Burning Man /As The Dust Settles

[MikeHedge]

As The Dust Settles Seeks an experienced documentary editor.
"As The Dust Settles" seeks an experienced Editor. Produced by Mike Hedge, the film was shot by a team of 25 artists at Burning Man mixed format on the RED as well as other HD and SD sources. The footage is all being converted to a common codec for offline editing as well as Apple Pro Res for the online edit. Mac Pro required. Ideal editor has experience in Narrative, Personal Documentary and Reality TV but feels boxed in and is looking for a chance to work on a project with an edge.

More information about the project here: http://asthedustsettles.com
Schedule: Must be available for 2 days to online our fund raising preview october 15th and 16th. Then we need two weeks solid at the beginning of january to make our rough cut of the individual segments. 10 editors will have already created 10 minute segments that will be mashed up and intercut into the actual movie. Then we need 3 weeks at the end of february and early march to make the final picture lock. Then an extra 3 days in April to conduct the final output to blue ray and Tape for television.
Location: Anywhere in the world could potentially work. Easiest thing will be the LA area. SF or NYC is also good. Maybe Reno. Or someplace in Missouri.

Payment is on the low side and comes with points on the project. The film already has some distribution in place and is one of 4 films selected for the London Film Festival fundraising workshop to make more distribution pre-sales this October. The Film has the ambition to screen at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2009.

If interested email me behedge@yahoo.com

 

[Tom Lowe]

Good luck with this, Mike. How did the convo with Cineform go?

Only thing I would suggest, per our phone conversation, is finding one common codec and framerate and sticking to it. Cineform, Photo-JPEG, or JPEG2000, as examples. If the target finishing resolution is 1080p, most people will be able to online it. Prores is awesome, but I'm not sure how well that will work out for PC folks. They might find themselves transcoding the entire thing.

Also, while I like the idea of 10 people cutting their own individual segments, those segments might not fit with the overall vision of the final editor. The one thing that will be the biggest challenge for you guys, IMHO, is piecing this together as a coherent narrative and story - a clear vision. You have the raw footage. The challenge now is making sense of it all and making a watchable story out of it.

My suggestion is: pick 5 or 10 editors willing to do this cheaply or for free. Give them each a 1TB drive with all the footage, including the segments pre-cut by the shooters, but also including that same footage uncut, so the editor can put the entire thing together according to his or her vision from the ground up, if need be. Let the editors return the final product as a finished rough cut, and the best cut "wins"... and gets paid. This way there is no BS or talking about how great an editor you are. You simply deliver the goods or you do not. Anyone with faith in themselves as an editor won't be afraid to compete, IMO.

Just my measly 2 cents.

 

[Anthony Gratl]

Good luck with this, Mike. How did the convo with Cineform go?

Only thing I would suggest, per our phone conversation, is finding one common codec and framerate and sticking to it. Cineform, Photo-JPEG, or JPEG2000, as examples. If the target finishing resolution is 1080p, most people will be able to online it. Prores is awesome, but I'm not sure how well that will work out for PC folks. They might find themselves transcoding the entire thing.

Also, while I like the idea of 10 people cutting their own individual segments, those segments might not fit with the overall vision of the final editor. The one thing that will be the biggest challenge for you guys, IMHO, is piecing this together as a coherent narrative and story - a clear vision. You have the raw footage. The challenge now is making sense of it all and making a watchable story out of it.

My suggestion is: pick 5 or 10 editors willing to do this cheaply or for free. Give them each a 1TB drive with all the footage, including the segments pre-cut by the shooters, but also including that same footage uncut, so the editor can put the entire thing together according to his or her vision from the ground up, if need be. Let the editors return the final product as a finished rough cut, and the best cut "wins"... and gets paid. This way there is no BS or talking about how great an editor you are. You simply deliver the goods or you do not. Anyone with faith in themselves as an editor won't be afraid to compete, IMO.

Just my measly 2 cents.

I agree with most everything Tom says, except for the last paragraph. You've got three variables: Fast, Cheap, and Good. You only get two of them. Experienced cutters aren't in the habit of competing for a gig by offering up a rough cut of the finished product. You're bang on about the cohesive vision theme, although that might just work to exemplify the craziness of the whole shebang. Might just have to find the little accents and segways to make it all sing.
As to edit competitions, many experienced editors aren't even in the habit of having a reel anymore......

 

[Tom Lowe]

Yeah. Established editors won't want to work free/cheap or compete. Hungry up-and-comers might go for it, though. I agree that the amount of time given to cut the thing should be as long as possible.

Having as much music as possible to work with would help enormously. For a project like this, music is going to be monumentally important.

 

[MikeHedge]

music for the film will be awesome. We are in talks with several UK/Iceland and US based bands/artists

 

[Wayne D]

have see some of the shots from your trip and looks amazing......pitty i'm in oz - it will be great piece.

 

[Roberto B]

yup.. good luck!

 

[Cristina S]

It does seem nice.