All language subtitles for Module 17

And next up,

let's talk about my process
for making selects, which are mine

or the director's favored moments
or preferred takes.

This is the script.

In this binder,
there's a light on here so I can.

Even when my lights are down,
I can actually see the script.

I can read it.

The script is my handbook.

It's always important to have it,
and I'm always going to refer to it

at different points in the process.

You're going to maybe discard it.

You're going to the movie will will veer

and take a turn
from how something was originally written.

It's going to change. It's
going to evolve.

It's always important to have that handy
very close by.

So you can always refer to it,
especially when you're starting to edit.

So I always have it next to me
and before I start

editing a scene, I'll always reread.

I've read the script by now,
couple of times at least,

but I always have it nearby
so I can actually reread the scene.

Then I'm about to start
looking at footage for

I will look to the scene

which my assistants have prepared.

They've gotten the footage,

they've broken it down
and they've broken it down by scene.

So they've taken all the takes.

And by the way, the assistants,

your assistant editors, it's important
that they also have the same script

supervisor notes that you do, because
when they get the footage to organize it,

it's the assistant editor's

responsibility to make sure
that I have everything that was shot.

Ultimately, it's my responsibility.

I'm the one who is responsible.

If if I've cut the movie
and I've left something out

that was that was shot
and I didn't know about it.

But in terms of the actual hands
on responsibility,

the assistants need to make sure
that if there were five takes that

I have all five takes to work with, but
I also have them string it all together

into a sequence, all the takes.

And that way it's very easy
for me to measure exactly how much I have

for a specific scene,
because when I start editing scene,

I like to know how much I have.

I like to know, am I going to I'm about
to start looking at all the film dailies.

Do I have do I have a half hour of footage
or do I have 4 hours of footage?

One thing I like to do is, first of all,
when I'm when I'm receiving several

different days of footage, I like to
and this is just me.

I like to cut the simple stuff first.

So in the case of La la land,

if there's if there's a one
or if there's a single take

where there's going to be little
or no editing, I'll say, you know what?

I'm going to I'm going to do that 1/1.

I'm going to look at all
the all the takes for that.

I'm going to watch the footage.

I'm going to get it all the way.

It does two things for me. It it gets

it get scenes off of my plate.

And it also warms me up.

It gets my brain
thinking in a certain way.

I don't want to get bogged down
with a scene

that has 6 hours of footage right away
necessarily.

So any easy stuff,
I try to get out of the way very quickly.

As I look at the dailies,

I'm making my selects.

I do it as I go.

So if I see footage
when I'm Sam, I'm running some takes.

If I see something I like, I'm marking in.

I'm marking out.

I try to be as specific as possible.

To save time later,
I pull that piece into a new sequence

and that sequence becomes my select roll
or my select reel.

Those are my selects.

I do this as I watch it
because I want the process

of watching the footage to be
as as efficient and useful as possible.

I don't have the luxury
of looking at the footage

and then going back
to looking at it again.

I might have to through my process,
but you want to make it count.

You know, if you're watching a scene
where they've shot 6 hours of footage,

you probably won't have the luxury
of watching another 6 hours

again, sitting down to watch that again.

So you want to that viewing
that that one time

you're viewing it in its entirety,
you want to make that count.

Once I'm done looking at everything,
I have my select roll.

I will take all those selects
and I will put them.

Then they're just little pieces. Looks

like,
you know, a line reading that I like.

I'll take these pieces and I will
then put them in script order.

I will take the time to then
look at my sequence

and I will move the pieces around
and put them in script order.

And again, on First Man,
I had the luxury of having a large crew.

So what that meant was after
I pulled my selects,

I would hand it to my assistant,
say put it in script order.

They'd put it in order for me.

Then they hand it back
and then I can start cutting.

I can look at the sequence,
and if I pull a lot of selects,

there's a way that part of the scene
almost cuts itself.

Not not very precisely, but roughly.

So I start looking at my sequence
in the pieces and maybe I've pulled

three different

I've pulled the

same line, but from three different takes
because I liked it in this take.

