Editing

Julie Checkoway has worn many professional hats since leaving her hometown of Newburyport, MA.  She has been a high school teacher, author, professor, and producer for public radio.  Notice the absence of documentary filmmaker on that list.  That vacancy has since been filled.   

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It's hard to imagine the good-natured, white-haired woman wrangling Martin Scorsese's blood-soaked frames into sequence, but since the two met during a filmmaking course at NYU, they have become an inseparable filmmaking duo.

After a childhood growing up in Aruba and a political science degree from Cornell University, Thelma Schoonmaker saw herself becoming an international diplomat. But, when she expressed her liberal views during State Department tests, she was informed that she would probably find herself unhappy in a job with the FBI or CIA.

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When it was released this summer, I wondered what was all the fuss over an incremental version upgrade of Apple’s Final Cut Pro. Mathematically, I expected the new version 1.25 should be about five-hundredths better than version 1.2 (I didn’t even need a calculator to figure that out). After testing, I found that the newly released FCP 1.25 delivers what users of previous versions have been asking for and more.

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My favorite Uncle Hezekiah Bohush often says, "Good cookin' and hard drive storage is two things ya can't have too much of." Which is even more amazing considering he had never even seen a computer the first time he said it. But somehow, he just knew.

Nowadays Uncle Hez is into digital video in a big way, and he needs some pro-level hardware to store all his files for his new documentary, "The Buena Vista Trailer Park Social Club."

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Attention indie film producers.  It's time to acquire music rights for your masterpiece.  You'll need to obtain synch licensing.  You won't find this at the DMV...

That's probably a blessing, considering the surliness of the average Department of Motor Vehicles employee. A few years ago, the DMV was convinced I was a man with a DUIon his license who lived in California. They refused, on these high moral grounds, to renew my license. Hmmm.

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When I write about sync problems in this chapter, I have more in mind than just picture and audio tracks falling out of sync. To me, if a music cue is supposed to be heard as soon as a door opens, and instead it comes in two seconds late–it’s out of sync. If you spend a lot of time getting narration, music or effects to land perfectly with a visual, and suddenly they don’t–you’re out of sync. If you have a lower-third title on V2 that says "Nelson Mandela," and when read more...

I have spent the last two months pushing my "Sandy 'Spin' Slade: Beyond Basketball" documentary forward; I did not join Céline Dion and Garth Brooks in pseudo-retirement. From tape logs to press kits to Philadelphia, I've been immersed in the waters of post-production.

During this time, I gave thanks for my left-brain writing experience with business jargon, corporate compositions and marketing documents. This enhanced my ability to write the press kit for this project. The read more...

If you are interested in becoming a professional editor, here are some qualities a few independent filmmakers/editors feel a good one should have.

Errol Morris, Filmmaker, Fourth Floor Productions

"A good editor has to have nerves of steel, and a willingness to reject reality for AVR-3E."

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It is late October 1998, and I have decided to acquire a nonlinear video editing system (NLE). I have spent the last six months surfing the web, reading everything I can on the matter. There's a feeling of anonymity to the whole procedure. I can't get a handle on what these systems do, who really makes them, where the technology is headed, and why I should buy now.

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