Mutually Awkward

Tag Archives: editing


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Creativity Noms

 

For the most of this year, I’ve been feeling really drained on creativity – a really shitty situation to be in. The reasons vary, from January’s biggest-depression-I’ve-had-in-like-over-6-years-fiasco to just editing productions that I could not find myself getting excited about.

Luckily, it looks like things are starting to turn around. I’m not sure what happened, but lately I’ve been feeling my creative juices returning. I’ve been feeling hungry to learn again and ready to seek out freelance projects more aggressively like I used to. This has already led to some good stuff: I finished a fun, new music video a few weeks ago that I will be posting up soon and I will also be editing another freelance gig this weekend, while simultaneously getting some good Premiere Pro practice.  That’s another good thing: I’m finally taking steps to get my ass of working on Final Cut 7. I already can work on Avid, so my plan is to train on FCP X when I have downtime at work while learning the ropes of Premiere Pro during my free time at home.

One thing that has definitely helped was getting involved in editor communities and talking to my fellow cutters. One tough thing about living so far from L.A. is that I am around MUCH LESS film people than I once was. But of course, the awesome connectivity of the internet leaves no excuses. In addition to the always-amazing #PostChat community on Twitter, I’ve recently been finding myself in the r/Editors subreddit on Reddit, where there is an abundance of inside jokes, tips, AMAZING HELP, and general good feelings among editors.

From out of the tons of good information coming out of that subreddit all the time, here is a terrific video that gave a huge chunk of creative noms for me today. It is a 30 minute talk by film editor Eddie Hamilton, who cut X-Men: First Class and Kick-Ass. Though the video was posted by Avid, a lot of what he says is completely applicable to any editors, regardless of what system they cut on. It is definitely worth a watch – especially in the latter half, in which he dissects a kind of dull one-shot scene that he edited into some awesome action. This video was definitely my creative nom for the week.

 

 


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December

 

It is December 14th after 1:00am and I am currently at my work office waiting for a super long After Effects render to complete so that I can go home. The wait is going on almost three hours now and I am barely awake at this point. I know being half asleep is never a good condition for blog posting but I need to do something to kill time. Between browsing Reddit and watching Netflix movies, (got a bit into rewatching All The Days Before Tomorrow) this rare opportunity of free time leaves no excuses for not new posting. I am not exaggerating at all when I say there hasn’t been much free time. My life for over a week now has literally been editing 12+ hours, go home to sleep for a bit and then return a few hours to continue the editing.

So yes, it is now December; my favorite month of the year. It’s the month my entire year revolves around. Unfortunately, I am not hugely into the Christmas spirit yet but there is still time to build the excitement, especially with the coming chances to see friends I haven’t seen in almost a year when I visit home in Los Angeles next week. I do have to give props to Hong Kong though – the city totally knows how to bring the Christmas decoration power. I mean yeah – here it does represent full-on 250% commercialism but still… all the lights are nice. And since Thanksgiving doesn’t exist here, they were all put up early!

Anyways, my lack of Christmas cheer may change this weekend if I can achieve my only goal: see my first of several theatrical viewings of The Hobbit. Finally seeing this movie is probably the best holiday present I could think of. Here’s hoping it’s good!

 

 


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Stuff and Some More Stuff

 

Things have been quite busy since my last post two weeks ago. Last weekend I was suddenly asked to join a team for the 48 Hour Film Project as editor. I had done a similar project two years ago when a friend asked me to join the USC Ed Wood 24-Hour Film Festival back when he attended school there. The extra 24 hours for last weekend’s shoot definitely was much appreciated and I had a good time working and meeting lots of new good people. Below is a still from our film.

The concept of the contest is pretty much each team must pick a genre from a hat and go forward in creating the film. A specific phrase and prop must also be used. We picked out dark comedy and  yesterday our film was screened at a movie theater (a 15 minute walk from my apartment – booya!). Now that the contest is over, I’d like to do some cleaner edits to the film since there aren’t time restraints. I’ll be sure to post it as soon as I’m finished.

