons of DVCAM tapes against the back wall for the flashbacks to season 1-3 as they showed up in the new scripts.

Send your questions away to Lance via the comments section of this page and we should have them answered in the next week or so.

They aren’t the best shots in the world, but some are fairly cool. It was more of an experiment to blog about the experience of being a DP, taking some shots and trying to upload them. Thougths?

Miami, Florida sunrise. Taken with a simple portrait lens.

I haven’t jumped on the bandwagon enough to buy my own Canon 7D or any other DSLR with HD video capabilities. I have edited several short pieces for a client using the 7D workflow and while I have to say that the video looks amazing, that isn’t what this post is about.

Nancy (my wife/business owner) and I went to Miami, Florida to do a shoot with her taking hold of still photography and I taking an EX1 and playing DP for a few days. It’s always a great experience to get out of the edit bay and shoot something yourself. It not only gives you a reason to get out of the solitary confinement that is your edit space, but you can put into practice the best techniques you have learned from just watching through footage (all my clients love the rack focus… about 90% of the time). I get a bit more respect for the DP while out shooting because I can never get something to look exactly how I want it to when it comes in from certain DP friends of mine.

I learned a couple great things from our trip too. An uncle of mine has the habit of photography (and frankly owns a much nicer set of gear and equipment than us anyway) and referred us to the site BorrowLenses.com. Nancy ordered a 70-200mm lens, a flash and a flash diffuser. I believe we had it for about 8 days total (might have been 7 or 9) and paid about 33% of the cost to rent just the lens locally from a store in Salt Lake City. Our cost was a mere $123 (with the insurance added to it too). It was incredibly easy too. There was a FedEx in the hotel we were staying at in Miami so we finished our shoot and took it downstairs and handed it into to the FedEx desk. We grabbed our receipt and let the two day air shipping (free with our purchase) do its job. The rental period does not include the time it takes to ship either. You just need to make sure your package is shipped on the last day of service. I couldn’t speak of a greater experience with this company and I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to experiment with some new lenses on their HDSLR cameras.

I also have had a great time using SmugMug.com (if you decide to sign up, please refer us in your sign-up with our e-mail address, info@postfifthpictures.com). It’s been easy to use and it has a professional presentation. For now I have signed us up as a trial (14 days for free, no credit card needed), but everything has worked wonderfully so far. Take a look at some of the pictures we took out in Miami, but keep in mind most of these, in not all, have not been edited whatsoever.

Thanks,

Daryl

UPDATE 5MARCH2010: We are doing another Q&A with Lance Stubblefield, editorial crew member on LOST. Please visit this post to ask a question there. Thanks!)

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1.   Was Star Trek shot on Film?  What did you edit on?

Yes, it was always shot on film.  Only the last Trek series went HD.  But all of the editing was done electronically.  We edited the episodes on the MONTAGE.  We were slow to switch to AVID, like most other Hollywood shows, because of costs…the producers did not care what we cut on…as long as we met the schedule.  The editors took an early Final Cut Pro class when that first came out, but FCP could not print out a storyboard for our Viz Fx team.  They were spoiled by the Montage’s storyboards that furnished all the detailed numbers & measurements they needed to composite the FX shots.

2.  How were the FX composited?

I believe that all the FX were done on film in the beginning.  Dan Curry was our FX producer.  He’s a genius and very talented man.  We used EDEN in Hollywood and CIS: Composite Imaging Systems.

3.  Editing Schedules, Rules for Stock Shots, Gag Reels?

It took three to four weeks to make an show.  Every episode took 7-9 days to shoot. So, we had 7-9 days of dailies coming in.  Some scripts were written too long.  The editor had 2 days to assemble the episode and the director had 3-4 days to deliver his cut to the producer. The producer got 3-4 days & them picture was locked.  Then you start on your next episode.  Inserts and 2nd unit footage came in after online most times, so we would stop cutting dailies to get those into the show.

Stock shots were fun to cut in.  We had to know not to cut in a red or brown planet when we’re in orbit and the story called for us to be in a green forest or on a blue beach.   Ship shots was up to us to choose. Warp speed? fast flyby? slow dramatic shot long enough for a Captain’s Log?  The rule was to always show the ship traveling left to right, unless we were heading home to earth or back the other direction if the script calls for it.

I cut the Gag Reel the 1st two seasons. We had a gag reel for every Wrap Party.  The second season’s reel was “copied” by an outsider and started showing up at Star Trek conventions.  Ever since that…the gag reels were coded and guarded.

