While that oxymoronic standby ‘less is more’ has proven sporadically true at best over its long life, in the post-production world the adage is gaining some respect. Born of the evolution of digital technology and the constant search for time and cost-saving means of completing a project, smaller gear and a streamlined process are being applied to more jobs at every level.

And as more is done with less, the universe of audio and video post is also contracting, with not only smaller gear and a ‘contracted equipment set’ but convergence of talent. With digital nonlinear post, the job descriptions of audio and video post people as well as engineering and post become blurred. At the same time, talent is now working on traditional as well as digital equipment and methods, both new talent schooled in both worlds and existing talent who have devoted considerable effort to making the leap.

The combination of that intermingling of talent and the expansion of high-level capabilities over a larger equipment base has been, once again, to distill the importance of the human equation; a more level equipment field emphasizes the importance of raw talent and quality from the beginning to the end of the production process.

In the following report, new stars and established players discuss shrinkage, digital dexterity and the evolution of the production and post process.

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Montreal editor Gaetan Huot says he had a little bit of luck when he began cutting film and video 15 years ago.

‘By chance I worked as a freelancer doing technical direction on shoots and some people from Agent Orange introduced me to (producer) Bruno Jobin and Francois Girard. In 1984 they got a grant to produce (art) videos and that’s where it really all started,’ says Huot.

‘I was lucky because I had the chance to be with dynamic people who had strong ideas about film production. I mainly followed Francois who was somehow my locomotive,’ he adds.

Huot won a Genie for best editing on Girard’s Thirty-two Short Films About Glenn Gould and they reunite this spring on The Red Violin, a $13 million major motion picture slated to shoot in Montreal, Cremona, Italy, Venice, England and Shanghai. Girard and actor Don McKellar coscripted the story, which is being produced by Niv Fichman of Toronto’s Rhombus Media.

The history and ambiance of the film’s many locations are likely to play a role, says Huot.

‘Personally, what I think I have to do is assist Francois as much as possible to bring the movie to his vision.’

The Red Violin is ‘a film a tableau, a movie that will travel into time and be intercut with things that are contemporary,’ Huot explains.

(The film’s leg includes the actual auctioning of the mysterious 350-year-old instrument and the beginnings of lead player Samuel L. Jackson’s search for its ultimately tragic origin.)

Huot says he’s lucky to have up to 20 weeks to cut the picture; typically he rarely has more than 12.

An editor’s judgment

Huot says a competent editor has to trust his own judgment, and in a sense, stand in for the public.

‘I try to be honest with my emotions and with the material, and I very strongly defend my point of view to the director.’

Cutting tv commercials has been an excellent training ground, he says, and a good place to learn about compromise, a fundamental editing skill.

‘A lot of people would like to do our jobs but when they find out how much time you have to put insomehow it’s a kind of vocation, a passion,’ he says.

Huot sees editing as a ‘third level of writing in filmmaking,’ after the script and shooting phases.

‘Because of time and budget sometimes you don’t always have everything you’d like to have from the script. For instance, I’ve often seen scenes that were shot too fast or maybe too late in the day causing continuity problems with the lighting. And that has to be fixed in the editing process. And sometimes you have to re-evaluate the pertinence of scenes or the original structure of the script,’ he says.

Editing is a creative process, and the editor needs latitude, ‘head space,’ to get the job done right.

And because an editor can’t always feel inspired, he says, extra time may be needed along with unrestricted access to an editing machine.

Which makes Huot’s setup with fellow editors at WGS Films in Old Montreal all the more relaxed.

wgs president J.F. ‘Jeff’ Bergeron, 28, himself an editor, says it’s important for staff cutters, including Yvan Thibaudeau and Paul Jutras, to have a place of their own where they’re free to make creative exchanges.

Bergeron has been a ‘locomotive’ for commercial editing in Montreal. ‘The company is a kind of springboard for young editors,’ Huot says.

wgs editors use an Avid 8000, the full package, an Avid 4000 and two Turbo LightWorks units from OLE Canada.

‘In Montreal commercials (are cut) on Avid,’ says Huot.

wgs only does the offline editing, typically sourced from 3/4′ tape or Betacam.

Still needs time

Huot works exclusively on the Turbo Lightworks editing system.

‘What I like about Lightworks is that everything is on the screen whenever I want it. I don’t have that many sub-menus to go through. It’s very direct and flexible in the management of the footage, the scenes, and you can arrange things as you want. I think it’s totally great. And this is true for any nonlinear system – to have the ability to call up a scene and have all the shots instantly available. It certainly helps the creative editing approach.

Instant availability is ace, but Huot adds this note of reserve:

‘The thing is editing is still a process whereby one has to make the better decision from a range of options. The thing that stays is that you’ll need time to think about what you’re doing. It’s okay that the machine is really fast, but at one point or another you’ll have to stop, have a coffee, and consider what the hell the scene is really all about.’

Huot says testing three, four or five different cuts of a scene is another great advantage of nonlinear editing systems. As is the ability to do reverses and speedups.

The editor has creative options on how a scene is built, he says.

‘For instance, you can put the emphasis on one character or on another, and you can, or not, go to a reaction shot at some other point, all within the same shot,’ he says.

Scenes can be reframed using Avid and Lightworks systems, but there may be technical barriers such as limits to how much a 35mm frame can be blown up in the lab, he says.

Huot feature credits include Robert Tinnell’s Kids of the Roundtable, Gabriel Pelletier’s vamp comedy Karmina, Charles Biname’s Le 12 de 12 (Chili), Micheline Lanctot’s La Vie d’un hero and the two most recent Rene Daalder movies, Habitat and Hysteria.