Half-Life of War

Half-Life of War - South Boston Korean War Memorial from Kyle Henry on Vimeo.

This summer, even as I was still finishing a feature documentary, I managed to squeeze in a short documentary for friend and collaborator Kyle Henry. His short "Half-Life of War" is a brief but powerful meditation on the ubiquitousness of war in our everyday lives. This week, Kyle has launched the Facebook page for the film.

Visit and like the page here.

When Kyle isn't directing, he is an accomplished editor and instructor at Northwestern University. His editing credits include the brilliant Where Soldiers Come From and the beautiful, emotional Before You Know It. This is not the first project that I have edited for Kyle, but I still feel honored whenever he calls me up for a collaboration because he has wowed me with his own work so many times. He raises my game every time we work together. Thanks in part to his teaching background, I think he is able to distill his direction in a very clear way even when he's experimenting and still trying to find the film.

This project is driven by its visuals and sound design. It's an experiment in pacing, composition and juxtaposition to try to arrive at both an emotional and intellectual climax. It was a new kind of challenge for me, one that I've always wanted to take on: Execute a purely immersive and experiential concept.

Check out the video above for a short-short idea of the tone of the film that Kyle recently posted to his Vimeo page.

Kyle and I would try different combinations of ideas and visuals, varying our pacing and re-combining pieces of footage that may not have seemed to initially go together until magically they do. I'm speaking vaguely about the process on purpose because the movie is not yet out and I think it's a great movie to discover and have catch you off guard. Maybe after its online premiere I'll talk in a little more detail about our process.

In the can

Can we still use that phrase, in the can? The state of film being what it is, you'd figure that such phrases will be lost to history soon, yet I don't know if there's a digital equivalent. It's on the drive. Not that hard drive - THAT hard drive!

Anyway, this is one of those Been-Awhile-Been-Busy-Oh-Man-Sorry-I've-Been-Away-Just-A-Quick-Update-Neglected-This-Blog kind of blog post. Maybe I shouldn't call attention to it at all, but February to November is a pretty big gap (assuming anyone noticed in the first place). 

Last summer I started work on editing a documentary feature, my first as editor. The director is Jesse Lyda, the producer is Jason Wehling. It's a documentary about the inner life of folk singer Ana Egge, raised by hippies in New Mexico and who draws on her personal life for her music. So personal that when she found her latest album being produced by the legendary Steve Earle, she decided to explore some long brewing issues within her family that had not been confronted in decades. This leads to some family strife on her pursuit of commercial success. 

It's an emotional journey and the most personal documentary I've seen about someone who has yet to be a household name. 

If you follow me on Twitter, you've seen me strongly advocate and stand up for Apple's much maligned flagship editing program Final Cut Pro X. At the time we started the doc, I think FCPX was on version 10.0.8. Maybe 10.0.9. I had just finished cutting a short doc with it and was excited about the possibilities of what you could accomplish on a feature doc. So, with Jesse and Jason's daring permission, I was given the opportunity to go forth in uncharted territory. 

It was a ride, and I pushed that version of FCPX to its limits. Version 10.0.x was not ready for a feature film. Not quite. But when Apple updated to 10.1, it changed the game. They cracked the code of how to make that app functional for such a large project. 

I loved the experience. It's hard for me to go back to a track based editor now. I can do it because the platform doesn't define my work or my abilities. But FCPX is a step forward in a new direction, a forward-looking direction, and proves we can break away from old paradigms and still get our work done. (Maybe even by 5PM ;).

I plan on writing more about the experience as we just recently finished color correction and sound mix (and yes - for anyone reading this and doubting you can take an FCPX project all the way through post, including Pro Tools and color in Resolve, and back again - you can; it's not 2011 anymore!). I've moved on to other projects, not all of them in FCPX, sadly, but I've stretched my skills by editing a documentary from start to finish. That is what I'm most excited and proud about. Looking forward to sharing updates on the film's life-after-post in the future.

Two movies - multiple platforms - AVAILABLE NOW!

This week, two movies I worked on expanded their reach by becoming available on multiple digital platforms: Good Night and Love & Air Sex. Read on to find out more about both:

GOOD NIGHT
Delvolver Digital

Available on:

iTunes

VHX

Vimeo

Distrify

Cable VOD (check your local listings)

Directed by Sean Gallagher, Good Night is a tone poem with an ensemble cast led by Adrienne Mishler, Jonny Mars, Todd Berger and Alex Karpovsky. The entire cast is brilliant. The film drew rave reviews when it premiered at SXSW. At the premiere, no one left before the Q and A.

I co-edited along Don Howard. The story chronicles a single evening and an entire lifetime over the course of its run time. It's funny, it's sad, and it always keeps its characters and situations grounded.

