All Good Things: Post-Production

Recently at university we worked on a short film, All Good Things. I was the editor on this project, it was a challenging but enjoyable experience, and I feel I grew as an editor and filmmaker.

We shot the short film over two days in East London, the production went well and although it came with its own challenges the shoot resulted in some good footage and what felt like it was going to turn out to be a strong film.

When I began editing I started by going through all the footage and watching it all to get an idea of where I would start and what footage I had to work with. I noticed that we did have an issue with a lack of shots for some of the scenes when going throguh these initial stages, I organized all of my files and started the editing process.

I began by editing the film very closely to the script, I find this the easiest way to work personally as it fleshes out the film, then allowing me and the other members of my team to look through it and make changes, cut the film down, and add in better shots.

Once I had the first cut of the film finsihed a few issues became more apparent, the main issue was that the first scene in the film (in which the two characters are splitting up) was much longer than the last two scenes. This made the film imbalanced, it was strange to have a 4 minute scene at the beginning then followed by two, 2 minute scenes. It gave too much emphasis to the first scene compared to the others, and it made the first scene feel like it dragged on and the last two feel rushed.

The other issue was a lack in shots, for quite a few scenes they were only shot from one angle, meaning I didnt have any choice but to use them and was unable to make the film visually interesting, and also speed up some scenes, giving them more of a pace. Other issues with this was that there were some shots that were out of focus, or shaky, but there was only one take and if it was an important take/scene I had to use them in the final film, if not it would not work.

We were able to work around these issues. I was able to cut down the length of the first scene dramatically, it resulted in being much closer in length to the last two scenes and helped bring a lot more balance to the overall film, the whole team was much happier with the film after this change.

There were some limits in working around the lack of shots, we were forced to use some shots that werent at the same level as others, this was to serve the story and it was something that we didnt have much choice around. After another look through the footage resulted in finding some shots that helped us improve the film, I discovered we did have multiple angles for some shots I firstly thought we didnt, which helped cut down the first scene and speed up dialouge throguhout the entire film to give the film a better tone and beat.

Finally, was colour grading, this was relativley difficult because we used two different cameras to shot the film with, meaning the footage from each one looked slightly different, colour wise. I was able to use the colour correction tools in Premiere Pro to get the footage from the two different cameras to look as similar as possible.

To conclude, I enjoyed working on this project and the entire crew and cast were passionate about the project, resulting in an overall good quality film. I also had learning experiences, I now know that it is important for me as an editor to be present on set and behind the scenes to work with the director and DOP to suggest shots, and remind them to shoot the film from as many angles as possible and to get cut away shots. This will help me in the post-production process to have more to work with to put together the best quality film possible.

I also learned new techniques in colour correction and the challenges that can come along with them. Overall, I think we worked together to make a good quality film and that although we had issues at each stage of the production process, we worked around them as a team to get to the best outcome.