Postproduction
The Postproduction Concentration
The Postproduction Concentration offers a unique opportunity for study in the Film and Video Department of Columbia College. With a large array of courses and possible areas of specialization in Narrative Editing, Documentary Editing, Digital Optical Effects and Sound Editing, students will benefit from a dedicated and knowledgeable staff and faculty along with an unrivaled 20, 000 square foot post-production facility.
Students studying in the undergraduate postproduction core can feel confident that they will have access to the finest equipment, faculty and staff to guide them to their goals.we are determined to provide an environment which allows students to prepare for careers in the areas of editing for picture and sound and digital optical effects for film and video through training which stresses the aesthetics and techniques along with its function in structuring a film or video work.
OUR LONG-RANGE OUTCOMES FOR STUDENTS STUDYING IN THE POSTPRODUCTION CONCENTRATION
Upon completion of the Advanced Editing Seminar (after taking 24 core curriculum hours and 36-38 hours in the editing concentration), students will be able to demonstrate abilities in technical, conceptual, and aesthetic elements of picture and sound editing and digital and optical effects through the process of written exams and a sample reel of their work. Upon completion of the core editing required classes, students will be able to:
From the number and complexity of the postproduction processes you can see how important the editor is both technically and creatively. For this reason the most common path to directing is by way of being an editor first.
DIPLOMACY
The editor receives the director when the latter is in a state of considerable anxiety and uncertainty, for the film though shot has yet to prove itself. At this time most directors, however confident they appear, are morbidly aware of their material's failures. Many suffer a sort of postnatal depression in the trough following the sustained impetus of shooting. If the editor and director do not know each other well, both will usually be formal and cautious. The editor is taking over the director's baby, and the director often carries mixed and potentially explosive emotions.
PERSONALITY
The good editor is patient, highly organized, ready to experiment endlessly, and diplomatic about trying to get his or her own way.
CREATIVE CONTRIBUTION
The editor's job goes far beyond the physical task of assembly, and the good editor - really a person of author caliber working from given materials - is highly aware of the material's possibilities. Directors are handicapped in this area through over-familiarity with their own intentions. Not being present at shooting, the editor comes on the scene with an unobligated and unprejudiced eye, and is ideally placed to reveal to the director what possibilities or problems lie dormant within the material.
On a documentary production, or an improvised fiction film, the editor is really the second director, since the materials supplied are usually capable of broad interpretation. Putting it more crudely, they are inherently entertaining but lack design. Unlike a scripted production, editing requires that the editor often make responsible subjective judgments. But even in a tightly scripted fiction film the editor needs the insight and confidence to know when to bend the original intentions to better serve the film's underlying goals. Editing is always far more than following a script, just as music is much more than playing the right notes. Composing is in fact the closest analogy to the editor's work.
RUSHES
Feature films usually employ the editor from the start of shooting, so the unit's output can be assembled as fast as it is shot. With low-budget films, however, economics may prevent cutting until everything is shot. This is risky because errors and omissions surface when it is too late to rectify them. One should therefore try to arrange to see dailies. Shooting on video allows rushes to be viewed immediately, so that any reshooting can be scheduled before quitting the location. Many 35mm feature film cameras now make a simultaneous video recording, which allows instant replay and mitigates the unit's absolute dependency upon the script supervisor's powers of observation. The low-budget filmmaker will have no such luxury, but if rushes can be synchronized at home base they can be transferred from the editing machine screen to VHS tape at minimal cost, and seen at the location on a VCR.
PARTNERSHIP
Relationships between directors and editors vary greatly according to the chemistry of status and temperaments, but it is usual for the director to discuss the intentions behind each scene, and to give any necessary special directions.
The editor then sets to work on making the assembly, which is a first raw version of the film. Wise directors leave the cutting room during this period in order to return with a fresh eye for what the editor produces. The obsessive director on the other hand will sit in the cutting room night and day watching the editor's every action. Whether this is at all an amenable arrangement depends on the editor. Some like to be able to debate their way through the cutting procedure. Most prefer being left alone to work out the film's initial problems in bouts of intense concentration over their logs and equipment.
