of editors’ arduous task

When the build-a-better-mousetrap syndrome swept the digital domain of film and television production, the editor’s dream platform resulted. Non-linear digital editing represents a remarkable advance in film editing because it provides editors with an efficient conduit to telling an even better story – an incredibly precise knife which the editor can wield like a magic wand over reams of suddenly manageable footage.

One area where speed and the orderly access to film footage is most appreciated is in the long-format realm, particularly in instances where access to a project’s creative partners is limited.

Montreal editor Glenn Burman edited the Francois Girard feature-length concert film, Peter Gabriel’s Secret World, on a Lightworks digital system housed at Montreal’s Creation Montage.

Burman says the decision to cut on Lightworks was influenced by the system’s unique ability to handle multiple cameras in synch, and the need to quickly and effectively deal with the pop singer’s suggestions during his rather brief visits to the editing suite.

Burman had his hands full on this assignment.

Girard used 11 cameras for the concert footage, which included elaborate choreography by production designer Robert Lepage.

Burman says Girard’s camera angles and Lepage’s ‘unusual thrust-stage and catwalk’ resulted in an almost continuous backdrop of audience to the performer, lending the film ‘a spontaneous feeling of celebration.’

Editing on Secret World, a 90-minute release, was completed in nine weeks following the end of principal photography. The digital system allowed Burman to adjust quickly to the busy star’s reaction to the edit, ‘and show him alternatives on the spot… or where more complicated restructuring was required, by the following morning.’

‘It was important to everyone concerned that Peter be part of the creative process at every stage. Nobody likes to be presented a with a fait accompli. By editing nonlinear we were able to address his concerns and still come in on schedule,’ says Burman.

Technology abets technique

Time saved by all the editor-friendly, real-time features of digital systems leaves more room for the editor to exercise his craft creatively.

Robin Russell, senior editor on Forever Knight, a big-budget syndicated tv series being shot in suburban Toronto by Paragon Entertainment, speaks more like a creative story editor or director than a technician. He says editing ‘is about being close to the emotions and harvesting emotions to bring forth a story.’

The Toronto editor says he’s tried all the new nonlinear editing systems, but has special praise for the Lightworks system used for the series. He says Lightworks’ capabilities – including real-time slow-motion and a ‘sketch pad’ output feature used for the on-line edit – are particularly useful on Forever Knight, a one-hour series about a moral vampire who’s become a crime fighter, because of the program’s elaborate special effects and flashbacks and the fact it’s being shot almost entirely at night.

‘I’ve had a fair swing around all these systems having cut on nonlinear since the technology was first introduced five or six years ago,’ says Russell, whose credits include Atlantis Films’ Maniac Mansion and Wm. F. Cooke’s international series Tarzan. Russell says the flexibility of Lightworks allows him ‘to get to the material emotionally. It gives me more creative time to consider the emotional sub-plot.’ This is done, he says, ‘by getting to the dialogue edit real quick and being able to spend more time with each character.’

He says Lightworks’ ‘feed and accuracy’ gives the editor ‘the ability to pinpoint the episode’s emotional nexus… having the energy and resources to empathize with the characters before being worn out. The technology features dynamic motion-control which simply means I am able to go forward and backward at very fast speeds, and it’s useful for plotting special effects.’

Twenty-six episodes of Forever Knight will be shot this year, with each episode taking six to seven days to shoot. The series is shot on 16mm film, transferred to Digital Betacam videotape, and edited digitally on hard disk. Russell receives about an hour of film footage each day.

The series is being edited on a proprietary 486 Lightworks workstation using 2.6 software. The system uses 12 disk drives capable of storing up to 30 hours of original 16mm film footage. Russell says this means the system can ‘comfortably accommodate three entire episodes.’

One hour of the series is edited over 12 working days, sometimes longer, says the editor.

Russell edits the first cut with the director when available, a second cut with a producer present, and a third and final cut with the series executive producer, James Parriott. The episode is then locked (it’s packaged at 58 minutes including commercial blacks, with about 45 minutes of content), and finally moved along to the on-line edit stage, color correction, sound edit and package edit, including credits, etc.

Totally friendly…

Prominent Toronto freelance editor and teacher Ralph Brunjes (Conspiracy of Silence) did some 400 demos on the Lightworks system last winter, taking it through its paces for staff at cbc’s post-production unit in Toronto. According to Anthony Philbin, OLE Canada vice-president, marketing and communications, the new CBC Broadcast Centre in Toronto has purchased eight Lightworks systems.

Brunjes used Lightworks to edit the Eric Till film Small Gifts and the four-hour John N. Smith miniseries Dieppe.

‘The Lightworks interface is really the heart of the machine,’ says Brunjes. ‘It makes it totally user friendly.

