Is Editorial In Producer's Crosshairs

[Steve Sherrick]

I think anyone that has worked in the industry for a long time has probably seen the changes that have occurred in the process of making a film now compared to say twenty years ago. Without rehashing all of the changes in production in regards to budgets, time, etc. I'll just jump straight to the question.

The movie Focus, which has been talked a lot about due to the workflow using FCP X, was edited in 11 months. That's a reasonable edit schedule. I'm sure the editors would have loved to have more time as we'd all love to tweak just a little bit more, but a year is enough time to cut a movie like this. What I'm wondering is what you guys think will happen over the next few years when it comes to editorial budgets and schedules. I have a suspicion that this is next up on the producer's list of places to start chopping away at the budget and that there will be a push for faster schedules. I've already seen some evidence of it but that's on $25-30 million dollar movies. I'm wondering if the big movies will start to feel the effects as well. Will a movie like Focus be forced to edit in 6-8 months instead of 11? I'm sure some projects will still get the time they need but I'm curious if other films that don't have big directors/editors attached will simply have to fall in line and work on abbreviated schedules.

Anyway, just something I've had on my mind lately as I watch the industry evolve. Also my next project finds me in the editorial seat and the topic of speed is always on my mind when I'm getting ready to edit a project.

Curious to hear your thoughts on this, especially anyone who is heavily involved in the post process.

 

[PatrickFaith]

Since I'm mainly on the financial side, I do a lot of some what clueless wandering around. What I'm feeling is the "temp" edits are being used in the final edit, where the producer/director are also involved in the temp editing & compositing(this is getting to the point where they don't call the days wrap until they got the shot, certainly don't move locations or do set breakdowns till they know they have the shot). So the temp editing slowly morphs into the final edit, rather then a over the fence thing that use to happen. I think this migration has been going on for a long time (i.e. old days edit started after production wrap, but know with vfx&compositing a lot of editing happens before production wrap). So i think over the next few years we will see a "smooth" process where editing gets realtime feeds off of production, and the editing product is slowly optimized to final during the entire course of the film. I think people have different words for "temp" editing, that's just what I call it. So i think long term editors that can work from the production cloud and often be onset, will be more in demand(i.e. old days, not sure how often the editor was even onset).

 

[Marc Wielage]

What I'm wondering is what you guys think will happen over the next few years when it comes to editorial budgets and schedules. I have a suspicion that this is next up on the producer's list of places to start chopping away at the budget and that there will be a push for faster schedules.

What I see happening more and more is that the editor is working every single day crafting scenes as they're shot, so after the first 2-3 weeks he or she already has a good chunk of the movie done (at least for the editor's cut). On the last Woody Allen picture, I think the editor said he was done in four weeks after production wrapped, because they had nailed down the decisions during production. A great deal of it boils down to making your mind up and not being insecure about the end results.

I think the problem with post schedules is that producers and studio executives have more control of the process in some ways than they did in past years. Once they get involved with focus groups, marketing, foreign sales, and so on, things can go haywire very quickly. I know of cases where distributors have gone out and re-edited and even reshot certain parts of films, which they had the ability to do if they owned the picture. Dimension and Miramax did a lot of that in the 1990s and early 2000s. So it's not just a case of scheduling or budget; it's a question of who's in control.