In the end, very little escapes discussion; every scene and every cut is scrutinized, questioned, weighed, and balanced. The creative relationship is intense, often drawing in all the cutting room staff and the producer. The editor must often use delicate but sustained leverage against what he or she senses are those prejudices and fixations that gripe every director. Ralph Rosenblum's book When the Shooting Stops demonstrates just how varied and even crazy editor/director relationships can be.
DIRECTOR/EDITORS
In a low-budget movie the editor and director are for economic reasons sometimes the same person. This is particularly hazardous for the inexperienced. Another mind in creative tension with the director is an inestimable asset, insuring against an early tumble into the abyss of subjectivity. Because every film is created as an experience for an audience, the director needs the steadying and detached influence of an editor, or that director never gets any distance on the material, and falls prey to subjective familiarity with it. Cuts will get shorter and shorter, and scenes will be interwoven to the point where only the film's progenitors can still understand it. Sometimes this is an indulgent love relationship, but more often it is a self-flagellating dislike in which the director/editor puts the film through contortions in the attempt to mask its imagined deformities.
Sometimes a director will personally edit because he or she was formerly an editor and cannot trust anyone else to "do it properly"; sometimes the director is imbued with the auteur theory, and edits believing this will preserve a unified artistic identity for the film. Such impulses signal insecurities about maintaining control. This personality sometimes has great difficulty absorbing criticism, seeing it as an attack on his or her artistic autonomy.
In truth, the scrutiny of the emerging work by an equal, the editor's advocacy of alternative views, and collaboration itself all tend to help produce a tougher and better balanced film than any one person can generate alone. Reflect on this: you may not be the exception.
The Postproduction Concentration offers a unique opportunity for study in the Film and Video Department of Columbia College. With a large array of courses and possible areas of specialization in Narrative Editing, Documentary Editing, Digital Optical Effects and Sound Editing, students will benefit from a dedicated and knowledgeable staff and faculty along with an unrivaled 20, 000 square foot post-production facility.
Students studying in the undergraduate postproduction core can feel confident that they will have access to the finest equipment, faculty and staff to guide them to their goals.we are determined to provide an environment which allows students to prepare for careers in the areas of editing for picture and sound and digital optical effects for film and video through training which stresses the aesthetics and techniques along with its function in structuring a film or video work.
OUR LONG-RANGE OUTCOMES FOR STUDENTS STUDYING IN THE POSTPRODUCTION CONCENTRATION
Upon completion of the Advanced Editing Seminar (after taking 24 core curriculum hours and 36-38 hours in the editing concentration), students will be able to demonstrate abilities in technical, conceptual, and aesthetic elements of picture and sound editing and digital and optical effects through the process of written exams and a sample reel of their work. Upon completion of the core editing required classes, students will be able to:
- understand beginning film and video editing and digital optical effects concepts and practices;
- Impose a successful structure on given material including the effective arrangement of time within the work;
- control the rhythm, transitions of sound and picture, and creative use of other aspects of editing to reveal and heighten the emotional content of the piece and to help the audience involvement in the drama;
- demonstrate the creative handling of all sound elements such as dialogue, sound effects, voice over, music;
- work with a writer to determine the final form of the language-driven screen work;
- work collaboratively with directors, producers, and post-production personnel;
- improve a work in progress, by successfully receiving and incorporating criticism to arrive at an important work;
- make a statement of purpose and create a work from given materials reflecting the personal point of view specified in the statement;
- demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the responsibilities of an editor and assistant editor;
- be able to edit a short film and/or create digital optical effects that a) demonstrates proficiency of craft and creativity, and b) fulfills the maker's explicit purpose(s).
From the number and complexity of the postproduction processes you can see how important the editor is both technically and creatively. For this reason the most common path to directing is by way of being an editor first.
DIPLOMACY
The editor receives the director when the latter is in a state of considerable anxiety and uncertainty, for the film though shot has yet to prove itself. At this time most directors, however confident they appear, are morbidly aware of their material's failures. Many suffer a sort of postnatal depression in the trough following the sustained impetus of shooting. If the editor and director do not know each other well, both will usually be formal and cautious. The editor is taking over the director's baby, and the director often carries mixed and potentially explosive emotions.
