More is Not Always Merrier

Until recently, Amazon was just a buy and sell website rivaling ebay. Now, thanks to a first look deal with Warner Bros. Pictures, Amazon Studios has been created.

Amazon Studios invites aspiring movie makers and script writers to:

“Win money. Amazon Studios will award a combined $2.7 million in our first year’s worth of monthly and annual contests for the best scripts and movies. There is no charge to participate.”

“Get noticed. Your work will be shared with a global community of filmmakers and fans, who can offer revisions and advice. Screenwriters can see their words come to life as full-length test movies made by directors vying for our $100,000 monthly awards.”

“Get your movie made. The goal of Amazon Studios is to work with Hollywood to turn the best projects into major feature films.”

This looks like a great opportunity for people who want to get their work out there and have a chance to win money and/or have their idea produced, until you read further.

“Make a movie. Your test movie can bring a great story one step closer to a theater. Start from scratch, or use pieces of other test movies.”

“Write a script. Upload your original screenplay, or revise one already on the site. Your version could make a good story great.”

Sounds like Amazon Studios is encouraging people to steal from others in order to become successful. In the professional movie industry, when someone wants to sample or produce a remake, they have to get permission and pay for the rights. On this unprofessional website, you can’t trust that the sampler will give credit to the original author. This is not the only problem with this film collaboration site.

As mentioned by Koo, the author of the blog, No Film School, the main reason movies turn sour is because “after countless notes from executives, several writers and dozens of drafts later, the original concept was diluted. Too many cooks in the kitchen.” Thus, more is not always merrier.

People are posting their work on this site so that their talent will have an opportunity to shine. This open collaboration could destroy the author’s original intention or give credit to people who don’t deserve it. Rarely do artists have the same vision and so this could lead to disaster.

Sometimes collaboration is positive, but when the group is in the same room together and discussing their ideas. By allowing random people to jump in and change a script without talking to the original author about their ideas corrupts the only positive aspect of collaboration.

Obviously, there are some serious kinks in the system that need to be worked out so that the correct people are receiving credit for their ideas as well as quality movies aren’t being diluted by a melting pot of ideas.

Giving Amazon Studios the benefit of the doubt, despite the problems, the website has real potential and is an amazing outlet for aspiring movie makers and script writers. It opens doors to peer reviews and collaboration and you have the chance to win money and even have your work produced by Warner Bros. Pictures. The website just recently launched so an evolution of the site is still a possibility.

Words Of Wisdom From Steve Cohen, A.C.E.

Steve Cohen, A.C.E., is an Emmy and Eddie award winning feature and television editor. Cohen was involved in creating the editing department at the American Film Institute, he was the first publisher of the Editors Guild Magazine, he helped Avid create the first 24-fps editing system, and he cut Media Composer’s first studio feature and Avid’s first television movie. This is why Cohen is considered “a pioneer in Hollywood’s transition to digital editing.”

Lawrence Jordan, publisher/content creator for the blog, Hollywood Reinvented, posted a 6-part interview with Cohen on Nov. 12, 2010. Each post is a 1.5 to 3-minute long video on different topics concerning video editing.

How has digital technology changed the style of editing? Cohen feels that digital technology has changed the pacing of editing. This is true for all mediums affected by technology. People have become impatient because of technology and that’s why the pacing of video editing has sped up. Cohen says that he even finds older movies to be slow and he never use to think so, but the fast pace of the digital age has altered video editing techniques.

How does someone learn the craft of editing? Video editing is one of those careers where it doesn’t matter how much education you have in the field, but how much experience you have in the field. Video editing can be taught, but most of your learning will come from practice, mentors, and, as Cohen says, osmosis. Cohen explains that the majority of editors he knows can’t explain how they edit because the magic just happens.

How have tools like Final Cut Pro affected the editing craft? Final Cut Pro has added to the editing applications competition. The continuous production of new products is healthy for the business because it means it will continue to grow and better and better products will enhance the work produced.

Why has Final Cut Pro been so widely adopted? Cohen explains how Avid was going after the market of professional editing while Apple saw all the people who wanted to edit, but didn’t have to tool to do it.

