The Edit Center in NYC

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philthang

Member
Hey All,

Has anybody taken the 6 week editing course at The Edit Center in NY?

I am really thinking about taking it but wanted to hear some testimonials from people on here to see if it is really worth it to relocate for 6 months (I live in Seattle).

Here is where I stand right now:

- All the editing I've learned has been self taught, no formal learning
- No real movie editing experience (mostly promotional stuff I shoot myself)
- I am not networked at all

any advice would be much appreciated!
 
Hi,

I just took the 6-week course in Aug/Sep 2008. It is expensive, but I thought it was totally worth it, even though I could have bought a Mac Pro editing station for the same price. :crybaby:. But it worked out since I bought one of the new Macbook Pros introduced in Oct. :dankk2:

The focus of the 6-week course is on editing, editing, & editing. You'll be editing 5 days a week for 5 hours a day - and honestly probably editing in your head the rest of the day as you think of ways to make your edits better. When I finished, I was editing almost exclusively with the keyboard, which I think is just the shiznitz. FYI - I never touched a Mac or FCP until this class, I was a self-taught Vegas user for 3 years. So I had to learn everything from scratch. But once again, the focus is on the editing, not the software. You learn the software almost by osmosis. If you take the class, I highly recommend memorizing the basic keyboard shortcuts, to give you more time to spend on the editing vs. learning software.

The heart of the class is footage from the film/documentary that is currently or just finishing production. The director will come in and parcel out different scenes or footage to each student, and then give direction as to what they were trying to do. For the 1st half of my class, we had a narrative and were given the script, and told go at it, see what you can do. Then we worked on a documentary for the 2nd half of the class. It had ten years worth of footage and no real script, so we got to find the story in the footage. The director comes by periodically, to answer any questions, give suggestions, or maybe add more footage to better flesh out the scene. At the end, the instructors, piece together the student scenes, and the school throws a pizza party to screen the 1st draft of the film/doc. As you can imagine for the students, it's both exciting, and dreadful all at the same time, as you tend to put a lot of heart & soul into your scenes.

This is both a learning experience for the students as well as the directors. The directors get to see different versions of their film/doc from 15 very different points of view, and also have time spent on their footage to pull out things that they might have never seen. When we were done, I think the directors more fully realized what their vision was or could be - I remember a lot of scribbling, and re-arranging, and scheduling for re-shoots after the fact.

There were many scheduled extra-curricular activities. We had what seemed like 1-3 events a week, usually a screening / Q&A with the film's editor. Screenings could be in the classroom or in a private theatre. The Edit Center would sometimes splurge with a pizza party for certain screenings - or everyone would go out for drinks afterwards. We were lucky during my class, as we also had several outings for films currently in theatres that had been worked on by previous Edit Center classes. Lucky in the sense that films in New York City, seem to be in theatres for one day and then disappear. These outings aren't an official part of the class, but The Edit Center does make a effort to try to make these happen. If you take the class, I recommend not making too many plans, before and after the class, as it's very fun to hang out with the students & instructors - especially in New York City.

For my class, we had 4 teachers, all working editors, and 2 teaching assistants. With only 15 people in the class, it's a very, very nice ratio. One of my favorite teachers, even screened a doc she worked on that won the Best Documentary for the Tribeca Film Festival 2008! Also you'll get some lectures and advice from Alan Oxman, the editor who started The Edit Center and also owns/runs the post-production house that The Edit Center resides in. In my class, we also got a good lecture from a working colorist, who toured us around the post-production facilities, and showed off his colorist/finishing work on When We Were Kings (1996). As the school is in a post-production facility, you can peek into different rooms and see different movies/shows being worked on.

The first week of class is an introduction to Final Cut Pro. They don't expect you to know anything when you start, but once again, I'd recommend learning the basic functions & shortcuts before the class starts, so you can really start to focus on the editing. For the first week you're paired with a partner, and you edit several tutorial scenes together. The focus is on collaboration, and throwing around ideas with each other. They also pair you up so that they can mix & match different experience levels together, and get the class socialized faster. For the final 5 weeks you are assigned either the morning or evening shift and are given the footage to work on.

At the end there is a lecture on getting editing jobs, resources, networking etc. You also take the scenes that you edited and make a DVD reel for yourself. And of course there's the final party at the end.

Anyway, it was a very good experience. The class is mainly about editing, working with the director and other people, and networking. Learning the software just kind of happens. The knowledge you get outside of the software is what the class is all about.
 
honestly to come out here and spend that money now it is not worth it.
you are better off shooting and working on your own projects.
I m not saying the center isnt a good idea but you can learn alot on your own and save money .
It can give you insight into how things work but not everyone who is in the bizz or wants to be has gone to school for it .
I would save the money for other things.
 
Yes i dont think its worth it also. Classes like that usually people tend to tell you how to do things and how they do it. I think that a real artist find his or her own way of doing things. I was a self taught FCP user and have been using for 4 years now and i consider myself a "pro" at it. What i did is spent a couple bucks and bought some dvd's which essentially is the same thing and you can take your time. Burt monroy FCP essentials is a great way to start.
 
philthang-

I found Manhattan Edit Workshop's six-week course superior to that of the Edit Center. You get a dedicated workstation that you never have to share with another student and you learn Avid in addition to Final Cut. MEWshop also has great guest lecturers; editors like Oscar-nominee Andrew Weisblum (Black Swan) and Harry Karamidas (Back to the Future). It's a better value. If you're going to spend the money, I would seriously consider going with MEWshop.

http://www.mewshop.com/
 
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