Mini Course Editing | Cyber Film School

3. Post Production Rules of Thumb

Updated July 16, 2022

How long it takes to edit a film relies on Post-Production guidelines that put the process in perspective. They define parameters around scheduling and budgeting for post-production.

Contributed by Glen Berry
Edited by Stavros C. Stavrides

Three Indicators for Planning
Exceptions to these "Rules"
Shooting Ratio
What is Excessive?
The 60/40 Budget Rule
Summary

Three Indicators for Planning

As noted in the previous article “Post-Production Workflow,” how long it takes to edit a film is usually much longer than the filming schedule. However, the schedule and workflow are a lot more predictable.

So how long does post-production take for a movie? Let’s start with the following three indicators that prove valuable in planning your workflow:

It takes one hour per finished minute to arrive at the Rough Cut.
Allow one hour per finished minute to arrive at the Fine Cut.
Plan on one hour per finished minute to design and edit Sound Effects and Music.

Let’s see how we apply these ‘rules’ if we are planning on producing a 5-page script that should yield a 5-minute movie.

Given the above indicators, should take 5 hours to edit into a Rough Cut, 5 more hours to arrive at a fine cut, and an additional 5 hours to build the music and effects track.

Exceptions to these “Rules”

While the above formula is useful for budgeting time, it does not include finding and creating sound effects. It also excludes the time for composing of original music. In this example, we are simply placing these elements into the timeline.

As for visual effects, most are created and produced in tandem with filming and editing schedules, so we also exclude these elements from this equation as they can vary.

Therefore, we assume the editor has all the elements prepared for the work ahead, how long it takes to edit a 5-minute short film with all the sound components, translates to approximately 15 hours.

To calculate how long it takes to edit a feature-length film of 90 minutes, the same formula applies. 90 hours for each of Rough Cut, Fine Cut, and Music & Effects editing equals 270 hours. That’s almost seven 40-hour workweeks.

Bear in mind that this presumes a few things that you would be wise to take into account at the Production Stage, the first being the Shooting Ratio.

Shooting Ratio

To keep your post-production schedule in check, a disciplined shooting ratio of the production should not be excessive. We covered the subject of Shooting Ratio nicely in Scene Coverage: You Can’t Film It All.

To review, the shooting ratio is the number of minutes of footage shot during production versus the number of minutes of the finished project.

For example, 60 minutes of camera footage that yields a 5-minute finished film is a twelve-to-one (12:1) shoot ratio.

60 ÷ 5 – 12

What is Excessive?

For fiction films, when production starts going over a 10:1 shooting ratio, you will start putting pressure on your Rules of Thumb.

In this digital age, it is common to shoot excessive amounts of footage. After all, it doesn’t cost much because media storage is much compared to the cost of pricey film in the old days, right?

Well, maybe.

On the upside, the freedom to keep rolling take-after-take and angle-after-angle allows us to experiment. That opens up creative freedom. An editor always appreciates coverage of different angles to make the scene work in the best manner possible.

Conversely, there is a downside. Lack of restrictions can lead to unchecked self-indulgence, poor planning, and sloppy execution. There is nothing to stop the production team from shooting mountains of garbage and dumping an unholy mess on the editor.

Consequently, the editor is left to sift and sort through that enormous pile of raw footage for the gems they need to put a decent scene together.

Despite good intentions, directors who lack a strong vision for their production tend to shoot everything from every angle.

They hope that the editor will somehow figure out how to pull something together – not a director in command of their craft.

Granted, the production team should not feel restricted by the shooting ratio. A director should be able to shoot anything that they feel might be worthwhile. And as an editor, you want a well-stocked arsenal of shots and angles.

That said; always ask for an estimate of the shooting ratio before you agree to take on the project. An out-of-control ratio is often the sign of a poorly visualized production that will cost you time at the back end.

This post is a support article for the chapter “Five Phases of Film Production” in
Cyber Film School’s Multi-Touch Filmmaking Textbook.
Modelled upon the essentials of first-year film school programs.

The 60/40 Budget Rule

The last rule of thumb is that 60% of the resources should be spent in production and 40% should be spent in post-production.

Amateur producers only plan their budgets just to get them through the end of production. They tend to underestimate production costs, thus overspending their budgets in the production phase.

Some believe that they’ll make it through post-production by begging, borrowing, or stealing. Others just don’t understand how much work is involved (“But the editor does everything with free software!”) or they just don’t plan.

When you arrive at the post-production stage with no time or money for anything, it’s likely a sign of poor management.

If 40% of the movie’s resources were available for post-production, there would be adequate funding to hire motion graphics, a composer, visual effects, an editorial team, and a sound designer.