Sean rented out the house that is the center of the action for six months. He grew a garden just in time for principal production to start. Other scenes were shot over the course of a year on and off in order to realistically portray its actors at different points in time. Different hair cuts, clothing styles, aging. It's ambitious, special film close to my heart. It's still not quite out of my life yet, in more ways than one.

I hope everyone who reads this post gets to see it and enjoys it.

"Lovely & Devastating... The alchemy is in the editing, and in the uniformly strong performances by the nine actors." - Beth Hanna, Indiewire

Read on to read about Love & Air Sex and see its trailer...

Deadline. Deadline. Deadline... Rest.

Tools for frantic editing

Deadlines are a good thing. With deadlines come pressure and a sense of urgency. Pressure and urgency not only get things done; they inspire creativity. However, if not managed well, a deadline too tight can lead to frantic decision making.

I’ve been editing on my first feature documentary since July, a music documentary about Brooklyn-based folk singer Ana Egge. The director is Jesse Lyda, the producer is Jason Wehling. Jesse followed Ana on and off for about two and a half years, capturing somewhere in the neighborhood of 140 hours of footage.

Our deadline was to have a decent rough cut by November/December. That’s five to six months to cull 140 hours down to a feature length run time. An editor we sought advice from told us she spends three to four months watching/logging/marking up footage, then a month of hardcore editing to get to a first assembly on a feature doc.

We needed an assembly in half that time.

Editing first feature doc

If you found yourself on my blog page via my website, you may have noticed my last post was from this summer. So I thought I'd chime in with a quick update.

In July I started editing a documentary feature, a music doc about singer/songwriter Ana Egge. This is my first foray into documentary editor as the lead editor. I have assisted on docs in the past, both for director Margaret Brown (Be Here To Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt and The Order of Myths). 

So as soon as I returned from the Sundance Documentary Story and Edit Lab this summer, I took all that wisdom I had cribbed from Fellows way more experienced and smarter than I and began applying said wisdom to this project.

Over 140 hours of footage. Interviews, verite, live concerts and archival. We are currently in the midst of taking the story from an assembly to our first rough. It's been daunting, stressful, overwhelming at times. It's also been invigorating, exciting and a satisfying challenge. I am becoming a better editor and storyteller because of it. 

If I'm sporadic in my updates on this blog, that's the reason. But you can always find me on Twitter or G+.

One of the unique aspects of the documentary is that we're editing in the much maligned Final Cut Pro X. If you're interested in what that process is shaping up to be like, check out my workflow blog that I recently began which chronicles the ins and outs of editing an independent feature documentary in Final Cut Pro X.

Sundance Doc Lab pt.5 - Notes From The Lab

I was invited to attend this years Sundance Documentary Edit and Story Lab as an assistant editor. Each assistant is assigned to one of the five feature-length documentaries that have been invited to participate in the lab. Each project consists of its director(s) and editor. This is Part Five in my Sundance Labs re-cap. Part One. Part Two. Part Three. Part Four.

I've been vague about exactly what I learned at the Doc Lab this summer. That is due, in part, to the fact that during their presentations, the advisors have to speak candidly about their work or about themselves and I feel I should protect that.

But I think I can provide a list of helpful, general anecdotes that stuck with me this summer. I know this will help me on the documentary I'm editing now and it may also help you on yours.

I won't attribute any one tip or anecdote to any one advisor. Instead this will be one list so it is from one voice. That said, allow me to tell you a little bit about our advisors this year:

2013 Sundance Doc Lab pt.4: The A[E] Team

I was invited to attend this years Sundance Documentary Edit and Story Lab as an assistant editor. Each assistant is assigned to one of the five feature-length documentaries that have been invited to participate in the lab. Each project consists of its director(s) and editor. This is Part Four in my Sundance Labs re-cap. Part One. Part Two. Part Three.

Each year, Labs and Artist Support Director Kristin Feeley and Labs and Artist Support Coordinator John Cardellino seek out recommendations for assistant editors from past fellows and advisors. They try to maintain a high turnover of assistants each year in order to expose new people to the lab. By assigning assistants to projects they have no knowledge of, it gives the assistants a chance to quickly gel with new filmmakers. It also gives those filmmakers another pair of eyes to bounce ideas off of.

Now that there are two doc labs, there is more opportunity for past assistants to return as Mark Harrison and I did this summer. We were able to serve as a resource for other first-time AEs when they had procedural questions or faced a delicate situation with their team. That can lift the burden off Kristin, John and Post Production Supervisor Dave Drusky: We can tackle something before we need to involve them, giving them time to concentrate on other important matters. Being a returning AE allowed me to feel more comfortable and increased my participation and engagement twofold.