August 8, 2024 • 19 mins
Welcome to this week's edition of the Content Combo Podcast, presented by Casual Films. Join host Thomas Elliott and expert editors Ansh Grey, Joey Kan, and filmmaker Richie Fowler as they delve into the concept of "shooting for the edit." Discover the importance of staying true to the story, avoiding overshooting, and the significance of a good shot list or storyboard in pre-production.
Gain insights from the team on how to achieve an optimal balance of footage, the usability ratio of shots, and the benefits of thinking in sequences. Learn how effective communication between production and post-production teams can enhance the final product, and why disciplined shooting can make or break a project.
Whether you're a filmmaker, creator, or brand, this episode is packed with valuable tips and advice on capturing material for the edit, ensuring you deliver compelling video content that drives results. Don't miss out on this essential guide to mastering the art of shooting for the edit.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to the Content Combo Podcast, presented by Casual Films.
Tune in every Friday, so you can hear from our team of experts about how to
deliver effective video content that drives results.
Every time, without fail. And now it's over to our hosts.
Welcome to this week's edition of the Content Combo Podcast.
(00:24):
I'm your host, Thomas Elliott, it and joining me to make up the combo this week
are editors Ant Gray, Joey Kahn and filmmaker Richie Fowler.
Hey guys, how you doing? Hello, hello.
In today's podcast we're talking all about shooting for the edit,
something that everybody in this room knows all about.
So let me start by asking the three of you, what does shooting for the edit mean for you?
(00:47):
Shooting for the edit means It means trying to stay clear to the story we're creating.
Try not to be too much of a headache for the editor.
So part of that is not overshooting too much. I can see lots of nods there. Avoid eye contact.
Sorry, I'm just going to stare at you as I do this.
(01:08):
Part of that is having a good shot list or a storyboard or really kind of communicating
in pre-production what's the intention of the story. So I guess that's my meaning.
For you, Arch and Joey, what does shooting for the edit mean to you both?
For me, it's like relating what Richie actually said. As the editor,
for me, whenever I'm getting footage, it's going to be a lot of footage, which is great.
(01:30):
But when you basically do chop in, chop out of every clip, you realize,
oh wait, we can't use majority of it because you're cutting the tail end of
a fish and the head away to basically get the main fillet, and there's just
too much of a tail and there's too much of the head.
Every story requires a particular type of shot. Every shot needs to tell a story.
What about you, Joey? One thing I had a conversation with another editor a while
(01:53):
back was there is this thing called usability ratio of your shots,
and as you become a better cinematographer,
the usability ratio of your shots goes up.
A good ratio is like 50% of your shots are like usable in the edit.
It is challenging when you are doing like documentary style filming
because you know you're you're not always in a controlled environment so you're
(02:16):
trying to get a lot of coverage as well but then you can still be thinking about
how much it can be used and the edit later on and like then you're you know
if you get a higher usability ratio then everyone's happy.
Do you think a key part of this is to try and think more in sequences when you're
filming rather than just in individual shots or moments?
(02:39):
If you're looking at stock footage sites, a lot of times as editors,
we're always trying to look for stock footage to like fill out our shots.
And I'm always very happy when I see a stock footage, which is there's like
maybe like three or four shots that are in one scene.
So it's like three people around a coffee table, but then there is a wide shot,
a close up and a medium shot of like the same scene happening and you're like
(03:01):
oh great i'm gonna download all of these cha-ching you know like getty images
is gonna get all the money from us if they have all these shots all the time you.
And this is the thing we talk about a lot more on set is like what
is the shot that leads you into the sequence what are
the kind of key bits of the action that you can capture
from multiple different angles to make it
(03:21):
interesting if you need to extend or contract and then what
is the thing that leads you out of the sequence so that
basically you can then have a natural float everything i
think that's something you learn as you go along as a storyteller but it's
like every single bit of the story needs to
have a bit that leads you in you need to have the action covered so that
you can kind of or you have a great impressive master shot
(03:41):
if you've got the time to tell that story and you have something that comes out you
sort of need to realize there are scenes in your movie where
you should trust masters more because you can just kind of tell the story through
the master but then you should also realize there are always going to be those
moments that you just need to quickly cover and move
on and often like in a movie like in a you know theatrical feature
it's the exposition scenes are the ones where you just just need to
cover it and move on because they're not dramatic they're not
(04:04):
they are literally just filling in the information for the story so i
think often in content it's trying to think about what are the
sequences where you can do that and what are the sequences where you need to come
with that because it's an action and keep the story moving what is
the process like for the editors when there is either too much
or too little footage to work with neither of
those situations are are optimal i would yeah yeah thank.