Has the introduction of low-cost editing tools helped or hurt the craft of editing? The introduction of low-cost editing tools has created a herd of amateur video editors. Everyone wants to edit video and this boosts the competition, which Cohen believes is great.

Are digital editing tools eliminating the need for editors? Digital editing tools have made the editing process more organized and able to create more advanced and visually appealing effects. In Cohen’s opinion, the video industry will always need editors because the video benefits from both a director and a video editor going over the production. The lower cost of the digital tools does threaten the wages of video editors. If an editing system costs less to own than the wage of an editor, the company may consider not hiring an editor or just not offering a very high salary.

Great words of wisdom from Steve Cohen, A.C.E. Be sure to check out Cohen’s new book, “Avid Agility,” in order to learn about Avid techniques and the new features in Media Composer 5.

What to Look for When Buying a Computer for Video Editing

The cut-throat debate between Mac and PC has been raging almost as long as the question, “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Sadly, there’s a good chance that both debates will tumble forever with no resolution in sight.

The Mac vs. PC debate is unsolvable because the computer choice is dependent on what you want to do with the computer. Even when you narrow the subject down, say to video editing, the selection still depends on the quality of video editing you plan to do on the computer.

Instead of trying to come to a conclusion for Mac vs. PC, a compare and contrast list of characteristics to consider when buying a computer for video editing will be put together, with the help of About.com, to determine which computer will fulfill your needs. Since this blog is focused on video editing, that’s the path this debate will go down as well.

Storage Space: pictures, videos, and editing programs will devour your computer’s internal drive space before you know it. Unless you are content with buying an external hard drive later on in your career, selecting a computer with a ton of internal drive space is a must.

Computer Inputs: Inputs are built into computers in order for you to connect your video camera to your computer and upload the videos to edit. “For the fastest way to edit video, the computer should have a firewire input. These inputs are also called IEEE 1394 and iLink.” If you end up buying an external hard drive to substitute your computer’s lack of internal drive space, you can buy one with a firewire input and output.

Programs: both Mac and PC are compatible with video editing programs, but which one is best for you will depend on what kind of projects you plan on making. Movie Maker and iMovie are for amateur video projects while Adobe Premiere, Avid, and Final Cut Pro lean more towards the professionals. If you plan to become a professional video editor and buy one of the high-end programs, your computer will also need lots of processing power.

Screen Size: The screen size of a computer ranges from the size of a clutch purse to a flat screen television. When it comes to video editing, bigger is better. You’ll want to be able to have a clear view of everything you’re doing. The finished product on a large-screened computer will also look closer to what it will look like on the television and leave less room for quality surprises. Also, most of the time, the smaller the computer screen, the less memory it holds.

Upgrades: Lastly, technology is always changing and updating, so you and your computer need to be able to keep up. Making sure the computer can have memory added or get upgrades will be helpful in the future, especially if your video editing needs change over time.

Happy Computer Hunting!

Great Opportunities for Video Editors

The American Cinema Editors, or ACE, “is an honorary society of motion picture editors founded in 1950.  Film editors are voted into membership on the basis of their professional achievements, their dedication to the education of others and their commitment to the craft of editing.”

This honorary society offers editing workshops, called EditFest, every year in New York and California. The workshops are an intense day and a half full of video editor panels, networking, discussions and workshops.

If you are serious about video editing, attending one, or both, of these workshops would be beneficial to your current or future editing career. Unless you are rich, the reason you must be serious about video editing in order to attend is because the workshop costs $249 per student, plus the cost of transportation and housing if you are from out of town.

Here is last year’s EditFestNY itinerary to use as an example of the kind of activities offered. Friday at 7:15 p.m., there is an opening night panel called “The Lean Forward Moment” in which “feature film editors discuss influential scenes from their favorite films”. Following the panel, at 9 p.m., is a cocktail party in which attendees have the opportunity to “network with industry pros and colleagues.”

Friday night’s activities are over by 11 p.m. in order for the attendees to get a great night’s sleep and return to the venue by 10 a.m. for a discussion called “The Documentary Edit: Finding the Moment”. Following a fifteen minute break, the workshop reconvenes at noon in the editing room for “Anatomy of a Scene with Alan Heim” in which attendees have class with the “former ACE president and Oscar winning editor, as he deconstructs scenes from his legendary body of work.”

