Editing style differences between the film era and the digital domain we now have.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Jerry Lewis would differ with you on that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_assist

I don't know how many movie productions have historically used video assist, but directors still demand their dailies anyway.

I remember The Room was truly shot on both HD cinema cameras and 35mm simultaneously. I'm not sure if that process was repeated afterwards. Then again, they pulled an extensive green screen scene for something that could've been filmed on any random rooftop.

[Leo Enticknap]

Non-linear video editing today is very easy and very accessible TO ANYONE. You can download a FREE version of DaVinci Resolve 17 right now and have professional quality tools right at your fingertips. For only $295 you can buy the whole DaVinci Resolve Studio suite. Audio editing, video editing, color correction, motion effects, etc all in that package. And it doesn't take a top of the line computer to run it either. Don't know how to use it? There are plenty of tutorial videos online and lots of documentation to walk you through it.

That is both a blessing and a curse. By the same token, you can download LibreOffice for free and attempt to write a novel using it. But if you don't know that a sentence is supposed to have a subject and an object (for example), the result is not going to be a huge success. Likewise, if you haven't been taught the basic principles of editing moving images (cut from wide to medium to close-up, cut on action, match eyelines where possible, obey the 180-degree rule, ensure continuity of visual information within the frame, etc. etc.), it doesn't matter how much you spend on hardware and software - you'll make a home movie, not a professional production.

[Marcel Birgelen]

That is both a blessing and a curse. By the same token, you can download LibreOffice for free and attempt to write a novel using it. But if you don't know that a sentence is supposed to have a subject and an object (for example), the result is not going to be a huge success. Likewise, if you haven't been taught the basic principles of editing moving images (cut from wide to medium to close-up, cut on action, match eyelines where possible, obey the 180-degree rule, ensure continuity of visual information within the frame, etc. etc.), it doesn't matter how much you spend on hardware and software - you'll make a home movie, not a professional production.

Have you checked modern action movies lately?

- 180 degree rule? huh? We pan the camera everywhere we want.
- match eyelines where possible? Our monsters don't even have eyes...
- continuiwhat?

Sorry, I recently watched the latest Matrix movie, I guess the pain hasn't entirely gone away.

I'm waiting for Warner Brothers to release their next big movie right onto TikTok...

[Randy Stankey]

Dailies are just part of the culture, whether the medium be digital or real. It's the way people who make movies structure their workday.
The first thing a director does when he gets to work on a given day is to review yesterday's work. If some movie scene needs to be reshot, it is best to do it as soon as possible so that reshot footage matches with already finished stuff.

It doesn't really matter how that is done. Whether it is done by 24-frame video assist, by developing a print off the camera negative or by simply playing back the digital camera files, the previous days shooting still needs to be reviewed. It's just professional behavior. Anybody who makes a movie who doesn't review footage or, at least, give it a look-see is asking for trouble.

No, you don't need fancy equipment or computers to make a good movie. There was that Russuan guy, Aleksandr Petrov, who made an animated version of The Old Man and the Sea using fingerpaint on glass. There was a Japanese guy (I forget his name) who used to make animations by scratching images directly onto film using just a needle and a magnifying glass.

The idea that one must do a project a certain way is utter BS. It doesn't matter whether you shoot a movie digitally, on real film or whether you do it by placing grains of colored sand, using tweezers. People need to understand that the value of a project is in the doing of it.

If completing a movie project isn't its own reward, people have no business trying to make a movie in the first place.

[Bobby Henderson]

There is something to be said for at least knowing the rules before breaking them.

That is both a blessing and a curse. By the same token, you can download LibreOffice for free and attempt to write a novel using it. But if you don't know that a sentence is supposed to have a subject and an object (for example), the result is not going to be a huge success. Likewise, if you haven't been taught the basic principles of editing moving images (cut from wide to medium to close-up, cut on action, match eyelines where possible, obey the 180-degree rule, ensure continuity of visual information within the frame, etc. etc.), it doesn't matter how much you spend on hardware and software - you'll make a home movie, not a professional production.

