editor needed (deferred pay)

let me know when you find a guy, and then i can use him in the future.

I seriously doubt if anyone is going to rush at the opportunity for a deferred pay editing gig. I had a lot of trouble finding an editor for the concert footage for the Drop Dead documentary, and that was a $200/day paying gig.

Mike, the writer/director/producer, has posted notices on Craigslist, but they keep getting flagged and removed - I assume because it's deferred pay even though it's under the gigs - crew section which was suppose to be for the ultra low paying/deferred paying jobs.

Feature film editors usually get between $300 (ultra low) and $1500 (entry level union) while video editors usually get half that according to the Film Rate Survey.

Jessica

Jessica,

I'm Craig, aremid's husband. I'm certainly not a professional editor, but I'd be happy to find out more about this. I've never edited anyone else's footage before (I always edit in my head as I shoot), and have very little experience with narrative films, but I did work as an editor in broadcast TV for about 7 years.

I assume I would be editing on my own equipment. I've got Final Cut Studio 2. HDD space is my biggest problem, so if this is a feature-length film in HD, I doubt my 750GB drive will be be enough. Only input sources I can take are DV and HDV via Firewire.

Just give some details and I'll be quite honest about my abilities.

Confession: I'm mainly interested in seeing your lighting. I've been very impressed with your DP skills. In fact, I hope to bounce some ideas off of you when we start shooting our next film.

If you're mainly intersted in seeing my lighting, you'll probably end up disappointed. Everything is lit by replacing the bulbs in whatever fixtures are in the room with daylight balanced compact fluorescent bulbs, an occassional chinese lantern, and an on-camera light. Sometimes it looks much better than expected, more often it looks really icky, but most of the time it just looks bland and uninspired, like it was shot in Pittsburgh or Cleveland on a cloudy day.

Take this scene for example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDhLZut4OtU

The only light source is the frosted window to the right of the character, which acts like a soft-box. The bathroom is entirely white so there's no contrast anywhere and the light just bounces around, making it even flatter looking. I took the footage (after the editor cut the scene) and added a bit of contrast to it and some light vignetting around the edges to help minimize the overall whiteness of the walls, and it's an acceptable image, but nothing that really stands out or that I would use as an example of great or even good lighting.

About half of the movie (Tommy's perspective) is shot in B&W with us trying to get an old school look while the other half (Misha's perspective) is in color with a more documentary look. However, extreme crew, time, locations, scheduling and money constraints are making this very difficult. The story is strong but these constraints are almost killing us.

We've been fortunate because our sound mixer & boom operater are extremely good and we're getting much better sound than what you normally would expect on a microbudget feature. Plus the acting is also surprisingly strong.

We're shooting this on HDV at 60i (my camera doesn't do 24p) and so far everything has been edited on FCP. Some of the dialog is in Spanish but most is in English. Mike, the director, wants a slower paced, more feature like editing pace more in line with "Touch of Evil" and "the Third Man" than the rapid fire cutting the current editor has been doing.

And after it's edited, I'll be color correcting it myself and using software to simulate 24p (either Natress or Magic Bullet).

So, if this hasn't scared you away (I believe a person should know what they're getting into before tackling it), I'd be happy to pass your name onto the director! Let me know if you're still interested.

Jessica

Do you know what the runtime is going to be? I really doubt I'd have the space for a feature-length film. Have less than 1/2 TB right now. Can't afford the drive array I want right now.

Also, what about audio? Will someone else be doing FX and sweetening? I don't have a great room for audio mixing, as was quite evident if you saw my short "Legion".

Other than that, the only thing that may be a problem is the Spanish. To quote John McClain, I only speak English and bad English.

As I said, I'm pretty much a n00b when it comes to narrative edits, but if you guys are in a bind, feel free to have your director contact me.

The runtime will be somewhere between 85 and 90 minutes. You wouldn't have to do the sound mix - Mike (the director) will probably be doing that himself.

As far as the Spanish goes, Mike has been sitting in with our current editor to translate, but since you're not in LA that wouldn't work. Maybe he could use you for the English and mostly English scenes.

What's your e-mail address? I'll pass it on to him.

And thanks!

Jessica

He can e-mail me at:

enigma2k AT yahoo DOT com

I'll try to help out if I can. Thanks.

I'm so glad you finally joined. Everyone likes the cool avatar you made for me!

Jessica, we've been talking about your work, especially with Heidi's movie. Wretched is not only well written, but it looks beautiful. We were both instant fans.

Thank you very much, Aremid!

Craig, I sent Mike your e-mail address, but I think he's has found an editor in LA already. Sorry.

Jessica

Oh, no problem at all. I doubt I'd have time for it anyway. Just thought I'd offer the help in case he couldn't find anyone else. I wish him all the luck with the film.

I had to join to make sure everyone knew I was still alive