4.   Do editors share 2-part episodes and were scripts ever in need of editorial help?

Editors did not share shows.  We would ask fellow editors for their opinions on tricky scenes…but that was it.  Who ever was assigned Part 2 of a 2-parter would try and watch a rough cut if possible to get a feel for the episode.  But remember that when dailies start coming in…the last editor is still in assembly mode.  Each of the two parts always had a different director at the helm.  The assistant editor was in charge of cutting the teaser at the head of act.  He or she would work with the editing team of part 1 to see about getting key material for the teaser.  They were normally longer than regular episode teasers.

Yes, some scripts benefited from the extra time we took to rework a scene or story that was not translating well on film. I have saved both stories and acting performances, as well, in post.  But on Star Trek, the writers were amazing and the scripts hardly ever needed to be reworked.  If the episode was long and we had to lose a few scenes…then we may look at moving an act break.  The studios like the shows to be evenly paced and not have a commercial fall on the half hour mark.

5.   Is it possible to re master the series in HD?

All the film was vaulted. Including the dailies, with :10 second handles on them.  I think Paramount is working on getting all the shows no HD.

We want to thank Daryl for taking the time to answer the questions and also thank those who contributed by asking these questions. We hope to do a few more of these in the future so keep an eye out.

Thanks again everyone,

Bryce Randle

Post Fifth Pictures

Check out his IMDB profile to check out his work.

Summary Statement: Drawing from the ideas of Eisenstein and Pudovkin on film editing creating emotion for propaganda and Browne’s ideas of the director making a specific moral order, controlled toggle perspective involves the meaning from specific notions and clues given to the viewer by the author. The filmmaker uses editing to draw the audience into the deeper meaning and intended message of the film. A prime example is crossing line and frequency of cutting in films. The director has a vision in mind to use editing as an object to allow the viewer to emulate the position of their protagonist by throwing them into a world of frequent cuts or by playing with the reversed perspective normally not in invisible editing.  In other situations crossing the line, crossing the axis primarily established in the first shot of a scene, can be used to create deeper meaning in a film or add to the moral order, thus giving it more emotion and advertising the message.

Theoreticians: Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Browne, and Walter Murch

Practitioners: J.J. Abrams (M:I 3, Lost, Alias), Doug Liman (Bourne Identity), “24”

Buzz words/phrases: Crossing the Line, Visible Editing, Intended Visual Cues

View of text: the director, or technicians involved in the film, leaves visual clues and or cues for us to understand intended messages.

View of creator: Trace of personal touch is left in showing intended message or giving viewer a clue not available to people inside the story, but available to the viewers.

View of spectator: Abnormal filmmaking structure or design is used intentionally to grab attention of the viewer to the seriousness of the scene.

View of “reality”: There is an omniscient feeling rather than the idea of a singular eyeball seeing the action.

Beté noir: Viewer falls into unrecoverable state of confusion because of disorientation.

Determinant: Montage editing.

Transcendence? Meaning of a scene, and the overall film, depends on the personal style of the director, editor, and DP.

Danger: Director uses cuts unintentionally leading the viewer into expectations unfulfilled.

Summary Statement: Intellectual, artistic, and or experienced filmmakers use editing, to clue, cue, or invite the viewers to understand the concepts and meanings that can be revealed by paying attention.

Additional notes from 2010: I showed a clip of Click to illustrate my point. Adam Sandler goes into Bed, Bath & Beyond and then after wandering for a minute, lands on the bed in store. Bam, cross the line cut and he meets the spooky twilight zone-esque character played by Christopher Walken.

Pre Cut

Post cut

I had sent her 8 min worth of selects and takes I liked and she sent me notes on the ones she didn’t really like. Forgetting about those notes, I felt like I was in the rhythm of things and made another cut. I sent it on to her and realized while sending the e-mail I had not made those changes. Oops again.

I quickly wrote her an e-mail reminding her that I would fix those cuts quickly, taking them out asap. I did it with duplicate frames on Final Cut Pro.

I went into my sequence of selects and cut out the shots that she had given me the timecode for. I placed those clips in the sequence I had mistakingly sent. Made sure that the duplicate frames feature was selected (see image) and then took out the shot that were colored with the duplicate frames tool.

Sounds simple enough, right? Anyone else have another idea (other than the obvious do it right the first time) of how you could fix this without recutting from step one?

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UPDATE: February 25, 2010

We have conducted the interview and have posted the answers here at http://postfifthpictures.com/2010/02/the-editor-answers-daryl-baskin-star-trek-tng-editor/