(04:25):
You for being honest it's like when you cook a steak like you have to get it
to the perfect temperature or the wet you know it's too rare you can kind of
eat it it's too well done tastes like crap yeah to ask you a candid question like how often.
Do you find yourself not just within this company but throughout your career
(04:46):
have you found the optimal balance of enough you know not too much or not too
little because i feel like that's that's that only really comes with something
that's storyboarded really.
Uh, not necessarily. Like, if you're shooting, like, a documentary,
like, a longer documentary,
that's kind of, like, shot over, like, maybe six months or something,
(05:06):
you know, and then you have a scene, like, you shoot something,
and then you come back, you look at it, and then you go again and shoot something else.
There's usually, like, more than enough stuff to work with, and you only need
to pad it out with, like, a couple of stock footage shots or a couple of,
like, animated graphics shots to make everything work together.
It's that most of the time when you have something that's
(05:27):
like maybe tight on time or you have
to go through and edit something that's from archival footage
and you need to pad out with stock footage that may
not be or may not exist which one
do you think is worse too much footage on enough footage if you
had to pick not enough footage not enough footage sometimes you
cannot get enough footage or there's too much footage and yeah
(05:49):
but the main thing is like uh in a form of like a storyline perspective
if you like know like what you're shooting if you know like
yeah the story is going to be ascending in this particular way then
you basically know which shots are actually
going to be required the most versus which shots you don't really need
it and that all goes down from like pre-production side from pre-interview
side and that thing i think is quite important because you don't
(06:10):
have too many shots and you don't have two less shots as well but you.
Have a lot of perfect moving shots goes back to
like shooting 35 millimeter right you can't have endless rolls you
can but it's going to cost you a lot of money right i always say like training with
shooting on film is so amazing because you
you learn to be really economical i sort of not to sound like
the old fart in the room but i sort of you know hate the sort of mentality
(06:31):
you just button on and just roll and i always be
rolling always be shooting abs always be shooting yeah
i heard that terminology yeah before like well
after filming you know you had like tapes right dv
tapes or beta tapes and those were limited it
at 60 minutes each 90 minutes each and maybe
you know your producer would take you uh and be
(06:53):
like you're only allowed to shoot like two tapes maximum per today yeah
and that's it like you can't shoot any more than that so you really have to
be very strategic in my previous career and news talking to older cameramen
they would do editing in camera so they would you know especially if tapes they
would edit their shots or film to that sequence to tell one more interesting
story There was an old Aussie cameraman who I worked with,
(07:15):
and he used to film cricket back when there was 35mm,
but he said back in the day, they only had like one reel for the entire test
match for one day, and that's a whole day.
So he had to really strategically just press record as soon as the bowler was
bowling, and then if there was no wicket, he would stop recording.
But that's how scarce it was, whilst now it is true.
(07:36):
Like our younger generation growing up was spoiled, you know,
we can just press record, see what we can capture. It can be dangerous.
Well, you know, at the extreme end of that scale, you have a filmmaker like
William Friedkin who did...
French connection the exorcist and sorcerer and
he basically only filmed exactly what
was going to be in the edit and he didn't do a lot of takes so
(07:59):
that basically you could not really make a
lot of choices other than the choices he wanted.
To make as to what the story was going to be so the studio and
he did that to protect himself so the studio couldn't recut and that's interesting but
you know i mean for me i like there to be enough to
cut the story i like there to be you know enough enough material
i think the thing about it is just trying to make sure how much value the
(08:19):
coverage is adding to the sequence because you know like if you're out on
a beautiful landscape or a beautiful river or whatever
is you know wide shots whatever else will carry you for
the story you don't need to get too much of something else but
if it's sort of intimate sequences or somebody doing
a physical task i always feel like you want more courage because
you want to be able to make that energetic if you want to it comes down to pacing and.
(08:40):
Taste and a whole bunch of other things how much dialogue do
you feel there needs to be between the production and
post team about the coverage shooting ratio and
what will be needed to tell the story what's kind
of interesting which i wanted to add add in early
as a point is sure sometimes you could overshoot or
whatever or you get too much coverage a lot of times 90 of
(09:02):
the stuff you shoot doesn't end up in the edit to be honest you
know you're making your 5 or 95 yeah if
even you know maybe like two or three percent ends up in the
final cut but what I've seen actually since working in
agency is the reusing footage and
also using it for other matters like whether it's the
same brand but then you'd reuse those image and tell a different story and I'm
(09:25):
sure you guys have you know there must have been some times when you're like
oh I'm glad that this has been shot so I guess there's you know there's two
sides to it in a way what is thinking about the fact that a lot of stuff that
is filmed can be reused for other purposes as I often say you know if you're
shooting things Things like,
you know, in corporate videos, you might shoot people having a meeting.