I liked in this take, this take. Well,
now they're back to back.

I can start comparing.

Now I see them back to back and it's clear
that this take is the best one.

Okay, let's go for this.

In that way,
I can start putting my scene together.

It's all about knowing
where to find those pieces.

And you want to organize your footage
in a way that is easily accessible.

So in the case of a music scene like this,
and we did this on Long

Island, I've done this on other movies
that have music playback.

We take the prerecorded track,
the soundtrack

that they played back on set.

That's always the same.

There's only one prerecorded track
that's your master track.

So every time they do a take,

they're always doing the take
to the same exact soundtrack.

So you always have a common, common track,
common denominator.

And what that means is you can marry

all the picture to this one soundtrack.

In theory, all of your takes
should be in sync to that

one music track.

We grouped together every single picture
take with this soundtrack.

So you might have one group that has.

A hundred different pieces in it,
all in sync with each other

because they've all sunk as a guide
to this music track.

And that is extremely powerful.

And that's something that is amazing about
digital

non-linear editing,
whether it's avid final cut or premiere.

When you were doing this on film,
you would you would code the picture

and code the music track
and you would manually sync it together.

But it was much more cumbersome here.

We can have our assistance, synchronize
all of these things

and marry them together.

And when I have this in a timeline,

I can change the.

Different clips as if it's been shot

with 100 cameras
and it's all synchronized together.

And so that is an important foundation
for a musical scene that's using playback.

It's an important foundation
for la la land.

And for this scene.

If I wanted to change a take or an angle,

I would click a button, make a cut,
and then make an endpoint,

make it out point, make cuts in and out
and then press a button.

And I could switch from one angle
to another angle,

and that angle would be in sync
with the music.

That's key.

That saves you an enormous amount of time.

So you're never having to go to a master
clip and say, okay, this is the shot

I want to use now.

I have to sync it up.

Well, if I had to do that for every shot

in the end of sequence of whiplash,
I would still be editing the sequence.

I learned that when I was an assistant

editor and had to do that
for other editors on other music movies.

So that was a key ingredient
in terms of organization.

And again, this is how I do it.

It's it's different for different editors.

But within this group,

I like to organize it even more so.

So within this group,
I actually I called a super group

where I might tell my assistant, okay,

make me a super group of only

the shots

behind Andrew
looking out into the auditorium

and do it
by showing me in a doesn't matter

what angle came first,
what a, b, c, d, doesn't matter.

I want you to arrange all of them,
sync them

up, arrange them
starting with wide and go tighter.

Then I might say, okay, now
all the camera angles facing Andrew.

Give me all of Andrew wide go in tighter

and then I might say let's do
all the let's do

just all the musicians,
not Andrew, not not Fletcher,

just Andrew do do wider

sizes than medium tight, etc., etc.

It's a way of organizing footage
so that later on

when I'm working with the director

and the director says, Oh, we need to have
we need to have this

a medium shot of Fletcher, you know,

so we can really see them,
see him in the frame.

But I want to see some of the musicians.

Where do we find it?
You have to know where to find it.

And when you have as much material

as you did for this scene,
that's very hard to do.

So organization is key, organization,
you just have to do it.

And so it's about in the case of music
scenes, it's about these different groups.

And so in my bin, if I look at the band,
I might have Supergroup Fletcher

only or Fletcher in front

and then Fletcher behind things like that.

And again, this is very subjective
to each his own, but that's how I do it.

And that's how we did it in
la la land too.

La la land was not as complicated in terms
of some of the musical scenes or or

even the concert scene with John
Legend is not as complicated.

They didn't shoot as much,

but figure out the way that works for you,
that works for your mind.

If it's if it's about like, okay,
I think I want to break it down

in terms of,
okay, here's all of just the audience.

Okay, then then break it down that way.

Have something, have a supergroup.
That's only that.

Okay.

Now I want to just have
all of the character of Andrew do that.

Now I just want to have Fletcher. So. So

you definitely

you definitely have to find
a way that works for you.