Editing Improvisation

M

Movie_Dude_3

Well-known member
A couple of friends and I were prepping a movie we hope to shoot over the summer. Since the movie is planned to be a comedy, we tried shooting an improvisational scene to get a feel for how it'll work and for the characters themselves. We shot ten minutes worth and then brought it over to the editing room, where we're using Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0.

We filmed a medium shot of both of the characters on a couch and then close ups for each character. They had the same conversation each time we shot the scene.

Now here's where the problem came in: since it's imrpov, a lot of the dialogue is supposed to feel natural, meaning overlapping dialogue and short spaces in between lines. The hard part, though, is making the cuts seem natural without cutting too close to the dialogue so that it doesn't appear choppy. While putting the scene together, there were a lot of 'jumps' because of this.

Has anyone dealt with imrpov before? If so, how do you get over these hurdles in the editing room?
 
Get the sound right first - i.e. so that their conversation makes sense without looking at the video. Sadly this will probably require killing off a few good improv lines that don't fit the rest, but that's life.

Then worry about video. If the video fits, that's fine. If it doesn't, the biggest point to remember is that you don't always have to show the person currently speaking - I'd expect lots of J and L cuts and lots of quick cutaways, where you see one character listening/reacting while hearing the other speaking, especially where the listener has some interesting visual reaction (smiling, frowning, rolling eyes etc). So long as you never show a character speaking without also hearing them apparently speak the same words (or hear them speaking while showing them not speaking), you can hide most continuity errors.

I'm presuming there are no or few action continuity issues, i.e. they did stay sitting on the couch the whole time and were'nt running around the room, doing handstands, etc.
 
I've done a lot of this. You have to get really creative. Edit roughly and move on, then come back to it and take a fresh look. Follow some of the tips given above.
 
clang said:
Get the sound right first - i.e. so that their conversation makes sense without looking at the video. Sadly this will probably require killing off a few good improv lines that don't fit the rest, but that's life.

Then worry about video. If the video fits, that's fine. If it doesn't, the biggest point to remember is that you don't always have to show the person currently speaking - I'd expect lots of J and L cuts and lots of quick cutaways, where you see one character listening/reacting while hearing the other speaking, especially where the listener has some interesting visual reaction (smiling, frowning, rolling eyes etc). So long as you never show a character speaking without also hearing them apparently speak the same words (or hear them speaking while showing them not speaking), you can hide most continuity errors.

I'm presuming there are no or few action continuity issues, i.e. they did stay sitting on the couch the whole time and were'nt running around the room, doing handstands, etc.
Click to expand...

Firstly, thanks for the tips!

Second, yeah, they stayed on the couch the entire scene. The movie shouldn't have too much action going on, but we haven't typed out a script yet(nor a treatment for that matter) so it may be too soon to tell. But I wanted to ask, what are 'J and L cuts'?
 
They're what you get when you cut a video track at a different point than the matching audio track (any decent NLE software can do this, but you may have to alter some settings as the default is normally that video and audio cuts match) - the name comes from the resulting J or L visual shape the cut tracks make when viewed in the NLE.

Such cuts are very useful when editing 'live' footage like you're doing, as you'll frequently have the video you want but the sound is for some reason no good, or vice versa.
 
you could do it mike leigh stylee, complete improv in rehearsal then firm up a script for the shoot itself, the idea being the script comes from the improv and all that it brings up
 
Multiple cameras lends itself to improv.

But the great thing about improv is that the actor's reaction for one line of dialogue can easily be placed elsewhere. One cutaway to a funny face or bowl of fruit can save the day.
 
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