Again, the reality of low-budget filmmaking is that most productions run out of money before they complete post-production.

When things do not go smoothly, take into account that this Shooting Ratio Rule of Thumb may have been violated.

Then again, many editors have combined skills such as colorizing and sound editing as a one-person band. The cost may seem cheap, depending on how you value one’s labor.

Summary

• Time spent in post-production can be estimated with these rules of thumb: An hour per minute for the rough cut, another hour for the fine cut, and one hour for sound editing.

• Resources can often dry up when the movie gets to post-production. Be sure to allot sufficient resources (40%) to cover all the tasks and requirements of your project in post-production.

• It’s easy to shoot mountains of footage, to the detriment of the post-production team. Be sure you know the shooting ratio before planning the edit.

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NEXT>>>
EDITING THE NARRATIVE SHORT
•Assembling a Rough Cut and Fine Cut;
• Challenges of the editor;
•Creating the movie in Post Production

<< PREVIOUS
POST-PRODUCTION WORKFLOW
•Workflow through post Production;
•Ingesting, rough cut, fine cut, picture lock, soundtrack.

4. Editing the Narrative Short

Make no mistake. Editing is filmmaking. Newbies often mistake editing as a technical task, but the editor is a filmmaker with a strong grasp of visual story-telling. The editor should be able to get an emotional read on the material they are handed.

Contributed By Glen Berry
Edited By Stavros C. Stavrides

Updated July 20, 2022

Important Concepts

The Editor is a Storyteller
Know Thy Footage
See Director’s Intent
The Editor is a Problem-Solver

The Editor’s Creative Role

The job of editing is often mistaken as a technical task, but the editor must have a strong grasp of story-telling and be able to get an emotional read on the material they work with.

Describing the job of the editor from a technical standpoint is simple. The goal is to take the raw materials created in production and deliver an edited picture and dialogue. The more difficult question would be how the editor goes about accomplishing the creative objectives of the director, and what techniques he or she can employ.

First and foremost, the editor should be occupied with telling the story. As with most other positions in production, it is easy to lose sight of that one fundamental objective. The first pursuit of many novice editors is mastery of computer software.

Unfortunately, that is where many get stuck – pushing buttons at the command of a control freak director. As an editor, you don’t want this. Ever.

While an editor certainly must be familiar with the editing platform to accomplish the objectives, the computer is really only a means to an end. And that end is telling the story.

Know Thy Footage

The first step to editing is familiarizing oneself with the footage – ALL of it.

On larger projects, it is easy to allow the assistant editors or editorial interns to do all of the ingesting and logging and that is a normal way to proceed. However, the truth is that the editor needs to spend time viewing all of the material that has been shot. Why?

First, the editor is going to be looking at the footage with different eyes that the director (that’s a good thing!).

Sometimes the most minor details of performance, composition or movement will jump out at the editor and be an invaluable piece of footage to be used later. You never know where these little pieces will be found. Sometimes they come before “action” or after “cut” is called. Maybe a piece of gold is discovered on a take labelled ‘no good’ by the production team.

In the tedium of ingesting mountains of footage, assistants can easily miss these things, especially if they are marked as worthless by the production team. The editor’s responsibility is to ‘know thy footage’.

Make A Mental Game Plan

The other reason is that viewing all of the footage draws parameters around the entire picture and what is available to work with.

Even without a script, viewing the footage should give the editor an idea of the story and a mental game plan for how to put those images together to tell the story should begin to form.

The raw footage also tells a story of what happened in production – seeing the number of takes on each angle, what close-ups are available, and where shots start and end. These give the editor an idea of what was important to the director.

The editor should be able to read the footage and spot the director’s intent. This is why the director need not be in the edit bay for the editor’s first cut.

The editor should be able to see what has been shot and be able to form a clear idea of the pathway through the scene. The director leaves markers along a trail for the editor, the editor needs only to see and follow them.

Solve Problems

It is common for beginner editors to watch the raw footage and throw up their arms in exasperation. The pathway is often unclear. The material described in the script may not be present.

Many of the shots may contain problems that need to be cut around; audio problems, focus, undesirable camera moves, continuity errors, errant objects on the screen, and bad performance. Oftentimes, there is insufficient coverage or the action from shot to shot does not overlap.

This post is a support article for the chapter “Five Phases of Film Production” in
Cyber Film School’s Multi-Touch Filmmaking Textbook.

Even at the professional level, the production team is always going to deliver at least a few problems. Often, independent films are much more difficult to edit than studio pictures.

The production team is under-resourced and shoots quickly – a combo that often produces materials that are less than perfect. The editor’s job is to find a solution to every problem.