PERSONALITY
The good editor is patient, highly organized, ready to experiment endlessly, and diplomatic about trying to get his or her own way.
CREATIVE CONTRIBUTION
The editor's job goes far beyond the physical task of assembly, and the good editor - really a person of author caliber working from given materials - is highly aware of the material's possibilities. Directors are handicapped in this area through over-familiarity with their own intentions. Not being present at shooting, the editor comes on the scene with an unobligated and unprejudiced eye, and is ideally placed to reveal to the director what possibilities or problems lie dormant within the material.
On a documentary production, or an improvised fiction film, the editor is really the second director, since the materials supplied are usually capable of broad interpretation. Putting it more crudely, they are inherently entertaining but lack design. Unlike a scripted production, editing requires that the editor often make responsible subjective judgments. But even in a tightly scripted fiction film the editor needs the insight and confidence to know when to bend the original intentions to better serve the film's underlying goals. Editing is always far more than following a script, just as music is much more than playing the right notes. Composing is in fact the closest analogy to the editor's work.
RUSHES
Feature films usually employ the editor from the start of shooting, so the unit's output can be assembled as fast as it is shot. With low-budget films, however, economics may prevent cutting until everything is shot. This is risky because errors and omissions surface when it is too late to rectify them. One should therefore try to arrange to see dailies. Shooting on video allows rushes to be viewed immediately, so that any reshooting can be scheduled before quitting the location. Many 35mm feature film cameras now make a simultaneous video recording, which allows instant replay and mitigates the unit's absolute dependency upon the script supervisor's powers of observation. The low-budget filmmaker will have no such luxury, but if rushes can be synchronized at home base they can be transferred from the editing machine screen to VHS tape at minimal cost, and seen at the location on a VCR.
PARTNERSHIP
Relationships between directors and editors vary greatly according to the chemistry of status and temperaments, but it is usual for the director to discuss the intentions behind each scene, and to give any necessary special directions.
The editor then sets to work on making the assembly, which is a first raw version of the film. Wise directors leave the cutting room during this period in order to return with a fresh eye for what the editor produces. The obsessive director on the other hand will sit in the cutting room night and day watching the editor's every action. Whether this is at all an amenable arrangement depends on the editor. Some like to be able to debate their way through the cutting procedure. Most prefer being left alone to work out the film's initial problems in bouts of intense concentration over their logs and equipment.
In the end, very little escapes discussion; every scene and every cut is scrutinized, questioned, weighed, and balanced. The creative relationship is intense, often drawing in all the cutting room staff and the producer. The editor must often use delicate but sustained leverage against what he or she senses are those prejudices and fixations that gripe every director. Ralph Rosenblum's book When the Shooting Stops demonstrates just how varied and even crazy editor/director relationships can be.
DIRECTOR/EDITORS
In a low-budget movie the editor and director are for economic reasons sometimes the same person. This is particularly hazardous for the inexperienced. Another mind in creative tension with the director is an inestimable asset, insuring against an early tumble into the abyss of subjectivity. Because every film is created as an experience for an audience, the director needs the steadying and detached influence of an editor, or that director never gets any distance on the material, and falls prey to subjective familiarity with it. Cuts will get shorter and shorter, and scenes will be interwoven to the point where only the film's progenitors can still understand it. Sometimes this is an indulgent love relationship, but more often it is a self-flagellating dislike in which the director/editor puts the film through contortions in the attempt to mask its imagined deformities.
Sometimes a director will personally edit because he or she was formerly an editor and cannot trust anyone else to "do it properly"; sometimes the director is imbued with the auteur theory, and edits believing this will preserve a unified artistic identity for the film. Such impulses signal insecurities about maintaining control. This personality sometimes has great difficulty absorbing criticism, seeing it as an attack on his or her artistic autonomy.
In truth, the scrutiny of the emerging work by an equal, the editor's advocacy of alternative views, and collaboration itself all tend to help produce a tougher and better balanced film than any one person can generate alone. Reflect on this: you may not be the exception.