Once upon a time there was a blog…and an editor who had time to write! Thanks for poking through my new website far enough to find this post. In the redesign, I decided to keep a blog page with an archive of my blogs from 2010 – 2017. Read More
I see the sample as a short film with one very specific goal: to leave the potential funder wanting to see more so badly that they will write the filmmaker a check. In the last blog, I wrote about how to get started editing a sample reel. Once you’ve defined the best of the best of your footage, it’s time to come up with a plan or a script for editing your sample. Here are five tips for making the strongest sample reel possible.Read More
This spring we’ll be editing a sample reel for A Paradise Lost, a documentary in progress by Laurie Sumiye.
I often get approached to help people edit sample reels for documentary films in progress, usually to show potential funders as part of a grant application. Editing sample reels is very different than editing a film trailer, where the film is at the fine cut stage, if not already completed, and so you clearly know what the film is about. Editing a sample reel is also different than cutting a crowdsourcing video for a platform like Kickstarter, IndieGoGo or GoFundMe, where there is usually a direct on-camera appeal from the filmmaker included.Read More
So excited to finally share this film with the world, Marlene Booth’s Kū Kanaka: Stand Tall is finished and our world premiere is November 7 at 8pm at Hawaii International Film Festival. Kū Kanaka is a portrait of Kanalu Young, a Hawaiian scholar, historian and activist. Read More
Here’s a quick post about using my iPhone as a quick and dirty recording device. I happen to have an iPhone 5, but I’m sure this would work on any newer smartphone using a comparable app.Read More
After years of editing on Final Cut Pro 7, it was finally time to choose a new editing software. I weighed the advantages of going back to Avid versus learning FCP X or Premiere Pro CC. Ultimately the marketplace decided for me…most folks here in Hawai‘i were switching to Adobe Premiere, and that is what they are now using at the local film school where many of the filmmakers with whom I collaborate teach.
Last summer I began editing Kū Kanaka: Stand Tall with producer/director Marlene Booth, using Adobe Premiere Pro CC, 2015 edition and we are now about 3 months into editing it. Many people have been asking if I have come up with a written best practices workflow, and so I’ve begun to document how we are editing the show. Read More