‘Like most editors, I never enjoyed looking for trims or waiting for tapes to rewind. This Lightworks lets me concentrate completely on the creative aspect of my job.’

Brunjes needed 10 2.4 gigabyte drives of storage capacity to handle up to 50 hours of material at low resolution, or 36 hours at high resolution.

Maiden voyage

Gordon McClellan has been an editor in the film and video production business in Toronto for 23 years. He’s currently editing the Danielle Steel nbc movie-of-the-week A Perfect Stranger at Medallion/pfa, a major laboratory and post-production facility in Toronto. Directed by Michael Miller, the romance drama is being shot throughout April and May on location in Toronto and San Francisco.

A Perfect Stranger is McClellan’s first experience on Lightworks, and his maiden nonlinear, digital experience as well.

Assistant editor Paul Whitehead was familiar with the system, so McClellan says it was only ‘a matter of days’ before he felt comfortable with the system.

He says the Lightworks combines film and video editing sensibilities, ‘although film people may have an easier time with it.’

The best thing about Lightworks, he adds, is its flexibility in multiple-take situations. The point is the director gets a choice.

McClellan says he can preview seven takes of the same scene ‘sentence by sentence’ and compose a final take using elements from all seven.

‘In film this would be incredibly time-consuming,’ he says. ‘The biggest problem would be trying to remember after going through it all.

‘The (Lightworks) system lets you compare subtitles instantly, there are no mechanics to slow you down.’

McClellan is readying the first cut for A Perfect Stranger and will sit down with the director for that cut. Then he’ll screen the film with the producers prior to the network screening. The job is done once the picture is locked.

‘Directors will love it,’ says McClellan. ‘Finding trims is instant and changes can be done right away instead of having to take notes.’

McClellan’s film credits include four of the last five seasons of Sullivan Films’ Road to Avonlea, the nbc mow Shattered Trust, the Shari Karney Story, Francis Mankiewicz’s miniseries Love and Hate, Randy Bradshaw’s Skate!, and Gross Misconduct, the cbc-tv movie produced by Alan Burke and directed by Atom Egoyan. McClellan will begin editing the sixth season of Road to Avonlea later this summer.

Even for the F/X-challenged

Veteran Montreal film editor Yves Langlois was asked by producer Claude Leger to work on Highlander III: The Magician. Langlois is currently editing the $34 million sci-fi adventure film on a Lightworks system housed at Sonolab, a film lab and post facility.

The challenge on Highlander III, says the editor, is to create a story with the appeal of the original Highlander, a commercial success with reported earnings of $150 million.

As picture editor, Langlois says he’s focused on the story.

‘The job is to make the story come alive, easy to follow and exciting with no dead moments. It’s not only action, but there is a lot of action.’

Langlois says his duties include ‘finding the right camera and the right take’ on major action scenes where three or four cameras are rolling.

Highlander III is replete with special effects, blue-screen photography, transforming bodies and on-camera effects like disintegrating mountains and earthquakes.

As for the f/x sequences, the editor’s primary concern is the synchronization of images and generating a/b roll edit lists for the laboratory people who then create the film’s optical effects.

Langlois, who’s worked on TouchVision and avid systems, says he’s no computer expert, but he has two assistant editors on hand for Highlander III, both of whom have computer backgrounds.

Directed by the u.k.’s Andy Morahan, the Highlander III shoot produced 57 hours of Super 35mm rushes. Langlois says this is a ‘normal’ allotment of film, but less than the 70 hours canned on Jean-Jacques Annaud’s Quest For Fire, also edited by Langlois. The Super 35mm film was transferred to Betacam videotape and dumped for total digital edit.

Langlois has been in the business ‘at least 20 years’ and his credits include Roger Cantin’s Matusalem, Gilles Carle’s Les Plouffes, a couple of Claude Chabrol movies and the first season of Lance et compte, directed by Jean Claude Lord. For his next assignment, director Christian Duguay has asked Langlois to edit the four-hour, $8 million Cinar Films/Bernard Zukerman miniseries Million Dollar Babies, the story of the Dionne quintuplets.

Of his Lightworks experience, Langlois says, ‘It’s superb, extraordinary. There’s lots of ease of access to any part of the film, and you can instantly change the structure.’ Four weeks after the end of principal photography, Langlois says he had completed the director’s cut.

‘This is very rapid compared to film (editing),’ he says. ‘If we had been working on film, we would still be synchronizing the rushes.’

montreal-based OLE Canada is the exclusive Canadian agent of Lightworks Editing Systems of London, England, the designer and manufacturer of the Lightworks Non-linear Digital Editing System. Headed by president Mark Pounds, ole is also the Canadian agent for Fairlight, a pioneer in digital audio workstation technology, and Aaton, the prominent French manufacturer of 16mm, Super 16mm and 35mm cameras and the Aaton Keylink telecine filmcode recorder.