A Steadi walk down memory lane on UoG Campus

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Last weekend we got a break from production on Antisocial 2 to head home for some R&R. So of course I threw the Glidecam on for the day.

All of the students returned for another year of schooling and the University of Guelph asked me to cover their move-in day and make a video showing all of the emotion and excitement.

There was a special highlight for me: revisiting my original residence room in 1st year. It's been 11 years since I had been in that room (Good God!) and a wave of nostalgia hit me in the face when I saw it.

The rest of the day was spent racing around campus capturing clips of parents hugging their all-grown-up-now children goodbye, students meeting their roommates for the first time and all of the hard-working volunteers welcoming everyone to their first year at Guelph.

And now back to editing!

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Leanne and Chantelle from Student Housing Services were my smiley guides around campus for the day.

What Does It Feel Like To Be Part Of The Team - Day 8 of Antisocial 2

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As the production moves into Day 8 on Antisocial 2, my timeline gets more and more full. As you can see from the image above, we are up to 18 minutes of cut footage.

Director Cody Calahan has gotten used to popping into the edit suite here on set to view any new scenes. I'm set up out of the way of production and where none of the cast/crew can look over my shoulders for a glimpse of any scenes, but accessible for the director and producers to drop in whenever they can.

This is why I love editing on-site. Editing a film is satisfying to begin with, but being here I get to work directly with the crew. Ordinarily the editor comes in after production wraps and misses out on working with so many of the crew hands. Filmmaking is a collaborative and social experience so by being here on set I get to feel more like a part of the production.

Not to mention that the production then gets the benefit of seeing the scenes come together as they film them. It becomes a more immediate gratification knowing that what you shot yesterday has been pieced together today...and it works!

Yesterday there was a particularly freaky scene cut together that offered just that. Cody watched  short and scary sequence that actually shocked him. The director was prepared for the scare in the scene and it STILL got him! He called in the make-up artists to watch their work and they were PUMPED to see it play out. Everybody got a good high off of seeing proof that their hard work was giving killer results.

This is why I love doing what I do. Feeling like an important part of the amazing group of filmmakers here and seeing that what I do is helping to give a boost to the production. Puts a smile on my face at night.

Know what else makes me smile? When the camera department leaves messages for the editor when they slate, such as this birthday message from a scene shot last Thursday...

Feeling The Thrill of the Edit - Day 3 of Antisocial 2

An avalanche of footage landed on my desk in the form of a hard drive containing the last two days of filming. All of that prep work has paid itself off. Immediately I felt the thrill of the edit session as I finally gazed upon what the crew has been capturing so far for Antisocial 2.

First step was transcoding the footage through REDCine-X. As much as I will always have a soft spot for Final Cut, my first editing love, the tedious extra step of transcoding footage before anything will forever leave a bitter taste in my mouth.

Transcoding is an often necessary step at the start of post-production where the raw footage from the cameras is processed into a smaller package. This is done so that the computer doesn't have to work so hard to handle the LARGE video files while editing, therefore allowing the editor to work faster. However it sucks having to wait for it to finish. 

Even with the beastly RED Rocket Card equipped, it took 8 hours to transcode all of the clips to ProRes LT. 

Meanwhile the gents and I took a break and shared some stories from the day. After all, 1am may be the start of my work day but it is the end of theirs. One of the benefits I enjoy most about editing on-site is that I actually feel more like part of the crew. Since I've been away from set this whole time, this is a part of the day I look forward to a lot.

DMT, Producer, Editor and Sound for Antisocial 2.

But there is still MUCH work to be done and it's time to punch it into overdrive to catch up. Start a pot of coffee and slap the headphones on. Before waiting for every clip to finish transcoding, there is still work I can do in the meantime. I take the clips from both cameras and lay them on a timeline labelled SYNC. This is where I sync up the audio. "But Nick, can't you use PluralEyes to sync up the audio automatically?" I hate PluralEyes. Always have. Always will. We've never gotten along, although I understand it works well for some editors out there. All the power to ya!

My days of editing broadcast videos for OMAFRA on an AVID machine has gotten me very comfortable using the keyboard hotkeys to quickly navigate through an NLE. Ever since those days, syncing up audio in FCP has been a breeze. It may sound funny but I kind of enjoy doing it. It's a very satisfying task for me. And with my fingers flying across the keyboard, it's the closest thing to playing piano that I'll ever get.

Plus it forces me to watch a bit of each clip, which is what an editor should do first and foremost anyways. There isn't always a shotlist with notes on each take for the editor to use (there isn't one on this production anyways) so watching through the footage is important to see all that was captured. Get familiar with each take because that's how you sort them into golden takes, scraps and bloopers.

The clock reads 9:30am. Transcoding has finished, all clips have been synced to audio, and the first scene is roughly edited. Time to say good night, high five the crew as they wake up and head to set, and grab some shut-eye. Not a bad start so far.