FCP reel

lairhair said:
What do employers look for in a FCP editors reel?
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I hire freelance editors from time to time and i look for...

1) quality of the work (rhythm, creativity, structure, pizzazz)
2) prestige of the work (did you cut a Lord of the Rings trailer or a local car commercial)
 
Is there something wrong with cutting car comercials? I do it all the time both national and local and get paid pretty well but I assume cutting trailers is better paid

Zak Forsman said:
I hire freelance editors from time to time and i look for...

1) quality of the work (rhythm, creativity, structure, pizzazz)
2) prestige of the work (did you cut a Lord of the Rings trailer or a local car commercial)
Click to expand...
 
And whatever you do don't beat-cut it to Prodigy or Chemical Brothers, that gets you tossed right into the trash...

Noah
 
aalleexx said:
Is there something wrong with cutting car comercials? I do it all the time and get paid pretty well but I assume cutting trailers is better paid
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jeez, there's nothing wrong with cutting car commercials, especially if it pays well. :undecided i'm just saying, in my line of work, when i'm hiring an editor to cut a trailer at $1100/day, it is useful to be able to say to my clients "and we got the girl who cut the Spiderman 2 trailer". they love that. and that's why the prestige factors in.

ps - i know that girl, easily in the top five of trailer editors. she did all the lord of the rings trailers too. it was her idea to use an orchestrated version of the requiem for a dream theme for the two towers trailer.
 
damn over a grand a day, thats good, on average how many days does it take to cut a 2 min trailer like the one you mentioned zak?

Zak Forsman said:
jeez, there's nothing wrong with cutting car commercials, especially if it pays well. :undecided i'm just saying, in my line of work, when i'm hiring an editor to cut a trailer at $1100/day, it is useful to be able to say to my clients "and we got the girl who cut the Spiderman 2 trailer". they love that. and that's why the prestige factors in.

ps - i know that girl, easily in the top five of trailer editors. she did all the lord of the rings trailers too. it was her idea to use an orchestrated version of the requiem for a dream theme for the two towers trailer.
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aalleexx said:
damn over a grand a day, thats good, on average how many days does it take to cut a 2 min trailer like the one you mentioned zak?
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honestly, it depends on how much money the client has. and how much time. editors usually have up to two weeks to cut a really slick trailer, best case scenario. after that, there are weeks of client notes, addressing test marketing results, etc, etc. meanwhile, the music dept is working on pitches for new songs and score to use in the trailer. the producer is writing up copy for VO or cards. the motion graphics team starts spinning out ideas for title treatments. there's a lot going on in support of the editor.

but every scenario is different. the trailer for Signs went up to version 45. the 60 second teaser for Willy Wonka was cut last minute, in one night because the studio was unhappy with their current vendor and gave it to someone else the day before the deadline. keep in mind, there was no cut of the feature at that point. it was cut from hundreds of hours of dailies, or I should say 'selected' dailies that the assistant editors digitized, logged and fed to the editor in bins.
 
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lairhair said:
What do employers look for in a FCP editors reel?
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It depends on what type of work the employer does. You should probably have multiple reels because what a commercial house wants is different from what a documentary director wants which is different from what a game show producer wants. For example, if you are trying to get a gig editing a narrative don't submit a reel that is 2 minutes of flashy cuts and thumping music. Horses for courses as they say.


-A
 
Whatever you do...do NOT just have a montage of your work. That is NOT what employers are looking for. They want storytellers. They want to see your ability to tell a story. Anyone can cut a montage. CSI editors especially.
 
ut oh...
i cut a montage in my reel to daft punk
*laughs

i think montages can help condense alot of examples of your work into a short time frame, but you should always show you can do more than just cut to a cue.
 
jumpthewire said:
ut oh...
i cut a montage in my reel to daft punk
*laughs

i think montages can help condense alot of examples of your work into a short time frame, but you should always show you can do more than just cut to a cue.
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A short, attention getting montage at the head is good but, yeah, you don't want the whole thing to be a montage. You also don't want to toss in everything you've ever done. I saw a friend of mines reel once and I blurted out, "This isn't a reel it's a retrospective!"


-A
 
lairhair said:
What do employers look for in a FCP editors reel?
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Spots with a lot of sound effects, and some nice lighting effects, glow in and out on text/titles, that really gets them going. If you can get a few spots where the music builds up then cuts and the announcer/talent says 6-8 words about the product/show, fade to black, ramp up a heavy percussion track and throw a quick cut montage until the endpage... there you go, that right there will have them eating out of your hand, you'll be working in the media, or as I like to call it the assembly line.
 
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