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Super-8 Filmmaking: Making the Cut
You have every right to feel excited when you get those little
reels back from the lab. Your heart is justified as it races
faster and faster, anticipating your brilliant cinematography as
you carefully thread your projector or viewer.
Well, calm down. You haven't made a movie yet. You're only halfway
there until you edit your raw footage into an organized film.
Unedited images and sounds on film are nothing more than the
moving equivalents of snapshots. They may look nice. They may
bring back memories. But they won't communicate ideas, and that's
the whole purpose of making a real film in the first place, right?
Of course, the term "editing" covers a large expanse of territory.
It can mean something as simple as the removal of shots that
didn't work or weren't exposed correctly. You know, stuff like
pictures you took of your feet when you accidentally pushed the
camera trigger. Editing also can be a complicated -- but highly
rewarding -- art form in itself. The arrangement of shots, their
duration and their relationship with one another can allow a
simple strip of perforated celluloid to have a big impact on
everyone who sees your film.
For most Super-8 filmmakers, the editing of film is as simple and
straightforward as their chosen medium is limiting -- and
liberating. I won't concern myself here with complicated
double-system sound editing, nor will I address digital or
videotape editing or blowing your work up to the 16mm and 35mm
formats for editing in those "professional formats." Those are
topics for another day, and perhaps another Web article. What
we're discussing here is cutting your camera original film into
short segments and splicing them together in a new order. When
you're done, you may find that your film has become more than the
sum of its parts.
Let's talk for a minute about working with original film. If you
come to Super-8 from the world of larger film formats, cutting
your precious camera original no doubt makes you nervous. In the
realm of 16mm and 35mm, editors deal exclusively with cutting and
rough-handling workprint copies struck from the original camera
negatives. When the workprint is edited to their satisfaction,
they carefully cut the original negative to make it conform to the
workprint. Super-8 is a whole other discipline entirely.
(Remember, it was created as an amateur medium.) Super-8
filmmakers shoot reversal film stocks that are intended to be
projected. Making workprints is prohibitively expensive, and
conforming a Super-8 original to a workprint with nearly
microscopy edge numbering between tiny sprocket holes is just
about impossible.
So treat your film with great care, but don't be afraid to handle
it and cut it. Proper precautions should ensure a completed film
with little or no wear. Keep your equipment clean and free of
dust, hair and other particles that can scratch the original film.
Run a strip of black leader (Expose some film with your camera's
lens cap on to make black leader.) through your viewer and
projector to make sure they will not scratch your film.
Editing equipment
The viewer (also called an editor) is a tabletop device with a
small rear-projection screen. A pair of rewinds are used to
shuttle the film back and forth through the viewer, allowing the
filmmaker to preview his footage and mark it for cutting with a
grease pencil. (Avoid using built-in mechanisms that punch holes
in the film to mark it. You may change your mind after you've
damaged a frame with one of these devices.) Most viewers have
attached rewinds, some on folding arms. The best viewers have
separate rewinds that can be mounted to a tabletop, allowing
plenty of room to access the film for cleaning and cutting.
The splicer is the device that actually cuts the film. While it's
possible to cut film with scissors or a razor blade, those aren't
the best ways if you want two pieces of film to join together
properly and go through your projector without trouble. Splicers
allow two pieces of film to be aligned on pegs via their sprocket
holes. They can be joined together with splicing tape or splicing
cement.
Wet splicers use a cement that dissolves the surface of the film.
When a second piece of film is put into contact with the dissolved
surface, the two pieces of footage will become joined together --
hopefully in a permanent fashion. Dry splicers (what I use)
utilize transparent pieces of tape to connect segments of film.
Some varieties of Super-8 splicing tape are 8mm wide and cover the
full width of the film, with sprocket hole openings just like
film. Others or not as wide and won't cover the magnetic stripes
of sound film. The first style of tape can be used to repair
broken or stretched sprocket holes, although your success rate may
vary depending on the severity of the damage. Wet splices destroy
two frames of film. Dry splices destroy no footage, but poor
grades of splicing tape can ooze glue as they age. Making splices
that are invisible upon projection is a skill mastered with time,
care and patience.
Other accessories can be purchased cheaply or made easily. A pair
of thin, lint-free gloves will help you keep damaging skin oil off
your film. I have a hard time handling film while wearing gloves,
so I just wash my hands very frequently. An editing bin for
storing short clips of film can be nothing more than a couple of
dozen clothes pins attached to a board and hung on the wall. A
trash can or a pillow case hung from the wall can catch the ends
of the clips you hang from the clothes pins, keeping them from
getting scratched and dusty on the floor. Some editors store short
clips in plastic sandwich bags and long clips on 50-foot reels
while editing. You should also have a soft, lint-free cloth for
cleaning the film just before making a splice.