If you're doing another video for that brand and there needs to be a sequence
(09:46):
of a meeting, I don't feel like you need to reshoot another meeting because
meetings are not individually unique events.
A meeting visually on screen is a meeting, right?
And so, you know, it is thinking about how you can reuse those things and something
that you might have shot a lot of coverage for could be reused,
you know, in a lot of different ways in other stories. I mean,
sort of getting back to the question I was asking, I guess, about dialogue.
(10:09):
Do you guys as editors also feel that the more you work with a particular production
team, you know, like a DP and a director, the more you also start to understand
what you're looking for in the material?
And so therefore that process becomes somewhat easier that you sort of know
the style of what's going to be captured and what's going to be there?
Yeah, I mean, if we know the style of the shooter we're working with,
(10:33):
they work a certain way, you know, there doesn't have to be as many like notes
going back and forth or like, oh, didn't you cover this? Or do you do this?
And you kind of know that, like, it's going to be there without having to ask too much.
Where I feel like there needs to be more dialogue is that if it's a certain
like shot that is like a composite shot that involves some post that needs to
(10:56):
be like addressed on set is you know very very important to include posts in that conversation.
You know maybe if we're not on set but you could show like a photo of this cup
right oh this is this logo is showing you know is it easy to remove like should
we do something about this and
then we can say like yes or no then you can address that on set, on site,
instead of us having to spend four hours doing something to it later.
(11:20):
You guys are involved fairly early in the process.
In an ideal world, in terms of briefing, I feel like the jobs that go the best
are the ones where we have that really good dialogue, where we all talk about
what the story is, where we do things like storyboarding or breaking sequences
down so that we can kind of get an idea of how it's all supposed to fit together.
You know, I am sort of like a firm believer that the more you plan,
the better the execution is that you deliver at the end of the day.
(11:42):
I don't feel like storyboards are required for every single job.
I feel like they are required for some.
They do help, though, as a tool, right? Yes.
I think for generic stuff for storyboards, I don't think it's required.
Like a shot list is more simple. But if for any complicated shot,
it really would help. I think like the shooters, at least, it would actually help them quite a lot.
(12:04):
I also find just like where you can sit down and kind of go through the footage
when it comes to the edit suite and go, look, don't waste your time looking at this stuff.
This is the stuff you're going to need is quite useful storyboards yeah there's
times that we've used storyboards or we've not adhered to it when it comes to
the edit because i feel like sometimes it changes but i think depending on the
shoot if it's a very like high budget high production.
(12:25):
Shoot and there's a lot at stake it's good
to have a storyboard not just for the clients to understand how
you want to tell the story as a creative but i feel like it's a good kind
of way of saving time if you're dealing with
20 30 crew it's good for them to
everyone to kind of know what the vision is you know you
could always deviate and and be a bit adaptable on site
(12:46):
or on set so if it's a high production one yes
storyboards definitely help if the video the story you're trying to
tell is not as high a stake it's not as necessary especially
when say you're doing a talking head and b-roll you don't
really need a storyboard for that you can kind of
craft sequences around that well sometimes you also want to open yourself up
to the possibility of what's going to happen in those situations too when
(13:06):
you're doing documentary i mean that's that's part of the
nature of doing documentary is that something happens and you go wow that's
fucking wonderful let's shoot that totally there's so many times you will see
photos of a location and you go there and you're like oh the light's not hitting
it the right way or the sun is just perfectly beaming through another window
and you're like damn let's let's let's adapt let's let's go and move in and cheer over there.
(13:28):
Yeah, I mean, you might've also found that I get quite inquisitive and nosy
when we go on shoots like that.
And sometimes there's the location that you've been told you're gonna shoot
and you stick your head around the corner and you go.
What's that? Okay, like that's suddenly more interesting and more curious to
the story than what we had.
Why don't we go and do that? Because it's better, you know, or somebody on location.
(13:51):
I find particularly when you go to other countries and your location scouting,
often the people that you're with will go, yeah, you know, that's good.
But actually, like just around here, there's this thing and it shows you this
thing and it's great and it's really unique and very relevant to the story.
And you go and you look at it and you go, yeah, it's 10 times better.
