Before the edit
This is my first short fiction in 6 years. There is a reason you don't work on shorts and that is that everything that can go wrong in film making has a higher chance of happening in a short film: First time directors, first time writer/directors, under developed script, over written script, no budget, no actors, insufficient shooting schedule... the biggest question for me though is can the short find an audience? It's a tricky format to get right because the 10 minute film has difficulty attracting viewers unless it precedes the latest Pixar film or is a major award winner. The internet is awash with short films so it is a platform I am fundamentally suspicious of. However "Clowning Around" had three things that interested me:
1. It's a comedy. It may be a dark comedy but it's also - at heart - very silly. We know from a long history of 2 reelers, commercials and sketch shows that comedy can work at any length.
2. Damien the director and producer is also an editor but he chose not to edit because he wanted to retain objectivity. That is key to what an editor is there for. Damien was also happy for me to work alone for the first week and a half and assemble the script with my own ideas after what was a typically crazy shoot.
3. Damien showed me a few key shots from the film and I thought they had great promise.
The Edit
For 9 days after Christmas I assembled "Clowning Around". Fortunately Damien had set up the Avid project like a true assistant so I didn't have any syncing to do.
The film came together very quickly. I always tried to cut the short as per the shooting script - even if I didn't agree - because it's only right that the director (and writer) should see what they had intended. Obviously I came upon a few problems such as continuity, missing shots and children looking at the camera. These I changed and adapted but still tried to retain the original story. I also began to add guide music for timing and atmosphere. This is often a very messy process because you can rarely just "lift" one piece of music from a film to fit perfectly in another. In the final action scene I used 3 pieces including one from the film "Drive" and also a Morricone piece from "Days of Heaven." It's a real bodge job but it proved the sequence would work with the shots captured.
Throughout this process I sent Damien the assembled film and he gave me notes. Generally they would skew towards his original intentions as the writer and would be the ones I had decided couldn't work with the actual footage in the can, but I looked again and we discussed. Damien was very honest and could see if they didn't work and immediately dropped some, but there were moments when I had mis-read the script or the rushes and on a second attempt they worked. Between us the first assembly was a very good working assembly. You could say it had all the right shots in roughly the right order.
What was clear at this point was that we were missing a few key shots. Fortunately Damien had planned to film pick-ups. These were generally close shots without any need of actors so we compiled a list and tried to think of what he could practically achieve without a crew.
Finally once Damien had the pick ups we sat in the edit suite for the first time together and cut them in. Damien also went through a few final thoughts but it took us less than a day to work through the edit and make the first "fine cut". The pacing felt right and we could see that a proper mix and composed music could only enhance the film. It was a little long at over 15 minutes but at this stage if you have the time in the schedule its nice to step away from the film if you can. I left at this point and Damien trimmed "Clowning Around" down to 15 minutes. I'm sure its better for it.
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