Many aspects of the movie-making process or even professional level TV production is still expensive as hell. I think the real reason why Blackmagic Design sells its full DaVinci Resolve suite for such a cheap price is it's a loss leader for the professional cameras and other hardware they sell. That stuff isn't nearly as affordable to buy. Feature movies still have to be shot with cinema-class cameras fitted with cinema-quality lenses. Most productions only rent that gear.

Anyone can still learn the basics of shooting and editing video for very little money. That probably is having an adverse effect of lots of amateurs entering the movie-making field with little if any formal training or education.

I've had the same complaints about the graphic design industry for a long time. 30+ years ago when most graphics production work was completed using analog tools anyone doing the work needed quite a lot of formal training in order to be productive. Once computers entered the scene a long slow process began where ever more self-taught amateurs willing to work for less were taking jobs previously held by degreed professionals. I work in the sign industry and the amateur hour stuff is really bad in this field. Thanks to a growing number of affordable graphics applications we're seeing a new syndrome where more and more customers are doing the design work themselves. And why shouldn't they? If they're going to walk into a sign shop or print shop where the so-called "professionals" are barely qualified to do the work the customer might do just as well by doing the design work himself. It's a crappy situation and one that may only get cleaned up by a growing wave of local anti-signs ordinances.

None of the graphics applications available to buy or download for free teach any of the principals of page layout, color theory, typography, etc. They don't teach technical things like the differences in RGB or CMYK color models or color profiles associated with them. It is possible for someone to learn about those things on their own by researching online. Results in learning tend to be better in a classroom setting.

[Ed Gordon]

Let's not forget Chuck Workman's masterpiece from 1996! Hundreds of cuts in less than eight minutes.

[Leo Enticknap]

- 180 degree rule? huh? We pan the camera everywhere we want.

Moving the camera over the 180 degree line during a shot (panning or tracking) is not breaking the rule, because the viewer can see the change in perspective happening (Hitchcock does it all the time in Rope). Cutting across it is, because the viewer has no visual reference for the change in perspective.

Many aspects of the movie-making process or even professional level TV production is still expensive as hell. I think the real reason why Blackmagic Design sells its full DaVinci Resolve suite for such a cheap price is it's a loss leader for the professional cameras and other hardware they sell

A combination of that, and wanting to lock you in to their product. Same rationale for Microsoft selling bulk licensing deals for Windows and Office to workplaces with hundreds or thousands of employees, that include "free" license keys for them to install the software on their personal desktops and laptops, for work-at-home purposes (officially). They don't want these people using LibreOffice at home and discovering that for most purposes, it's just as good as Microsoft's offering. If they had to pay $200-300 for Microsoft Office, that is exactly what they'd do.

[William Kucharski]

The video's director, Zbigniew Rybczynski, made a number of visually challenging music videos in the 1980's with a variety of different music acts.

I always loved his video for the Art of Noise's "Close to the Edit."

https://youtu.be/-sFK0-lcjGU

[Bobby Henderson]

Yeah the music video for Close (to the Edit) had a hilarious insanity to it. My high school orchestra teacher didn't like the video's characters destroying all those classical instruments, as ordered by the little girl who looked like a tiny, slutty version of Madonna. The destruction of those instruments was a little more extreme than some rock star smashing an electric guitar. Then the little girl has to save the weenie dog. Who knows what the three guys might do to it.

[Scott Norwood]

I think that it's more about trends than technology. I've seen well-edited films that were cut on the Avid and poorly edited films that were cut on film. GWTW and Vertigo both come to mind as films where music carries across multiple reel changes, and neither is poorly edited (and both pre-date the Avid by decades).

That said, what I think is happening now is that it has become easy to shoot too much and also easy to cut too much. So many movies and TV shows now have unnecessary cuts in them. They do nothing to reveal anything or improve the story. Often, it seems as if some editor is trying to justify his job by making extra cuts, as goofy as that seems. This can be done on film, but it's easier on the Avid, especially if there is more original footage (or whatever the video equivalent is) from which to choose. So, I suppose that technological changes are probably influencing aesthetic changes, but this has been a long time coming.