These solutions require creativity. Sometimes the solution is as extreme as moving away from continuity editing (where each shot connects logically to the next to form an unbroken sequence of action through the scene) to a montage where a collection of shots convey the story in a metaphorical sequence.

Editing Is Filmmaking

If we are dealing with footage that is less than perfect, it is easy to get preoccupied with solving problems and not telling the story. The story is the most important thing.

The longer you spend with the edit, the more sensitized you will become to technical problems. Issues arise like continuity, perspective problems, or poor quality image. Remember that you are cutting for the audience, not another editor.

On his or her first cut, the editor is as much a filmmaker as is a director, making decisions about shot selection and shot order. You cover a scene from different angles, visualizing the angles you want to use for parts of a scene.

Many extraordinary directors began as editors, which makes sense. When a director breaks down a scene from the script, she or he imagines how the shot would cut together.

The edit is already visualized before the camera rolls. An editor can learn to direct by reading the director’s intent and seeing how he or she created the materials for the scene.

Getting To Fine Cut

As an editor, when you select which shots you will use for the rough cut, choose the ones that tell the story in the best way possible. You may have to live with a bad edit or poor image to convey the emotion of the scene.

You should always select good images over bad, compromise on an imperfect image if you need it to tell the story and reject footage if the quality is so poor that it would distract the audience from the story.

The director enters to guide you in this part of the decision-making process. Once you have a rough cut assembled that plays to your satisfaction from start to finish, bring in your director and screen it for him or her.

Show the director areas that concern you, and ask for input. Offer solutions to issues with the edit, and play back different versions of those solutions. The director will make decisions on how they want the project to develop, and provide you with a plan for moving forward.

Once you have selected the shots you wish to use to cover the action in a scene, seek to find the best transitions possible and hide your edits.

We discussed this in “Six Transition Points For Seamless Edits” – bookmark that page and use it as your guide to making your handiwork invisible as you move forward from rough cut to fine cut.

The audience should never notice an edit, but rather they should be cleverly hidden so the audience is fully absorbed in the story.

Tighten It Up

Trim the heads and tails of your shots so only the fresh, relevant material in the shot is included. Cut out all the stale parts of the shots that occur before and after the main action. This is called “starting late and ending early”.

As you move forward with this process, your movie should get tighter, play smoother, and emerge as a watchable, engaging story. Screen it for people who have never seen a cut and know nothing about the movie.

Watch them carefully. Where do they shift in their chairs? When do their eyes wander? What is the expression on their face? This will tell you where you still have issues with the project and what you need to address.

Fine-tuning is the name of the game at this stage. Find a way to make every sequence work to your satisfaction and (of course) the satisfaction of the director.

When you have arrived at the point where the cut cannot be improved (or you are at your deadline), then it is time to lock the picture and move to the next stage in post-production.

Summary

• Don’t be fooled by the technical requirements of the job. An editor must understand how to tell a story or they will forever be confined to twisting knobs for someone else

• The editor must see everything that has been shot, you never know what you can use for the project.

• The movie has been shot around a director’s plan for the final product. An editor must be able to see that plan in the footage and follow the path left for them by the director.

• Editors solve problems. There will be problems with the footage – both in beginner films and pro; there may be numerous issues. There are solutions, and the editor is obligated to find them.

NEXT>>>
THREE PITFALLS OF THE EDITOR
Three common pitfalls to which the editor can become
the victim and how to avoid them.

<<<PREVIOUS
POST-PRODUCTION ‘RULES OF THUMB’
Some perspectives on post-production, along with a few parameters around schedule and budget.

2. Post Production Workflow

The editor’s workflow through the six steps of post production; ingesting and logging, rough cut, fine cut, titling, picture lock, and soundtrack.

by Glen Berry
Edited by Stavros C. Stavrides

Updated July 16, 2022

IMPORTANT CONCEPTS

Post-Production is (relatively) Predictable
The Rough Cut: Shot Selection and Order
Picture Lock in film and video is a major milestone
Make it Play without Music

The Six Steps of Post Production

Post Production is a more controlled environment than production and far more predictable with a well-defined workflow. The long hours of production can be stressful dealing with tight schedules and unknown variables and chaotic with a large number of people and unfamiliar locations. Post Production is the opposite. Few people are involved, the hours are regular, schedules can be planned with precision, and the amount of material to work with is finite.

This fourth phase of the moviemaking process can be broken down into a series of distinct and easily identifiable steps:

Ingesting and Logging
Rough cut vs Fine Cut
Titles
Picture Lock
Sound Track (Design, Composing, Mixing, Sweetening)

1. Ingesting and Logging

At the very start of the post-production process, the editor should receive a set of materials from the production team. That batch of materials should include the script, raw footage and audio, the camera logs, and the sound reports (if available). These are likely copies of the camera’s original media because to lose or damage the originals would result in a catastrophic and irreplaceable loss.

