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.

Comedy Fodder

I'm not a regular blogger. This blog is to post irregular updates as it pertains to my filmmaking career. It's linked to my website. Ergo - I still have another Sundance Doc Labs report coming woefully late.

Why so late? Two reasons: First - I just started editing a new project, a feature documentary. So I've been working long days to try to keep us on a good pace before I start teaching part-time again. I'll write more on the project later, but needless to say, it limits my time to write and keep this blog up to date.

Second... Last Wednesday I participated in The Megaphone Show at the New Movement Theater here in Austin. I told true stories from incidents in my life on stage - three stories, about two minutes each. After each story, the New Movement's improv cast would act out scenes inspired by the stories. Some scenes would be directly lifted from the story I told. Other scenes would be loosely linked, maybe only one word or phrase I mentioned was at the center of the premise. It was fun to see what the cast - led by local comedian Chris Trew - came up with. The pace ebbed and flowed as it does with improv, but when the team got rolling in a direction that worked well they milked it for huge laughs.

None of the cast members had an inkling of what I was going to say before I said it. The only coaching Chris gave me (mere moments before the show began) was that I give them lots of details. Don't generalize any events; give them specifics. They will be hanging on every detail I give in order to build a scene.

2013 Sundance Doc Lab - pt.3: A Working Vacation

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 Three in my Sundance Labs re-cap. Part One. Part Two.

Once the lab gets going, each day is jam packed with work. 

Breakfast is served every morning at 8 AM. Our first morning there I didn't read the coffee signage closely and mistakenly poured myself decaf. Always read the signs when you're at the lab.

The first full day of the lab we screen cuts. The selected projects arrive at different stages in their editing process. Some are further along than others. But they are each at the lab for the same purpose: To get fresh eyes on their work and be in an environment that allows them to be sharply focused for a week. 

2013 Sundance Doc Lab pt.2: Summer Camp + Indie Film Rehab

I was invited to attend this year's 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 Two in my Sundance Labs re-cap. To read Part One, click here.

Post screening discussion

The lab is a summer camp and a rehabilitation center for your film. Or maybe a better way to phrase that - since rehab connotes that you're coming in with problems - is that it's a gut check for your film. It's fun, it's creatively and intellectually invigorating, it's exhausting. Fellows and advisors bare their souls. Many come to terms with what their film is and isn't. The Sundance screening room has a way of making people tear up for one reason or another. I've learned so much at the lab about storytelling and editing, just in time to take on a new doc project, my first ever as an editor.

I apologize for being vague on the details as to how the labs can have such a profound effect on a group of adults, most of which will have met each other for the first time. But I'm trying to protect the privacy of the lab to a certain extent. I want any one reading this to have a flavor of what the doc labs are like but without betraying the confidence of any of the participants.

2013 Sundance Doc Lab - pt.1: Riding the lift. Hiking. Potguts.

I was invited to attend this year's 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 One in my Sundance Labs re-cap. To read the brief prologue, click here. Part Two. Part Three. Part Four. Part Five.

This was my second trip to the labs as an assistant editor. Two years ago, I never had an opportunity to go on the ski lift or go on a hike. This year, we had a little down time as the assistants were flown in a day early.

The entire AE team of five rode the ski lift into the mountains that overlook the Sundance Resort. From there we went on a brief, 20-minute hike. It was gorgeous day. Not too hot yet, before the so-called heat wave hit. 

I'm very glad we knocked this out on the first day. The rest of the week was too packed with lab activities to get away in the middle of the day like this. 

2013 Sundance Doc Lab: Prologue

I spent last week at the Sundance Resort, participating in the Sundance Doc Edit and Story Lab. It was a my second trip up the mountain. It was a tremendous experience.

As I write this by hand somewhere over Nevada on my way back to Texas, I feel the most exhausted I have felt all week. Exhaustion is normal throughout the Sundance Lab, but once you have some Oikos Greek Yogurt with a cup of coffee, followed by stimulating presentations on storytelling, filmmaking, editing, followed by intense cutting and re-cutting, screening then cutting and re-cutting - the exhaustion never slows you down until you lock up the edit trailer and head back to your cabin. It hits you when it needs to hit you: At bedtime.

I am literally being transported back to the "real world." Between flickers of micro sleep I think back on  all that I have learned, the new friendships I've made, and the hopeful feeling I have toward my next editing project. I feel invigorated. I hope I can carry this feeling with me for a long, long time.

I hope to write about it here on this blog in some detail (not total detail - there are many things said and seen at the lab that should remain private to the lab). I don't know if I'll write one massive post or divide it into sections. But if you're interested in hearing a bit more about my adventures at the lab, please visit this blog over the next week or two. I begin a new project later today, so whatever I do will be at infrequent intervals.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3
Part 4
Part 5