[Bobby Henderson]

I wonder how much story boards are used in movie and TV production anymore. Sometimes I get the feeling crews are just winging it, shooting a mountain of material then trying to make sense of the pile in post production.

In the past more up front pre-production planning was very necessary because every camera angle took more time to set up. More time was burned between takes to do various tasks. Without careful planning costly errors could happen. The more time consuming nature of production greatly limited how many camera angles one could have in a specific scene. You might have a master shot for coverage and then camera A and camera B for an exchange of dialog between two characters. Shooting digitally allows far more flexibility. The camera can roll longer allowing actors to do more takes, improv, etc. The faster overall nature allows for more angles. The wide variety of cameras allows angles in more places. It can be easier to manipulate certain kinds of digital footage in post production. So now any scene might have the usual camera A and camera B angle, along with camera C, D, E, F, G, etc for kinds of other stuff.

Rather than improve creativity I think some of the advances in movie/TV production technology have allowed "film makers" to get away with doing more fast, sloppy, undisciplined work. For a long time I've had the same complaints about the graphic design industry. 30+ years ago anyone doing professional work would almost always start out sketching ideas by hand and actually developing some kind of plan. Back in the mid-late 1980's artists had to rent time on early computers powerful enough to do graphics work. Today it seems most people just jump right in, throwing random shit together in Photoshop or something. Some people are still doing excellent quality work, but there is a giant tide of shit out there as well.

[Mike Blakesley]

Let's not forget Chuck Workman's masterpiece from 1996! Hundreds of cuts in less than eight minutes.

I'm glad to see this on YouTube. I remain amazed that Disney granted rights for the clip from "Song of the South" for it.

Makes me wonder how much of this film would get excised for being too "controversial" if it was made today. The clip from "The Jazz Singer" would have to go, for sure!

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

Thanks to all of you, this is a great discussion and many have brought up points I hadn't thought of when I started this thread.

I just watched "The Right Stuff" on dvd again, and the editing to the reel beats were pretty obvious. Maybe because I ran that movie on 35mm changeovers for three shows has something to do with that perception, but probably not. (And let us not forget the major screwup at the Chinese in 70mm I discussed on the old forum...) http://www.film-tech.com/cgi-bin/ubb...691;p=2#000020

So far, the consensus seems to be that technology did bring the changes I noticed, but it was the editorial tech, not the projection tech, that initiated them. As Mr. Spock would say, "Fascinating."

[Marcel Birgelen]

So far, the consensus seems to be that technology did bring the changes I noticed, but it was the editorial tech, not the projection tech, that initiated them. As Mr. Spock would say, "Fascinating."

The very essence of cinema projection hasn't really changed all that much between film and "video", at least not yet. We're still projecting mostly rectangular, 2D images onto a big screen and with a few exceptions, we're still doing it at 24fps and even the color space hasn't changed very much. "HDR" is only now creeping in, but doing so, very slowly.

Attempts at higher frame-rates, which was technically also possible with film, but at even higher expenses, never really got anywhere. Stereoscopic 3D, something which also had been done with films decades before, came and mostly went away. Concoctions like Barco Escape, a lame attempt at replicating immersive formats like Cinerama, came and went in an instant. The industry keeps on trying with stuff like ScreenX, but if that did have any momentum, it may one of the few lucky victims of the pandemic...

[Scott Norwood]

Attempts at higher frame-rates, which was technically also possible with film, but at even higher expenses, never really got anywhere. Stereoscopic 3D, something which also had been done with films decades before, came and mostly went away. Concoctions like Barco Escape, a lame attempt at replicating immersive formats like Cinerama, came and went in an instant. The industry keeps on trying with stuff like ScreenX, but if that did have any momentum, it may one of the few lucky victims of the pandemic...

Agreed. Most of these deserved to die.

I'm kind of on the fence about Atmos, but it seems to have some staying power (and likely the Dolby name hasn't hurt it).

And most DCPs still come in "reels" with a single CPL.