Thursday, January 12, 2012

3 from Lumet and coming close with Post!

We just brought onboard Tom Swartwout, who edited Sidney Lumet's last 4 films.  Call it coincidence, timing or that intangible force I call the "Film God," but that means that "The Red Robin" has the distinction of having 3 key talents who have worked with Mr. Lumet: our first AD, Mike Meador, Joseph Lyle Taylor(plays Leonard) starred in Lumet's short-lived tv series "100 Center Street," and now Tom.  I am a big fan of Lumet's work.  This wasn't intentional.  It just so happened that these people gravitated towards the project or we came into their orbit at the right time.  For me, it's kind of a nice omen to have some inspiration from one of my favorite American directors.   As Mr. Lumet would say I'm sure, use it now to continue your creative self-deception in the edit, but don't be married to it. '  Or at least that's what I can hear his very practical and sensible self saying.

We have had a few small delays but nothing that's out of the ordinary.  We needed to re-transcode all of our raw red epic files for MFX avid files.  What we originally transcoded are too large for avid and tcp and would trip up even the most powerful OS.  So our DP loaned us his red rocket and we are retranscoding then grouping all at the same time.  I am watching the initial Pro res on my Macbook and starting to make selects, though I wish I had a bigger monitor than 15 inches to watch these on.  In a few weeks, Tom and I will sit down for 7 days in our dailies bunker, watch everything together and start talking voluminously about each scene.  Once I feel like he's got what he needs and understands the emotion, the pacing, the point-of-view I'm aiming for with each scene, I'm sending him off to work remotely and we will be ichatting everyday through the rough cut.  Though I was initially planning on being in the room every day for the rough cut, I trust that this working style will serve the project best. Had we had the money and planning beforehand, Tom would've been editing while I was shooting. So while I'm not just throwing him the rushes and saying "have at it," I am giving him creative space to edit unencumbered by my absolute lack of objectivity and his absolute total objectivity.  Every day he will send me what he's done and I will certainly give notes, but I don't want to obstruct the first pass.  I'd rather let the editor have the space to create and when we get to the fine cut, then we start really building the house, resettling the foundation, redoing the walls and reworking everything that needs attention.
As a director, there's always a strong desire to maintain control over everything and I agree, it's your film at the end of the day.  Each frame is the result of your decisions.  That being said, I believe you have hired some very creative people who have their own perspective and getting the best work out of them doesn't mean breathing over their shoulder every second.  Give them a very specific plan, no doubt, give them the mold, the feeling, the 'what's it about' and 'what do we need to focus on here' but don't do their job.  You want to inspire them to find something that you may never have expected either in writing/directing.  That's the ultimate goal.  That each stage of post-production adds a layer...makes the broth even richer
I want my editor to be a storyteller as well, not just someone who is good at following orders because that's their job.  That's not my idea of filmmaking.  Never has been.  To be the director of a project means hiring the right people and getting them to elevate the words on the page or the frames of film(red).  In my humble opinion, that means hiring the right people and inspiring them to do their best work that will in the end do what's most important--serve to tell the best story in the best way possible.

So there's my corny wisdom this week.  If you're reading this, remember, these are all opinions. Every creative person has their own way that works best for them.  Many would disagree with me.  Maybe I'll disagree with myself a few pictures down the road.  No, wait, I'm a filmmaker, not a politician. Peace out.

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