So sometimes having big ears when you're doing those things is is also relevant
but that's also i guess in that situation it's
(14:12):
also good when you're not too like set on the storyboard
talking about you know where you can have that adaptable that's leeway that's
being a director and making choices let's wrap this up with any kind of final
key tips or advice from the three of you on shooting for the edit that you think
filmmakers creators and even brands should know for doing a better job of capturing
(14:34):
material for the edit shoot not too
much i shoot just enough i think early days when
i was a videographer i was overshooting way too much and i
was editing the videos as well and it wasn't until i think i got
to a stage where i was like in this three-hour event i'm only going
to get 100 clips and that's it and from those 100 clips they have to be good
they have to tell the story they have to or whatever you know event shooting
(14:56):
is very different as well but having that limitation or that restriction forces
you to think about your shot and not just willy nilly just capture everything
you can don't always be shooing.
That's a terrible acronym. As a shooter, be very mindful who's going to edit
it because you want to make their lives not too difficult.
One thing which would be nice is sometimes you do get maybe like a shot list
(15:19):
from the client side that there's like certain images that they want to be captured.
I don't know, like they need to have a shot of Mr. CEO and Mr.
Like brown suit person like walking down the corridor or something.
They have certain things that like they need you to capture.
Or these can even be suggested. And after that, you can play around and do certain things.
(15:41):
What do they call it? The must-haves and the nice-haves.
It's like prioritizing the coverage. Yeah, exactly. Knowing what's the priority and what's extra.
It's the thing that, again, we've probably talked about this a lot on set,
but it's sometimes just going, no, no, just think about what the through line of the story is.
What is it that's really important that's going to make the story work?
And then if you have time, what will enhance that story and make it better?
(16:05):
Because time is always against you i mean it doesn't matter how much
money it doesn't matter how much time you have you always wish
you had more time i'm sure like on set you always feel
like time's like not enough right for you to fit to finish everything i feel
like when you've perfected it that craft when you when you've nailed it you're
neither late or early and you're sort of in between i feel like that's when
(16:25):
you're i i always feel it when we walk when we've walked away with it too i'll
tell you that much like there are shoots we have when i really feel like like, man,
we got that. Like, you can just feel it.
And then there are times when something happened, you know, the light wasn't right.
You only had this amount of time. No matter how many times you did it,
the guy just couldn't walk through the door the way you wanted him to,
(16:46):
whatever it is, you know, and you have to move on.
And you kind of sit there like, I think as a filmmaker, you always sit there
and go, you know, like, I know that I probably got enough there to work with
it, but that's a bad feeling.
I don't like that feeling. I always loved the feeling of.
You know and and i'm i'm
very transparent like you know when we've when we've had
it you can tell because i leave the location like moonwalking dancing
(17:09):
like richard simmons so you know it's there's been
times i think we get the shot in one take and then i'll turn
to turn to thomas and be like do we get it he's like yeah done take
and i'm like are you sure you don't want to do it again he's like no let's move
on we've got it i know it when i seize it i i became
an editor by shooting first time i shot my film i was like oh
cool you know it's gonna be fun i'm gonna be shooting a film yeah stressful
(17:30):
four days you know just shooting non-stop getting hit by typhoon
and the worst typhoons of hong kong and but still shooting
just the right amount i realized and even in that films
in that film regardless of like how much i shot i used
about 80 percent of every footage i
basically shot and for me like that was great and for
a shooter to actually know a little bit on the editing side as
(17:52):
well so they can actually know like yeah like when we were we're going
to be cutting in and out and when what type of shot we're going to be using
sometimes times here and there and i think that's like a
very good thing to basically have yeah i'd
say my final thought is discipline like just try and have
discipline i mean i know when i started and again showing my age
the first films that i shot were shot on super 8 i didn't even shoot on video
(18:13):
they were shot on film on a cartridge uh it was so expensive to to actually
get that cartridge and then to get it developed and then to transfer it to a
video format where you could cut it that i I think like a lot of the first short
films I did, I did like one or two takes.
And if I did two takes, I was really angry with myself because I was like,
I've got to do it again and this is so expensive.
(18:33):
I actually, in some ways, if I go back and it'd be really interesting because
we actually have the film sitting out there in the office, I've got to get it
digitized at some point.
I feel like in some ways I was a much more economical storyteller when I did
that because I really had to think about every single shot and every single
sequence and how it would add or not add to the film.
And there were shots, I remember planning that with my DP, where I'd be like,
(18:56):
no, that shot's a luxury.
That's going to burn eight feet of film or something.
No, I'm not doing it. So yeah, I think being disciplined would be my final thought.
