The Phases of Editing

1. Rough cut: The rough cut is really a more refined version of the assembly edit, and note that when we say “rough cut,” we really mean “rough cuts”—multiple versions of the rough cut. You may well spend a lot of time revising and re-revising elements within scenes, entire scenes, and the order of scenes as you push for a rough cut you are happy with. Indeed, the rough-cut phase is frequently the longest part of the editing process.

   Whether you are the director or are working with the director, you will be replacing shots and other elements based on the director’s notes, your own notes, and suggestions from collaborators you respect—among others. This process entails reviewing scenes for timing and continuity issues, and deciding along the way to add, subtract, or otherwise tweak particular shots. Maybe your initial shot of a flag waving in the wind had too many lens flares in it, for instance. Your rough cut will eventually lead you to remove that first take of the waving flag and replace it with another. Or perhaps you will decide to take it out altogether. Or, if absolutely necessary, you will reshoot it. Often, totally new ideas or experiments are tried out and then either incorporated or discarded.

   You will also be addressing various technical issues, such as the syncing of picture and sound, and the periodic arrival of new or finished visual effects or sound elements. In visual effects–oriented movies or animated films, in fact, you may also find yourself creating temporary shots, or inserting other types of placeholding elements into the cut to allow you to figure out the timing of the shot and other intricacies of the final sequence while you wait for the finished shot to arrive later in the process. It is common for such elements to come in without always being properly synced, or to fall out of sync, and so you also will be trying to find and fix such hurdles during the rough cut. Finally, it is often a good idea to let your editing points between scenes look rough or raw if you are collaborating with others on the rough cut, so that it is clear there is an edit point at a particular place and thus an opportunity to consider other options if the edit is not something you have finalized.

2. Fine cut: Whatever version of the rough cut you finally commit to is typically called the first cut. This does not mean the time for changes, or even experiments, are over; it simply means you have a cut that you are happy with as a foundation for building your final version. The process of building toward that final version now begins with your fine cut. Many professional editors advise that it is a good idea to take a brief break between the rough cut and the fine cut to allow your current version to sink in and to give yourself and any collaborators a pause before looking at it again, hopefully with fresh eyes and new ideas.

   The fine cut is named as such because you are looking to make fine changes. You are not necessarily evaluating the entire film globally; rather, you are examining each scene and each cut in each scene to find out which you are unhappy with and to make tweaks where you think it’s required. At this point, more notes will be addressed and more final music and final or close-to-final visual effects shots, if any, will be completed. Once you incorporate them, you may well formulate new ideas or see either opportunities or problems that were not previously visible. During the fine cut, you will address these issues. Likewise, during this period, it is typical to screen the film for friends, colleagues or fellow students, or even strangers. You may or may not have the resources to hold formal screenings, or recruited screenings (surveying or prequalifying attendees to make sure they fit your target audience), on a big screen or in a theater, but even if you don’t, show the fine cut on the best monitor you can, find out what people who typify your audience think, and address their comments during further honing of the movie.

3. Final cut: Basically, when you and any colleagues (director, producer, or professor) like the fine cut, you will then need to work with whoever is handling your sound, music, and titles to get those elements the way you want them to be. Generally, when all of those people—or just you, if you are serving in all those capacities—are truly happy with the cut (or you run out of time to make any further changes), you will lock picture, meaning you will commit to making no more changes barring a dire emergency, and declare that you have arrived at a final cut. In the professional world and possibly in your class, very few directors have the true power of final cut. In most cases the studio or the backers of the film can demand changes in your final cut that must be addressed.

   Of course, depending on your film’s format—film or digital—and exhibition plans, you may still have more work to do to get your imagery into its final, high-resolution master form with final color correction, final visual effects or music, and other technical “sweetening” where needed, as discussed in Chapter 11; this is part of the finishing, or mastering, process. But as long as you have a final cut you are happy with, and have followed the steps outlined in Chapter 11 to generate an edit decision list and other elements for your mastering work, you will be able to breathe a sigh of relief that, at last, you have a completed movie to share with the world. If you worked hard enough on the process, there is every reason to believe you have a story that corresponds to the emotional beats you intended so long ago when you developed your script and dreamed of making a movie.

   However, as you go through each of these phases, you will need to be savvy about how to tell your story if you ever hope to reach a final cut you can be proud of (see Producer Smarts: Watch Yourself, below). Let’s next examine how to find a pace, a style, and shot-cutting methods that will allow you to get there as you journey through the aforementioned phases of editing.