Very simply, ‘ingesting’ simply means transferring footage to your local hard drive for editing. This can describe capturing from a solid state (SSD)media card and may involve transcoding a proprietary codec to another format that is more palatable and easier to work with.

The editor and assistant must have strong computing skills and the ability to grasp the technical concepts related to media quality, bit rate, and storage, which are beyond the scope of this article.

Once all of the footage has been ingested onto the local hard drive and is viewable inside the editing platform, the editor or assistant editor can begin logging the footage. This process often involves viewing every clip, labeled appropriately (by the slate marker at the head of each shot), and making notations about the quality of each clip.

The camera logs come in handy at this point as a reference tool. The editor should make their own notes about each shot, regardless of the notes in the camera log.

2. The Rough Cut

We have a very simple objective with the rough cut, and that is to get the movie’s picture and dialogue, to play from start to finish. As the name suggests, it will not be perfect.

Do not strive to make it perfect. We must accept that our first pass at an edit will not include perfect transitions. All we are trying to accomplish is to make the first, and most important, decisions about shot selection and shot order.

The action of each scene in the script should have been covered from more than one angle in production (‘getting coverage’). The editor must decide what perspective to use at any given moment in the scene and get the movie to play from start to finish.

3. The Fine Cut

As the name would suggest, the fine cut is an exercise at finding the perfect transition points and cutting down on the fat. The heads and tails of each shot can usually be trimmed by at least 10-15%.

Moving forward with the fine cut should not take place until the director (or producer) has signed off on the rough cut. The order and choice of shots have to be determined first before determining what is a fine cut. In film, there’s no point in getting every cut dialed into the exact frame if a sequence will need to be rebuilt.

Creatively, the narrative of the fine cut must flow well without the aid of music (unless, of course, music is featured or plays a vital part in the scene, such as the performance of instruments or dance.

If there are sections that drag or seem rough, music may smooth them over but that is not the purpose of music. Music should emphasize moments or heighten the feeling of moments on the screen, not fix problems for the editor.

This article is drawn from the “Five Phases of Production” chapter in Cyber Film School’s
Multi-Touch Filmmaking Textbook

4. Titles

As mentioned previously, simple titles can be done easily by the editor with most editing platforms. Anything more elaborate than that ought to be done by a design specialist unless the editor has such talent and skill. Regardless of whether complex title treatments need to be integrated with the picture, they need to be built before the edit is complete.

5. Picture Lock

Picture lock in film and video is not a process by itself but rather better described as a major milestone. Picture lock means that there will be no more changes to the picture.

Directors sometimes have a hard time with this. They want to keep noodling with the picture endlessly. This is why you want to make them sign a document indicating that the picture is now locked.

Picture lock is critical because this signifies that the editor’s job is done. The project can now be sent to a colorist, the composer, and the sound designer for finalization, although the composer and sound designer may have been involved to a degree during the latter portion of the rough cut.

Any changes to the picture can have very disruptive effects on their work and can result in enormous inefficiencies, blown deadlines, and unhappy people. When the picture is locked, it’s locked.

6. SoundTrack

The popular mistaken description of a soundtrack is the collection of pre-recorded songs included in a movie. However, this is not what we mean when we talk about the soundtrack.

When we use the term ‘soundtrack‘, we mean everything the audience actually hears when they watch the movie. The soundtrack is comprised of four elements:

Dialogue
Narration
Sound Effects
Music

Dialogue has already been determined by the editor and is delivered to the sound designer and composer along with the locked picture as reference material. If narration is used, a ‘scratch track’ (temporary track) should have already been developed and timed into the fine cut.

The sound designer is responsible for creating a rich and multi-layered mix of sound effects that do not interfere with the dialogue. Likewise, the composer creates a score that enhances and emphasizes the emotional moments of the piece.

Both the sound designer and the composer need the picture-locked movie with the dialogue track to do their jobs, which is why arriving at the picture lock is so critical.

Summary

• Post Production is much more predictable and less stressful than production. Managing a post-production schedule is much easier than production

• The rough cut is about shot selection and shot order. Do not worry about timing. Your efforts will be wasted when you are instructed to rebuild sequences after the first viewing.

• Your fine cut has to play and be watchable without music. Do not rely on music to rescue a scene. Music will make it better but the scene needs to play without it.

• When the producer or director has signed off on the picture lock, there will be no more changes to the edit. Get signatures on paper. Any changes to the edit after this point will be painful and expensive.

NEXT>>>
Post-Production Rules of Thumb >>

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Introduction to Post-Production