So here I am, back in London to come to terms with what I’ve done. Meantime Jill Bilcock has done an assembly (which means she has strung everything together in sme sort of linear way in order for the film to make sense …
… the people at Working title (the producers) have seen the aasembly in my absence. I decided to spend mre time in India (it was so exciting !), that I got back a week later.
So what do we (the editor and I) need to do now ? I should have sat down and viewed the whole film in the theatre, but I know myslef. I started to watch the first two reels and my head was about to explode with ideas. So I stopped and much to Jill’s delight i walked straight into the cutting room and said “lets start cutting”. Forget the assembly.
What do I look for when we cut ?
a. that there is a point of view to every cut, to every scene
b. that where ever the film is going, there is an emotional undertow to the telling of the story
c. that there is more information than u can comprehend the first time you see the film, and there is strong subtext,
I am asking Billy, Jill’s first nw to keep a diary of the post production process, and he will try and answer any questions u may have. I will come in now and again,
thanks fr the visits and I hope to keep this as interesting as it was during the production of the film,
Shekhar
hi dude…
amazing…right from the horses mouth…(some times i hate this English language…these phrases sound so funny to me because i dont know their roots)
all the points A, B and C are great… i try to incorporate the same in my stories and then in the scripts…so these are my question revolving around points a b and c mentioned by you –
what about the PATTERNS? for example what Eicher did with his paintings(echings) or say Goedel found in his mathematical theories or say Bach did it with his music…Recurrence is a pattern common to all of them.
Mialn Kundera( immortality, unbearable lightness of being etc. kick ass work) composes his novels from the music compositions…he is a composer first and then a writer…so there is an unseen pattern in his novels…
say a visual pattern or sound pattern ?
ahh… ok ok …so all these A b and C together creat a pattern in your films. ( this is more like a thought process so i am answering my own questions…hehehe)
it must be in the script already but how you deal with it in the post production?
or does point C help you do that? point C is essentially a layer which must be there in the script.
or for that matter all points sound as if they are already there in the script and then you have already shot it… then how come you deal with these points at editing table?
or is it because your shooting ratio is too high unlike in India where ( in good films) it hardly exceeds 1:3/ max 5 ( hahaha…we are brilliantly creative but we are still poor, Shekhar…)
do you use computer gimmicks freely as budget seems not a big deal of transfering effects on the film at the level you are!?!
do you ‘colour correct’ your entire film? or fortunately your cinematographer has never cheated you much? (hahaha) well, inspite of good cinematography do you prefer to colour correct your films on computer? or it is too common now a days to do that?
my questions may sound foolish because i am not much of a technical guy…and i essentially like to carved out my scripts so well that all these A B and C are already taken care of and then i have been lucky to work with a guy who likes to direct according to what we have written together. (i will tell you when my film will come out. it got selected in London Festival but the director will not be able to match the dead line ( he says he has to work on Sound…i went deaf when he said that…) it is also likely to get into Berlin. but who cares, i am enjoying writing my other stories and scripts at the moment) so i can say its more of a Trauffaut style than Goddard. and my experince in films is negeligible so parden me if i am sounding too amateurish!!!
back to questions-
or is it only about more and more and more FINE tuning, which also can make a lot of difference, where the major decisions are already in the script and then on the reels?
or is it because you might hit on something so great in editing room which was not there in the script and even the way you shot? but just a few frames in this scene and few frames from that scene, and bang!!!!!!!!…. whole new meaning pops out with out harming the story, narration and your style of story telling?
you can igggggggggnore my kiddish questions but tell me what is your shooting ratio generally?
take care…
tata…
lots of love…
kedar…
Dear Shekhar, though I do not envy your work-load as a director.. I do envy the “fun-end” of the work, which is the final product!!
I am so looking forward to seeing The Golden Age, I feel like a child on Christmas Eve!!
All the very best Shekhar on the next step here, and may you and your peers, have fun as well, as all the hard work!!
Your capacity to work with stress and pressure, must be sky-rocket height!!
I work best under pressure sometimes.. how about you?
With Loving Kindness,
North
hi dude…
what FORM are u using this time to tell The Golden age? is it classical?
or is it something surprising? like Baz Lutherman’s ‘Romeo + Juliet’ ( i didnt like that film but interesting way to tell a story… i find Moulin Rouge better)
no one has yet told a historical tell in a most modern way. or is there any example of such kind in the world cinema where one can put that history tell and films like Memento or City of God or Bad Education on the same rack ( in spite of genre, based on FORM of telling a story)