Editing Update

Hi, my name is Ali and I'm one of the editors, the other being Luke, on S'kali.

For the technical minded, we're editing using Final Cut Pro Studio (5 HD) using a Sony HVR-A1E camera as a deck. Editing on a Mac, first generation G5 with a 1.8ghz processor and armed with 1.5gig RAM, a dual CRT display, and a 400Gb internal drive with 2 Lacie D2 drives daisy chained up giving us 860Gb of space which, as we're working in high-def, isn't as much as it sounds!

We're over a month into the actual edit now (I think... It's all been rather a big blur) although with the import procedure beforehand (the pain in the ass for any editor, and always the most uncreative, tedious part although the out takes always make for good watching), we must be looking at six weeks so far, and we've finally got a rough cut down which Arivind, the writer/producer viewed over the weekend. The feedback was very positive, but there is still a lot of work to go.

The rough edit, as always, is mostly a case of "sticking everything in order" to put it crudely. It's a chance to watch the whole film, make sure the story is coherent and that it flows at a good pace.

So far, so good. It's been a tough process. This is the first feature film for the crew and we're working with new high definition technology so many of the things that might have been a given with standard definition film can't be carried over into the HD era. Our first cut, however, is flowing nicely.

Our next step is to get creative with the transitions between scenes which I'm excited about as it will give us a chance to use some of the visually stunning cultural footage and location footage of Malaysia.

One of the issues which came about during filming were the changes to the "rest stop" scene near the end of the film (I won't give away the story here, but you'll know it when you see it). Originally the vision of this scene was fairly straight forward but the crew weren't too happy with the location and so we get a chance, as editors, to be creative in the way that we handle one of the most pivotal moments of the film. We get to "screw around" with the narrative here and tell this part of the story in a more interesting way. We also have some fantastic music to edit to for a sequence near the end of the movie. It'll give us a chance to almost create a music video of sorts (if you've ever seen Millennium's The Time Is Now, you'll know just how well these sorts of things can contribute to a film both from a story telling and artistic point of view) and to tell parts of the story in a way that is visually and emotionally exciting.

All in all, the edit has been a huge challenge but it's getting to be very rewarding. Of course, still to come is the enhancement of the actual picture, and I think we will be using Magic Bullet to treat much of the film, which I used previously on a short film, Mighty Tykes, last year. This will be quite a challenge as HD tends to show up any glitches and artifacts, so this will be a learning curve for us as editors too. Sound still needs a bit of work, but we're getting there.

The edit is helped along by copious amounts of coffee, beef jerky, pop tarts and the fact that there's a fruit machine in our studio... What more could we ask for?

...Sleep perhaps?