At last, an hour and fifteen minute lunch break is offered before “Cutting Yourself Out of a Corner” in which “editors discuss their many problem solving experiences”. Fifteen minutes later is a discussion with “Steve Rivkin and John Refoua, editors of the Oscar winning film Avatar, [about] their groundbreaking process”. Then to close out the program, from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. is a “Pizza and Beer” networking opportunity.

For someone looking to have a career in video editing, the price of EditFest is worth it because it would be a great experience in general and it offers the chance for you to be exposed to the knowledge of some of the best in the field and you could even land a job if you network well.

There is no information posted on the website about next year, so stay tuned. Until then, keep searching for other great opportunities as a video editor. Production Conn in Connecticut is similar to EditFest and is an example of another place to get yourself out there. Next year’s convention is February 7 and 8.

It may seem like video editors lead secret lives until you start looking into the career and you’ll find that there are conventions, guilds and magazines all dedicated to video editing.

Political Video Editing, Ethics and Fox News

Video editors are presented with hours and hours of material that they have to somehow string together to produce a coherent story. Making sure nothing is taken out of context is extremely important, especially if you are a video editor for a news station.

The video editors of Fox News have been under speculation since 2008 due to deceptive video editing. Media Matters for America, “a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media,” posts excellent examples of the news station’s work.

In 2008, New York Times reporter Jacques Steinberg and editor Steven Reddicliffe published an article discussing the fact that CNN and MSNBC have started to become very popular and Fox is losing their edge. Obviously enraged, Fox News’ Fox & Friends called the New York Times employees “attack dogs” and aired photos of them that were obviously altered.

In 2009, Fox removed comments from speeches in order to misrepresent the speaker.  Surprisingly, President Obama has been the victim of this three times. According to Fox, Obama supports a Supreme Court nominee who relies on empathy rather than the law when making decisions, he’s anti-American, and he supports European-style health care. Former Vice President Al Gore has been hit as well and was made to look like he profited from his climate change presentations even though he donated all the money he made.

Fox continued with its deceptive behavior and aired old footage of Vice President Joe Biden and said that it was new, encouraged a crowd to cheer as their correspondent spoke at a rally, and aired footage of a two-month-old rally for a recent rally about a completely different subject.

Then most recently, Hillary Clinton was interviewed and she criticized the Bush administration’s deficit spending, but Fox cropped her words so that it would seem like she was talking about the Obama administration. A “technical error” was also made when posting a video of Obama’s speech to West Point cadets on FoxNews.com when all the audio of applause was edited out.

News stations are suppose to be non-biased and trust-worthy. When it comes to politics, the nation receives enough mud-slinging commercials from the candidates so they don’t need any from the news station as well. It’s so wrong how Fox thinks they can just slap together whatever they want and call it the truth.

For all you future video editors out there, take this article as what NOT to do during your career. Video editors should have ethics.

Let the Actors be the Stars

When you have a behind the scenes job, such as video editing for a movie, there’s a solid possibility that you could one day become jealous of all the attention the performers receive. Even though your name scrolls across the silver screen and you have a category in the Oscars, you still feel like your hard work goes unnoticed. As a result, you try and draw more attention to your work by making more noticeable edits in the film. HAULT. Step away from the computer.

You have to remember that it’s about the overall product and to not let selfish desires interfere. Steve Hamilton, a video and sound editor for films and commercials, states in the article, “The Lost Art of Film Editing”, “The goal [is] simply to tell the best possible story and to do so relatively invisibly.”

Over-editing can actual ruin a scene of a movie by changing its emotions. The article mentioned above, published in The Boston Globe and written by Jessica Winter, author of “The Rough Guide to American Independent Film,” brings to light a great example of this dilemma. In the 2006 summer film, “The Devil Wears Prada,” there is a scene when Meryl Streep’s character, executive of the Runway fashion magazine, presents a detailed history of the color cerulean blue in order to explain harshly to Anne Hathaway’s character, Streep’s new second assistant, that fashion is not just “stuff”.