Thank you as always, guys. Thanks for joining us to the audience as well for
this edition of the Content Combo Podcast.
As always, I'm your host, Thomas Elliott, and thanks again to the Combo,
Arch Grey, Joey Kahn, and the wonderful Richie Fowler.
(19:19):
Thank you for your contributions to our show. please remember to tune in every
friday for more of the content combo and don't forget to follow us on linkedin
or via the casual films website do it a little woohoo bye.
Music.
Welcome to the Content Combo Podcast, presented by Casual Films.
Tune in every Friday, so you can hear from our team of experts about how to
deliver effective video content that drives results.
Every time, without fail. And now it's over to our hosts.
Welcome to this week's edition of the Content Combo Podcast.
(00:24):
I'm your host, Thomas Elliott, it and joining me to make up the combo this week
are editors Ant Gray, Joey Kahn and filmmaker Richie Fowler.
Hey guys, how you doing? Hello, hello.
In today's podcast we're talking all about shooting for the edit,
something that everybody in this room knows all about.
So let me start by asking the three of you, what does shooting for the edit mean for you?
(00:47):
Shooting for the edit means It means trying to stay clear to the story we're creating.
Try not to be too much of a headache for the editor.
So part of that is not overshooting too much. I can see lots of nods there. Avoid eye contact.
Sorry, I'm just going to stare at you as I do this.
(01:08):
Part of that is having a good shot list or a storyboard or really kind of communicating
in pre-production what's the intention of the story. So I guess that's my meaning.
For you, Arch and Joey, what does shooting for the edit mean to you both?
For me, it's like relating what Richie actually said. As the editor,
for me, whenever I'm getting footage, it's going to be a lot of footage, which is great.
(01:30):
But when you basically do chop in, chop out of every clip, you realize,
oh wait, we can't use majority of it because you're cutting the tail end of
a fish and the head away to basically get the main fillet, and there's just
too much of a tail and there's too much of the head.
Every story requires a particular type of shot. Every shot needs to tell a story.
What about you, Joey? One thing I had a conversation with another editor a while
(01:53):
back was there is this thing called usability ratio of your shots,
and as you become a better cinematographer,
the usability ratio of your shots goes up.
A good ratio is like 50% of your shots are like usable in the edit.
It is challenging when you are doing like documentary style filming
because you know you're you're not always in a controlled environment so you're
(02:16):
trying to get a lot of coverage as well but then you can still be thinking about
how much it can be used and the edit later on and like then you're you know
if you get a higher usability ratio then everyone's happy.
Do you think a key part of this is to try and think more in sequences when you're
filming rather than just in individual shots or moments?
(02:39):
If you're looking at stock footage sites, a lot of times as editors,
we're always trying to look for stock footage to like fill out our shots.
And I'm always very happy when I see a stock footage, which is there's like
maybe like three or four shots that are in one scene.
So it's like three people around a coffee table, but then there is a wide shot,
a close up and a medium shot of like the same scene happening and you're like
(03:01):
oh great i'm gonna download all of these cha-ching you know like getty images
is gonna get all the money from us if they have all these shots all the time you.
And this is the thing we talk about a lot more on set is like what
is the shot that leads you into the sequence what are
the kind of key bits of the action that you can capture
from multiple different angles to make it
(03:21):
interesting if you need to extend or contract and then what
is the thing that leads you out of the sequence so that
basically you can then have a natural float everything i
think that's something you learn as you go along as a storyteller but it's
like every single bit of the story needs to
have a bit that leads you in you need to have the action covered so that
you can kind of or you have a great impressive master shot
(03:41):
if you've got the time to tell that story and you have something that comes out you
sort of need to realize there are scenes in your movie where
you should trust masters more because you can just kind of tell the story through
the master but then you should also realize there are always going to be those
moments that you just need to quickly cover and move
on and often like in a movie like in a you know theatrical feature
it's the exposition scenes are the ones where you just just need to
cover it and move on because they're not dramatic they're not
(04:04):
they are literally just filling in the information for the story so i
think often in content it's trying to think about what are the
sequences where you can do that and what are the sequences where you need to come
with that because it's an action and keep the story moving what is
the process like for the editors when there is either too much
or too little footage to work with neither of
those situations are are optimal i would yeah yeah thank.
(04:25):
You for being honest it's like when you cook a steak like you have to get it
to the perfect temperature or the wet you know it's too rare you can kind of
eat it it's too well done tastes like crap yeah to ask you a candid question like how often.
Do you find yourself not just within this company but throughout your career
(04:46):
have you found the optimal balance of enough you know not too much or not too
little because i feel like that's that's that only really comes with something
that's storyboarded really.
