Cutting Indies: today's new wave of video formats makes editors extra careful not to wipe out

Post, June, 2004 by Christine Bunish

As post supervisor for the feature, Schlesinger knew the importance of "hammering out all the potential issues before you start shooting." Her in-depth conversation with CCI's HD department head, Marianne Nassour, put to rest any anxieties about the online process.

Some sequences in the film were shot with two cameras and some with Steadicam. "Stephen covered a very extensive dialogue sequence with Steadicam that would have taken a couple of days to shoot otherwise and wouldn't have been that interesting to watch," Schlesinger reveals. When she got the dailies, the four-person conversation shot in a circle was vertigo inducing. So she intercut shots to keep the action flowing in the same direction and established a snappy pace that kept things moving.

Her bin of edits was brought into an Avid|DS at CCI Digital for editor Lucas Wilson's conform. "It was a new process for me, and it worked perfectly," Schlesinger reports. Colorist Lenny Fohrer did the color correction and crafted telecine effects and color treatments for a flashback sequence. CCI Digital delivered an HDCAM master and HD D-5 clone for a 5.1 surround mix. Jerry Gilbert did the final mix at Culver City's Sonic Magic. David Van Slyke was sound supervisor/sound designer.

BIG NAMES, SMALL BUDGET

In The Woodsman, a man (Kevin Bacon) returns home to start a new life after serving a 12-year prison sentence. The psychological thriller, based on the play by Steven Fechter who co-authored the screenplay with director Nicole Kassell, also stars Kyra Sedgwick and Benjamin Bratt. It debuted at Sundance '04. The film is slated for a fall release.

The Woodsman was shot on 35mm film and edited by Brian A. Kates and Lisa Fruchtman on Avid Film Composers. Kates had previously edited The Laramie Project for HBO Original Films and co-edited the new autobiographical doc Tarnation, by director Jonathan Caouette. Fruchtman has edited many Hollywood features, including Apocalypse Now and My Best Friend's Wedding; she received an Academy Award as a member of the editing team for The Right Stuff.

Kates began the assembly in New York while The Woodsman was still shooting in Philadelphia, screening dailies in batches on weekends for the director. "I had time to try things and form my own opinions about the material during the week, then worked closely with Nicole over the weekend," he recalls. Fruchtman came on board for the last six weeks of the edit bringing a fresh pair of eyes and some new ideas.

Bacon gives a very restrained, quiet and intense performance as the ex-convict. "We needed to draw the audience into him without relying on the sexual magnetism typical of lead characters," Kates explains. "The idea is to keep his crime a mystery long enough so viewers get to know him and become fascinated with him."

Fruchtman credits Kassell with making "a brave choice" to use editing techniques instead of extensive digital effects to reveal the story of Bacon's character. "When the editing is not straightforward there are many jump cuts and altering the timeframe of a given moment to show the agitated, fragmented quality of his inner life," she explains.