Winter imagines the filming of this scene to be “the camera slowly tracking in on Streep, helpless to turn away, registering every flicker of expression as the monologue curls from her lips like a fragrant poison gas,” but “instead, the movie’s eyes dart nervously back and forth between actors and objects, conjuring an air not of awe and dread so much as desultory mania.”

This shows how powerful video editing is because it can change an actor’s performance and the mood of a scene.

When working to produce a movie, you have to keep in mind that it’s about the end result and not about showing off. You have to let the actor’s performance speak before you step in with editing. It may seem unfair that the actors receive all the attention, but that’s just how it goes and you can’t jump in and steal their thunder because it might throw off the movie’s mood.

Experience is the Key to a Career in Video Editing

When Friday night rolls around, it’s a common activity among people to catch a movie with the gang. As any movie-goer would know, before the feature presentation appears on the silver screen, viewers have to sit through at least five movie trailers. Even though it’s not typical for a person to enjoy watching coming attractions, this activity is most likely the reason the person is sitting in the movie theatre in the first place.

Trailers are a movie’s number one form of advertisement because it’s what captures a person’s attention and makes them desire to see the flick. Post-production studios, often called Trailer Houses, are responsible for developing the coming attractions as well as other post-production needs.

One example of a post-production studio is The Ant Farm, located in Los Angeles, California. The Ant Farm produces anything from movie and video game trailers and television spots to print advertising and voice over narration recording. The key to nabbing a job at a place such as The Ant Farm, is experience.

“We hire students sometimes as a [Production Assistant] if they [sic] student has editing experience” said Melissa J. Palazzo, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer of The Ant Farm LLC.

These companies don’t look for any specific type of major. As long as you have an impressive portfolio and enough knowledge and experience to do your job correctly, you have a great chance at the open position.

A great place to start on gathering experience is finding out what editing program the company of interest uses. The Ant Farm, for example, works with Avid and so your best bet at getting a job there is to be familiar with that program. You should also find internships, charity work, or film festivals to develop your skills and build a portfolio before applying for that dream job.

You have to have a desire for knowledge and chase after your dreams. Palazzo’s advice is to “keep asking questions and you will be on your way!” Most importantly, gather experience so that you can strut into the office on your first day, ready for some action.

Need a Job? Don’t be so Square

Joshua Adam is a recent graduate from the University of Central Florida with a degree in mass communications and theatre. His dream job is to be a news anchor, but Adam is having a tough time finding employment. Eventually, Adam found a tiny news station in Alabama that would hire him. In a time of economic prosperity, a news station would have a news anchor, a camera person and a video editor, at the very least. At the Alabama news station, Adam is playing the role of all three.

By now, it is not a secret that our economy is suffering, and due to this financial downturn, companies are cutting budgets as well as employees. The cuts not only make finding a job more difficult, they also alter the job requirements. This is because employers are no longer searching for people who specialize in certain tasks. In an attempt to save money, employers want a well-rounded person who can do the job of multiple people.

According to the United States Department of Labor, unemployment is close to reaching ten percent. Not everyone can be as fortunate as Adam and already have the skills necessary to do the job of different branches of a compan when a job opportunity arises.

Steven Greenhouse of The New York Times, states that some people “are in an industry where successive waves of downsizing have made job security seem shaky. And more of them are concluding that if there is an answer to their problems, it’s more education.”

This need for more education, just to keep your job, is creating major competition. On the one side of the boxing ring is the employee with years of commitment to a company. His or her teammate is the student who is willing to work for less, but specializes in one task. The tag team’s opponent is another student willing to work for less, but is well-rounded and qualified to do the work of many. Ding ding ding. The winner is the well-rounded student, because that student will be able to do more work for less money. That combination is like music to the ears of a company on a tight budget.

The workforce that once put its superstar employees on pedestals and gave them glamorous paychecks is no longer around. This dilemma is hitting harshly on those that have been employed for years. Students who still have a few years before graduation, on the other hand, are in the best spot during this gloomy situation. Instead of returning to the classroom after you have been away for years, students can make sure that they are prepared for the downsizing wave before they even put on their cap and gown.

Years ago, the “know it all” was shunned by his or her peers, but now we are all striving for that nickname in order to grab a job.