Uh, not necessarily. Like, if you're shooting, like, a documentary,
like, a longer documentary,
that's kind of, like, shot over, like, maybe six months or something,
(05:06):
you know, and then you have a scene, like, you shoot something,
and then you come back, you look at it, and then you go again and shoot something else.
There's usually, like, more than enough stuff to work with, and you only need
to pad it out with, like, a couple of stock footage shots or a couple of,
like, animated graphics shots to make everything work together.
It's that most of the time when you have something that's
(05:27):
like maybe tight on time or you have
to go through and edit something that's from archival footage
and you need to pad out with stock footage that may
not be or may not exist which one
do you think is worse too much footage on enough footage if you
had to pick not enough footage not enough footage sometimes you
cannot get enough footage or there's too much footage and yeah
(05:49):
but the main thing is like uh in a form of like a storyline perspective
if you like know like what you're shooting if you know like
yeah the story is going to be ascending in this particular way then
you basically know which shots are actually
going to be required the most versus which shots you don't really need
it and that all goes down from like pre-production side from pre-interview
side and that thing i think is quite important because you don't
(06:10):
have too many shots and you don't have two less shots as well but you.
Have a lot of perfect moving shots goes back to
like shooting 35 millimeter right you can't have endless rolls you
can but it's going to cost you a lot of money right i always say like training with
shooting on film is so amazing because you
you learn to be really economical i sort of not to sound like
the old fart in the room but i sort of you know hate the sort of mentality
(06:31):
you just button on and just roll and i always be
rolling always be shooting abs always be shooting yeah
i heard that terminology yeah before like well
after filming you know you had like tapes right dv
tapes or beta tapes and those were limited it
at 60 minutes each 90 minutes each and maybe
you know your producer would take you uh and be
(06:53):
like you're only allowed to shoot like two tapes maximum per today yeah
and that's it like you can't shoot any more than that so you really have to
be very strategic in my previous career and news talking to older cameramen
they would do editing in camera so they would you know especially if tapes they
would edit their shots or film to that sequence to tell one more interesting
story There was an old Aussie cameraman who I worked with,
(07:15):
and he used to film cricket back when there was 35mm,
but he said back in the day, they only had like one reel for the entire test
match for one day, and that's a whole day.
So he had to really strategically just press record as soon as the bowler was
bowling, and then if there was no wicket, he would stop recording.
But that's how scarce it was, whilst now it is true.
(07:36):
Like our younger generation growing up was spoiled, you know,
we can just press record, see what we can capture. It can be dangerous.
Well, you know, at the extreme end of that scale, you have a filmmaker like
William Friedkin who did...
French connection the exorcist and sorcerer and
he basically only filmed exactly what
was going to be in the edit and he didn't do a lot of takes so
(07:59):
that basically you could not really make a
lot of choices other than the choices he wanted.
To make as to what the story was going to be so the studio and
he did that to protect himself so the studio couldn't recut and that's interesting but
you know i mean for me i like there to be enough to
cut the story i like there to be you know enough enough material
i think the thing about it is just trying to make sure how much value the
(08:19):
coverage is adding to the sequence because you know like if you're out on
a beautiful landscape or a beautiful river or whatever
is you know wide shots whatever else will carry you for
the story you don't need to get too much of something else but
if it's sort of intimate sequences or somebody doing
a physical task i always feel like you want more courage because
you want to be able to make that energetic if you want to it comes down to pacing and.
(08:40):
Taste and a whole bunch of other things how much dialogue do
you feel there needs to be between the production and
post team about the coverage shooting ratio and
what will be needed to tell the story what's kind
of interesting which i wanted to add add in early
as a point is sure sometimes you could overshoot or
whatever or you get too much coverage a lot of times 90 of
(09:02):
the stuff you shoot doesn't end up in the edit to be honest you
know you're making your 5 or 95 yeah if
even you know maybe like two or three percent ends up in the
final cut but what I've seen actually since working in
agency is the reusing footage and
also using it for other matters like whether it's the
same brand but then you'd reuse those image and tell a different story and I'm
(09:25):
sure you guys have you know there must have been some times when you're like
oh I'm glad that this has been shot so I guess there's you know there's two
sides to it in a way what is thinking about the fact that a lot of stuff that
is filmed can be reused for other purposes as I often say you know if you're
shooting things Things like,
you know, in corporate videos, you might shoot people having a meeting.
If you're doing another video for that brand and there needs to be a sequence
(09:46):
of a meeting, I don't feel like you need to reshoot another meeting because
meetings are not individually unique events.
