Getting ready in Post Production

Today, I can see the summit. I envisioned the final result of “The Unruly Mystic: John Muir” on the first day of principal photography in May 2015. I would spend 18-months interviewing people and traveling throughout the US and Canada. After three months of editing, I could see the film’s outline above the trees.

There were multiple steps taken to achieve this editing milestone.  I will explain my process and approach to encourage others with their filmmaking projects by providing specific details.  There are many articles and books available on the editing process, but I want to share what worked for me.

I will focus on what happens after filming has been completed. This post primarily addresses the editing process rather than production.  It also requires a working understanding of Adobe Premiere and will help you understand it as a database tool rather than a visual means to edit video.

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Multi-camera monitor

Information is readily available on how to capture great shots and sound using a two-camera setup.  To assist with the editing process, it is essential to ask your interview subjects the same questions so you’ll have a variety of responses on one topic.

Defining Your Topic of Interest

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Michael’s notebook

First I asked each subject to share their favorite John Muir story and suggested one when Muir climbed a tree during a thunderstorm.  In doing so, I could retell the story  using multiple narrators.  This approach was also useful with other questions, which is why you should establish the focus of your film before production begins.  I wrote an outline on the topics I thought would be relevant and kept it with me throughout filming and editing.

Since I work with Adobe Premiere Pro (PrPro),  I know from previous documentary productions that I don’t want to edit interview sequences in their original MXF* files.  I have experienced instances where an original file was corrupted or “lost” that ruined an entire sequence when I was ready to export it.  This step allows me to keep the “original” files off-site while working with a facsimile of the original footage.  Each file became a new MXF by exporting a sequence after importing the original files.  *MXF is the output for a 1.9 GB video file when shooting with a Canon XF 100.

Footage preparation

I re-import the facsimile MXF files, create a multi-camera edit, and then add a timecode to the sequence. It isn’t necessary to edit back and forth between the cameras during this step of the editing process.  You need one camera angle (preferably front) and the best audio file to begin exporting but in a lower resolution to upload the file online with an embedded timecode for an H.264 file.

Transcription

The H.264 file is the resource for the next step. I didn’t have the luxury of using this when making my previous documentary. This involves creating a transcription of the interviews in a Word file based on the timecodes.  There are multiple businesses that provide this service and I was happy with the one I chose. On average, prices are roughly $100 for an hour of footage and billed by the minute. The benefits are worth the expense based on the variety of ways you can use the transcriptions.

Colored Topics

The following process is one that I created and worked best for me.  Once I had the transcriptions,  I reviewed each document with different color markers.  I had previously outlined the topics, assigning them different colors.

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Transcription Binder

By implementing the idea of hearing the John Muir tree story retold multiple times, I would highlight that section. There could be multiple themes I was following and I would do the same for those.

Interview Sequence Marking

After I went through the 15-page document, I would open the multi-cam sequence in PrPro and mark each beginning point for the timeline topic.

I would also copy and paste from the Word file the specific transcription sentence or paragraph into the marker’s description.  I would also color code the marker to match the highlighter for future reference in the sequence.  Next, I would place a cut at the marker in-point and another at the end of the edit. The clip would be nested with the same description from the transcription.

The Matt Fox timeline looked like the following:

Sequence with color markers in place

Descriptive nested sequence and themed topic bin

After creating a descriptive nested sequence, I could drop the file into a bin for similar topics.  Ideally, you want a manageable number of bins for the nested sequences.  Once in their bin, I made sure the nested sequences had a uniform color (i.e. green for forest) so I would know if I had used the clip after creating a new sequence for a rough cut.  Once I used the clip in the new sequence, I would return it to the project folder from the edited sequence with a smartkey I made (Alt+D). I would change the color to red (rose).  While PrPro can reveal clips that are being reused in a sequence, it won’t do the same for nested sequences.

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Topic Bin before changing labels based upon usage in the edit

While I didn’t create descriptive nested sequences into specific bins until I completed my interviews, you can do this after each interview but it’s important to be open to the entire spectrum of the interview footage. This helps you refresh your memory by reading the transcriptions and highlighting the essential dialogue related to your chosen topics.  This is  important when interviewing several people overover a long period.  If the interviews are short and few, you can start earlier.  I had one hour of footage for each of the 15 interviews.

Now that I have my nested descriptive sequences into their bins, I can select those sequences and make a new sequence for editing.  I like to know who is speaking (thumbnails are not available with nested sequences), so I would go through the clips and assign a color to each speaker. I could also randomly place the clips so that no two clips followed in the same color.

Because the topic was similar, there was no harm in doing this as I could move the clips when I started editing.  This process would lead to new discoveries while editing.

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Edited sequence showing label colors per speaker and descriptive mouse-over

I noticed each bin consisted of 10 minutes of material from 20 clips. I treated rach sequence as a separate film, I could watch the sequence, move the clips to improve the flow, and clean up the dialogue at the in and out points at the original nested sequence.  Ideally, you should do this in the edited sequence, but I didn’t always have access to the visual cue of the waveform on a particular sequence without rendering it again.

Conclusion

With a new sequence created with this process, I could start editing on the themed topic bin. I knew I had the relevant descriptive nested clips in one bin, so I could find where I took that clip in the original interview by reviewing the descriptive markers on the sequence.  I designed a method that noted which clip was used and could double click any nested clip to open the descriptive nested sequence to access each individual multi-cam edit. This was helpful in cutting back and forth between two cameras to improve dialogue edits after I decided on my final edit.

Now the magic of editing was underway.

Adventures in a Tree, The Unruly Mystic: John Muir Movie Trailer (Published April 19, 2018)

Final clip from the mixed and cinema ready film.