My short ready for Editing

K

krish

Well-known member
Hi I recently finished my first short film and am really happy for the way it turned out. I wrote and directed it and will be posting some grabs as well as clips from it soon. My question is on editing. I want to give it to a pro editor who will be editing it. How do I protect my film from being mis-used? I have put in incridible amout of hardwork to make a really good film. I have never worked with this editor and got his reference through one of the actors who acted in the film. I have about 4 hours worth of material and there is incredible material in there including some very intimate scenes. I also want to make sure that the editor doesn't misuse the clips.

of course the safest thing would be to edit it myself but i am not an editor and want a pro to look at it.

Would appreciate any feedback.

-Krish
 
If you have to ask . . . keep looking.

Seriously! When you find an editor you vibe with you won't have to ask those questions.
 
OK, I'm going to say it...no one wants to steal your stuff. You remind me of me way back when...paranoid. I hate to say it, but your first short will not shae the foundations of the industry, causing your film to be stolen or plagiarized.
 
Generally speaking, it's true -- nobody wants to steal stuff. BUT if this film contains "some very intimate scenes", then somebody might be tempted to put clips out on the Internet, or (depending on how intimate the scenes are) even try and sell those clips on the side.

There's also the concern about unscrupulous people. I had a guy who was DP on a short film project of mine a few years back. He was supposed to do the editing, and he took the master tapes with him -- but he never edited a single frame. He wiped the tapes and re-used them on some other film project. Thank GOD I'd made backup copies of the tapes, and was able to get the film edited. I later heard that guy did the same thing with the master tapes for a FEATURE he worked on. Luckily, that producer had heard my horror story about him, and had also made backups.

So it's good to be cautious. And ALWAYS keep backup copies of your master tapes.

BTW, I'm a pretty decent editor myself now. If you're still looking.... :-)

Good luck!
 
Search around. Find a couple possible editors, and talk to them and ask to see some of their work. A "professional" editor will cost money.
 
wow, chapel.... that's horrible. i hope that guy isn't still DP'ing. Aside from just completely blowing you off... also re-using tapes? jesus. c'mon man, act professional (him,... not you)
 
Luckily, that producer had heard my horror story about him, and had also made backups.
Click to expand...

You would think that the producer would not have hired the guy in the first place since you warned him.

If anyone working for me was that egregiously negligent, I would sue them. Seriously.
 
hehe...let em edit the film by proxy...create some lowrez versions, watermark em, and let the guy edit those...then when you approve, just replace source reels with highrez versions, rerender. (kindof a silly idea? but hey, it might work)

Although, I'd say learn a bit about editing yourself...become a generalist. I guess you just about have to be somewhat of a generalist in the indie industry. I will always look for pro advice/help whenever I can get it, but I also want to have a little knowledge on every subject so I can learn even more when I run into somebody who knows it/tell if they're full of crap :)

Obviously, I'm doing extremely low budget/low resource stuff, so I've HAD to learn this stuff to get everything to work out (still working it out) and this might not apply if you can afford to hire people for their individual positions, which of course is preferable, especially if they're good at what they do.
 
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