A meeting visually on screen is a meeting, right?
And so, you know, it is thinking about how you can reuse those things and something
that you might have shot a lot of coverage for could be reused,
you know, in a lot of different ways in other stories. I mean,
sort of getting back to the question I was asking, I guess, about dialogue.
(10:09):
Do you guys as editors also feel that the more you work with a particular production
team, you know, like a DP and a director, the more you also start to understand
what you're looking for in the material?
And so therefore that process becomes somewhat easier that you sort of know
the style of what's going to be captured and what's going to be there?
Yeah, I mean, if we know the style of the shooter we're working with,
(10:33):
they work a certain way, you know, there doesn't have to be as many like notes
going back and forth or like, oh, didn't you cover this? Or do you do this?
And you kind of know that, like, it's going to be there without having to ask too much.
Where I feel like there needs to be more dialogue is that if it's a certain
like shot that is like a composite shot that involves some post that needs to
(10:56):
be like addressed on set is you know very very important to include posts in that conversation.
You know maybe if we're not on set but you could show like a photo of this cup
right oh this is this logo is showing you know is it easy to remove like should
we do something about this and
then we can say like yes or no then you can address that on set, on site,
instead of us having to spend four hours doing something to it later.
(11:20):
You guys are involved fairly early in the process.
In an ideal world, in terms of briefing, I feel like the jobs that go the best
are the ones where we have that really good dialogue, where we all talk about
what the story is, where we do things like storyboarding or breaking sequences
down so that we can kind of get an idea of how it's all supposed to fit together.
You know, I am sort of like a firm believer that the more you plan,
the better the execution is that you deliver at the end of the day.
(11:42):
I don't feel like storyboards are required for every single job.
I feel like they are required for some.
They do help, though, as a tool, right? Yes.
I think for generic stuff for storyboards, I don't think it's required.
Like a shot list is more simple. But if for any complicated shot,
it really would help. I think like the shooters, at least, it would actually help them quite a lot.
(12:04):
I also find just like where you can sit down and kind of go through the footage
when it comes to the edit suite and go, look, don't waste your time looking at this stuff.
This is the stuff you're going to need is quite useful storyboards yeah there's
times that we've used storyboards or we've not adhered to it when it comes to
the edit because i feel like sometimes it changes but i think depending on the
shoot if it's a very like high budget high production.
(12:25):
Shoot and there's a lot at stake it's good
to have a storyboard not just for the clients to understand how
you want to tell the story as a creative but i feel like it's a good kind
of way of saving time if you're dealing with
20 30 crew it's good for them to
everyone to kind of know what the vision is you know you
could always deviate and and be a bit adaptable on site
(12:46):
or on set so if it's a high production one yes
storyboards definitely help if the video the story you're trying to
tell is not as high a stake it's not as necessary especially
when say you're doing a talking head and b-roll you don't
really need a storyboard for that you can kind of
craft sequences around that well sometimes you also want to open yourself up
to the possibility of what's going to happen in those situations too when
(13:06):
you're doing documentary i mean that's that's part of the
nature of doing documentary is that something happens and you go wow that's
fucking wonderful let's shoot that totally there's so many times you will see
photos of a location and you go there and you're like oh the light's not hitting
it the right way or the sun is just perfectly beaming through another window
and you're like damn let's let's let's adapt let's let's go and move in and cheer over there.
(13:28):
Yeah, I mean, you might've also found that I get quite inquisitive and nosy
when we go on shoots like that.
And sometimes there's the location that you've been told you're gonna shoot
and you stick your head around the corner and you go.
What's that? Okay, like that's suddenly more interesting and more curious to
the story than what we had.
Why don't we go and do that? Because it's better, you know, or somebody on location.
(13:51):
I find particularly when you go to other countries and your location scouting,
often the people that you're with will go, yeah, you know, that's good.
But actually, like just around here, there's this thing and it shows you this
thing and it's great and it's really unique and very relevant to the story.
And you go and you look at it and you go, yeah, it's 10 times better.
So sometimes having big ears when you're doing those things is is also relevant
but that's also i guess in that situation it's
(14:12):
also good when you're not too like set on the storyboard
talking about you know where you can have that adaptable that's leeway that's
being a director and making choices let's wrap this up with any kind of final
key tips or advice from the three of you on shooting for the edit that you think
filmmakers creators and even brands should know for doing a better job of capturing
(14:34):
material for the edit shoot not too
much i shoot just enough i think early days when
i was a videographer i was overshooting way too much and i
was editing the videos as well and it wasn't until i think i got
to a stage where i was like in this three-hour event i'm only going
to get 100 clips and that's it and from those 100 clips they have to be good
they have to tell the story they have to or whatever you know event shooting
(14:56):
is very different as well but having that limitation or that restriction forces
you to think about your shot and not just willy nilly just capture everything
you can don't always be shooing.