Editing techniques
A good editor is ruthless in his task of using only what is good
or necessary (which aren't always the same) and discarding
everything else. But save all your outtakes on on a 400-foot reel
in case you change your mind or want to use a discarded shot in a
future film. You can splice outtakes together with masking tape if
you want to save on splicing tape, but never attempt to run
footage put together in such a fashion through your projector.
That's just asking for trouble.
Project your film as often as necessary during editing. You'll be
unable to determine whether your footage is sharp on the tiny
viewer's screen, and it will be hard to tell how long each shot
lasts unless you have motorized rewinds. To save wear and tear on
the footage (and the filmmaker!), do a paper edit first by logging
shots on index cards and arranging the cards until you find a
pleasing and effective order for your scenes. Then start cutting
film.
It's possible to edit sound film with a silent viewer. You'll just
have to use your projector for monitoring the audio. Remember that
the sound that actually corresponds to a frame of film is recorded
18 frames ahead of the image, so be sure to take that into account
before cutting. (It's this way because the movement of the
magnetic sound stripes across the playback heads in your projector
must be continuous, whereas the image must be stopped and started
many times per second as the film moves through the gate.) Many
Super-8 sound projectors allow recording on either the main or the
balance stripes (or both), so it's possible to get fancy with
narration, music or sound effects withing getting too complex. The
professional-grade Goko 8008 editor offers two-track recording
capability, too, but it's expensive and is no longer made.
Chambless Cine Equipment (phone (706) 636-5210) sells it for a
whopping $895. Simpler viewers can be found on the Internet for as
little as $40. They are harder to find in thrift shops than
cameras and projectors. Whatever you buy, make sure it's easy to
use, has a bright screen and won't scratch your film.
Probably the single most important technique you can apply to your
project is to cut on action. Let's say you have two shots of the
same action -- a long shot and a medium shot. By cutting on the
action, you can join the shots without creating a jump. An
example: If somebody gets up from a chair, stay on the long shot
until he begins to rise; then cut to the same point in the medium
shot. The new shot will carry the action continuously, and the
audience will never be wise to the cinematic manipulation.
There's another type of action other than physical movement. It's
psychological or emotional action. If you have a long-running shot
of someone talking, cut to the person listening to show that
individual's emotional response to what is being said. Action can
be verbal, too. As two people are conversing, cut back and forth
between them as each person speaks.
Other important aspects of editing are pacing and rhythm. When
action is intense, your shots should be short and they should be
cut frequently. For maximum excitement, the length of the short
shots should be varied. When the action is slow, the shots should
be longer and cut less frequently. The overall film can be said to
have a rhythm derived from the pacing of all its scenes.
Editing can be used to manipulate time and space. Time can be
expanded or compressed to communicate excitement. Expansion is
generally used in scenes of suspense. Cuts to the detail of an
action or to a character's reaction to pending danger can turn a
scene into a real nail-biter. Think about a scene in which the
heroine is tied to railroad tracks in front of an approaching
locomotive. The audience knows the train is only a few seconds
away, but careful cutting can make the hero's desperate attempts
to rescue his lady love last a little longer, heightening tension
and building suspense.
Time compression is more common. After all, if the story told by a
film occurred in real time, audiences would leave the theater
before the movie was finished. Remember, it's not necessary to
show every action for the audience to know that it occurred. If
your character moves from one scene to another in an automobile,
it's unnecessary to show the audience too much of the car ride
from one place to another. To do so would be tedious and wreck
your pacing.
The final cut
When you think you have finished editing, you probably haven't.
Put your film away for a day or two and then look at it again. Get
someone you trust to look at your film, too. Listen to her
suggestions about what else to cut. Remember, Super-8 editors tend
to be the same people who shot the footage in the first place, so
an objective opinion can be invaluable. If you know exactly how
long a shot should be, don't hesitate to cut the film where it
should be cut. If you're unsure, leave it long at first. It's easy
enough to trim later, but it's virtually impossible to put footage
back without a visible splice. The only truly invisible splices
are the ones that occur between differing shots, not in the middle
of one.
Be sure the first and last pieces of footage on your reel are
six-foot sections of white leader. Twelve feet of leader per reel
may seem excessive, but the stuff is cheap and can prevent your
masterpiece from being chewed by a misthreaded or malfunctioning
projector.
Remember the joy of amateur filmmaking is that you can make
whatever kind of film you want and edit it however you want.
Professional filmmakers have to make many compromises. Usually,
they make films that someone else has financed. Most of the time,
the people holding the purse strings get the final say in what is
released in theaters. In Super-8, the filmmaker almost always gets
the final cut.
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