With other things, I’ve been listening to a lot of Someone Still Loves You Boris Yelstin lately. Especially their track, Oregon Girl. Not sure if it’s because I recently decided Portland is a city I will move to in the near future or because I suddenly just remembered a good song. Though that song is from like 2006, I listened to it heavily during summer 2011 and it brings back a lot of fond memories, mainly of my bicycle and the girl I was crushing on at the time. Check the vid below.

 

 

It is already almost Halloween and my personal plan to watch nothing but horror movies for the month of October failed right after watching Shaun of the Dead. Instead of going for watching another horror flick, I ended up seeing Say Anything this week for some reason. Maybe because I’ve been feeling like a bit like Lloyd Dobler lately.

 


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Editing Thingys

 

I know it’s extremely rare for me to post a rap song on here as I am only a fan of such performers like A Tribe Called Quest and similar groups from that era of hip-hop but here is a music video for Los Angeles rapper, Chazzy. Directed by Brandy Bruce, whom I’ve worked with many times before, I edited this music video  across the planet from where it was filmed thanks to the awesomeness Dropbox. I’m pretty amazed that editing like that worked so well and I am totally hoping that I can edit more productions from Los Angeles while I am in Hong Kong.

As for the song itself, it is called Usual Shit and it actually has that pretty nice early 90s sound to it that I’ve always liked about hip-hop.

 


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LA Comedy Fest.

As mentioned late last year, the short screenplay that I had wrote originally entitled Like Like  had spent most of 2011 sitting in my documents folder due to a lot of needless flaking from a former friend  while I moved on working other productions as I interned and took classes at Moviola.

But after meeting awesome person/director April Heather, the script was put to use and ended up as Jules & Me. It was a great experience seen something that I wrote be made into a film (and an interesting experience editing it as well) and I was totally happy to have been part of a project with so many talented people, especially April. About a week ago I got an email from her telling me that the film had been accepted into this year’s LA Comedy Fest, which immediately resulted in me breaking out with some morning bedroom dancing.

This definitely makes me want to write more, especially another screenplay. Let the brainstorming begin!

 

Gahhhhh, I wish I could somehow teleport to L.A. during April 23rd!

 


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all about the videos.

Today is editing work day, though I don’t really plan to edit at all until tomorrow. It’s more like prepare-to-edit day as that is what I’m really doing, going through the long process of converting files to an editing-safe codec and organizing the footage. I’ve gotten the wonderful opportunity again to work with awesome music video director and friend, Brandy Bruce for R&B singer Justin Jones’s music video. Just as I am converting and logging, I can see the footage looks fantastic and CAN’T WAIT to dive into the cutting process.

And once this video is done, I get a chance to work with former classmate and also good friend, Angel Melanson-Ruiz on her music video for the indie band The Motel Life. My first time editing a rock video!

Music is a huge love of my life and m videos are my favorite editing work to do in the world. I’m completely grateful to be working with these fantastic filmmakers.

Speaking of which, there are two new music videos that were released online recently that are amazing. The first up is from Captain Ahab, the band that my friends and I are obsessed with.

I was actually there for the music video’s official premiere at The Smell a few weeks ago. The song is called Little Hands and that’s what it literally is.

Amazing, right? I LOVE it!!! Captain Ahab just proved again that they are no doubt one of the musical acts on the scene today.

The next video that was just released is by a band I have blogged about many times before and it is The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, who just also released a new album. The song for the video is Heart in Your Heartbreak

Since their first three music videos were all similar (their first two almost being identical), I’m glad them going in different directions but still keeping the heart of the songs in intact. A music review will be up soon once I buy their new album.

For the next few weeks, my life is going to be all about music videos. And when I’m outside, my iPod will be looping the songs I am working on so that I may become ONE WITH THE SONG. I love it!

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