Dead is the king.

Our Richard III exercise is over. It was pretty enlightening, and we had some great tutors - namely Alex Mackie and Roger Crittenden. They were totally supportive, whilst pointing out possible weaknesses and parts which just didn’t really flow - right up to the very last moment. Literally. On the morning of the slightly flexible 12 noon deadline, the first part of my section (part two of six) was running ABCDEF. By 12.45 it was exported for joining up to the rest as ACBEDF. Via a few different permutations including the attempted removal of a scene which I was glad stayed in when I saw all the parts together. Slightly nerve-wracking, especially as I was trimming the 5 new scene transitions that the re-organisation created right up to the last possible minute.

Still, the result cleared up a major plot point which had never really come across as well as it could have. The screenplay had already reorganised Will Shakespeare’s scenes (logical in theatre, potentially section-after-section in modern day film terms), so I can’t really feel too bad about my last minute shuffling. My most recent documentary edit utilised the scene rearrangement method from a very early stage, but this is the first time I’ve extensively reshaped in fiction in this style - our short films at the school don't lend themselves open to much of that sort of thing. But having seen how effective it was, my mind feels blown open for future edits in all projects.

You really can read all of the books that you want on the theory of editing - but you just can't learn how to edit from them. Because editing has to be instinctive, it has to be natural, you have to feel it… and even the most poetic instruction manual is still an instruction manual.

Murder, mayhem and moggies

The first excercise of the second year editing course at the NFTS is Richard III. We get the rushes from the 1995 feature film directed by Richard Loncraine and starring Sir Ian McKellen, and each of the six students on the course edit a section. All of the parts are put together at the end of the 2 1/2 weeks editing, and most of the school (barring the first year editors and composers who'll be doing the project this time next year) will be invited to see the end product... the trick is to get it past the 'spot the join' stage, which may well be interesting given our fairly different editing styles.

I have to say, it's rather nice to be able to really work with something which has been professionally made, budgeted, acted... all of that. Nothing against the school productions - the production designers always do a magnificent job with the briefs they're given, and it's very possible to get a great short film out of the projects we do - but the fact is that we're all still learning, and not having massive amounts of money to spend on crew, cast, facilities etc does show when you compare it to an actual feature film. And of course, it's a completely different way of telling a story to what we've done so far - not just longer overall, but with entire scenes relating to each other (many to a scene which is being cut by someone else) instead of mere moments of fore-shadowing within scenes which have to have a greater overall and necessary function. That we don't really have to worry about the structure of the story either is also quite useful - not necessarily relevant unless we plan to cut films based on the writings of major authors for the rest of our careers, but certainly helpful in being able to focus on refining our skills in scene cutting.

To distract myself from all of the scheming, treachery, murder, and other things that go into a decent Shakespeare story (I'm not a huge fan of the comedies, I have to admit), I'm also cutting a commercial for an advertising competition which has been performed by some dancers from the London International School of Performing Arts. It's for Whiskas cat food, and the cast are all dressed as cats. The director's made all of the costumes herself and done an absolutely amazing job with them. So a typical day at the moment involves selecting takes of Nigel Hawthorne getting rained on/ executed in a bathtub/ generally going with the whole watery theme, and then cutting together some people dressed and moving as cats generally gyrating around things and fighting. Can't really complain about a lack of variety. Although if I don't get to watch the first episode of Ashes to Ashes soon, I may have to rethink the 'no complaints' thing.

Back to school

The new school year at the NFTS begins tomorrow. Of course, I've been back since Wednesday 16th, but that's generally the lot of the editing students. One of us came back on the 2nd, but he's mad (and was doing a few exciting extra-curricular projects).

Personally, I was quite content to take the opportunity to take an entire four weeks of not doing anything whilst not experiencing "the fear". The next time I spend a month at my parents' house, I'll be growing ever more concerned about the fact that I seem not to have worked for an ever-increasing amount of time... but hey, I've got a whole year before worrying about that, right?

Anyway, it was definitely worth coming back early - Lucy Kaye's documentary "Davey's Last Order" was generally well-received. We have a few points to look at next week before we start all of the exports, but it's more of a perfectionism/ knowing what's actually in the rushes which could add to the film thing rather than having to fill in any gaps. Taking that month off for Christmas once we had a mostly complete rough cut actually proved invaluable (it wasn't just me - she went off to Senegal for the entire month!), and we found it so much more easy to find the focus of our film and to excise any unneeded material. Going back to the rushes also wasn't as painful as it can be, having had the gap. Sadly, I'd imagine it's rarely if ever practical to cut that way... but perhaps you just need to find that state of mind once before being able to return to it again. It's often the way, and a pretty good example of why I'm glad I decided to come to film school - to have the chance to try out different things (whether intentional or by circumstance), and just see what happens. Great things have come of similar techniques in the past, after all!