Creation Phases | Post-production
A.K.A Mayhem



Well, if the last page wasn't enough to deter even the bravest of you, this page should. The end product of a standard shoot is a bunch of footage. Footage means lots and lots of shots on lots and lots of videotapes (or reels of cellulose if you're really lucky and rich).
The required question is - what do you do with all this now?

Simple. You take it all into an editing room, watch it once, then again, take down notes about the exact location of every shot on the bunch of tapes and how good it was (or wasn't!). After that you break down in tears either because:

Oh by the way, we used to call this stage - logging. I wonder why.

Now that we've logged our footage we have to start putting it together. If you're using video there are two main ways of doing this (if you're lucky enough to be using film, well you're lucky enough anyway!):

Keep in mind that I might have exaggerated slightly here - but this is more or less how it goes


The second film I worked on at high-school was a documentary about a deaf child and his family called "14 years of quiet" (or silence - we never really translated it to english). Since documentaries are inherently less structured and organized during preproduction, most of the piecing together of the film's development and body is done during the editing stage. Thus, my friend Tomer and myself spent many a night in the dark crevices of our film departments underground editing room, breathing Carbon Monoxide, Drinking flat Coca-Cola, eating things I wouldn't like to remind myself of and desperately trying to complete the film. It took some 9 different versions until we finally came out with something satisfactory. I think. During this period we found ourselves time and again in situations that would easily drive an observer to commit us to a mental institute (including filming an atrocious little videoclip to Madonna's "Rain" which we gave as a birthday present to another one of our friends).

And yet, like I always say, it is one of the most fun things to do in the world!

I originally put down one film's name to be included in this stage specifically. I must say that I feel there are so many films out there that deserve mention for their editing and that I just couldn't add to the site (at least not quite yet). These include:




Creation Phases
These are the stages that bring a film from idea to existence
Artistic Elements
These are the words of the cinematic language
From the idea to the script Mise en Scene
From the script to the storyboard Acting and Directing
On the set Photography and Lighting
Mayhem (also known as post production) Sound and Music
- Editing



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This page last modified on - Friday, August 14, 1998.