That's a terrible acronym. As a shooter, be very mindful who's going to edit
it because you want to make their lives not too difficult.
One thing which would be nice is sometimes you do get maybe like a shot list
(15:19):
from the client side that there's like certain images that they want to be captured.
I don't know, like they need to have a shot of Mr. CEO and Mr.
Like brown suit person like walking down the corridor or something.
They have certain things that like they need you to capture.
Or these can even be suggested. And after that, you can play around and do certain things.
(15:41):
What do they call it? The must-haves and the nice-haves.
It's like prioritizing the coverage. Yeah, exactly. Knowing what's the priority and what's extra.
It's the thing that, again, we've probably talked about this a lot on set,
but it's sometimes just going, no, no, just think about what the through line of the story is.
What is it that's really important that's going to make the story work?
And then if you have time, what will enhance that story and make it better?
(16:05):
Because time is always against you i mean it doesn't matter how much
money it doesn't matter how much time you have you always wish
you had more time i'm sure like on set you always feel
like time's like not enough right for you to fit to finish everything i feel
like when you've perfected it that craft when you when you've nailed it you're
neither late or early and you're sort of in between i feel like that's when
(16:25):
you're i i always feel it when we walk when we've walked away with it too i'll
tell you that much like there are shoots we have when i really feel like like, man,
we got that. Like, you can just feel it.
And then there are times when something happened, you know, the light wasn't right.
You only had this amount of time. No matter how many times you did it,
the guy just couldn't walk through the door the way you wanted him to,
(16:46):
whatever it is, you know, and you have to move on.
And you kind of sit there like, I think as a filmmaker, you always sit there
and go, you know, like, I know that I probably got enough there to work with
it, but that's a bad feeling.
I don't like that feeling. I always loved the feeling of.
You know and and i'm i'm
very transparent like you know when we've when we've had
it you can tell because i leave the location like moonwalking dancing
(17:09):
like richard simmons so you know it's there's been
times i think we get the shot in one take and then i'll turn
to turn to thomas and be like do we get it he's like yeah done take
and i'm like are you sure you don't want to do it again he's like no let's move
on we've got it i know it when i seize it i i became
an editor by shooting first time i shot my film i was like oh
cool you know it's gonna be fun i'm gonna be shooting a film yeah stressful
(17:30):
four days you know just shooting non-stop getting hit by typhoon
and the worst typhoons of hong kong and but still shooting
just the right amount i realized and even in that films
in that film regardless of like how much i shot i used
about 80 percent of every footage i
basically shot and for me like that was great and for
a shooter to actually know a little bit on the editing side as
(17:52):
well so they can actually know like yeah like when we were we're going
to be cutting in and out and when what type of shot we're going to be using
sometimes times here and there and i think that's like a
very good thing to basically have yeah i'd
say my final thought is discipline like just try and have
discipline i mean i know when i started and again showing my age
the first films that i shot were shot on super 8 i didn't even shoot on video
(18:13):
they were shot on film on a cartridge uh it was so expensive to to actually
get that cartridge and then to get it developed and then to transfer it to a
video format where you could cut it that i I think like a lot of the first short
films I did, I did like one or two takes.
And if I did two takes, I was really angry with myself because I was like,
I've got to do it again and this is so expensive.
(18:33):
I actually, in some ways, if I go back and it'd be really interesting because
we actually have the film sitting out there in the office, I've got to get it
digitized at some point.
I feel like in some ways I was a much more economical storyteller when I did
that because I really had to think about every single shot and every single
sequence and how it would add or not add to the film.
And there were shots, I remember planning that with my DP, where I'd be like,
(18:56):
no, that shot's a luxury.
That's going to burn eight feet of film or something.
No, I'm not doing it. So yeah, I think being disciplined would be my final thought.
Thank you as always, guys. Thanks for joining us to the audience as well for
this edition of the Content Combo Podcast.
As always, I'm your host, Thomas Elliott, and thanks again to the Combo,
Arch Grey, Joey Kahn, and the wonderful Richie Fowler.
(19:19):
Thank you for your contributions to our show. please remember to tune in every
friday for more of the content combo and don't forget to follow us on linkedin
or via the casual films website do it a little woohoo bye.
Music.
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