I recently was hired to edit a short film titled “Remain Calm”. The script was brilliant… but the actors were not that great. The story required the main actor to be extremely emotional. When I saw the raw footage, my gut just hit the floor. There was one part in particular that really had my head spinning. The main actor was in a closet conversing with an automated operator. Remember that when you don’t have enough footage to cut to, audio can save your ass. This was the situation I was faced with. I had an actor speaking her lines really fast, but the machine speaks very slowly. Of course, during production the actor didn’t hear the actual machine. The machine was to be placed in the movie in post. So, I had no footage to cut to, an actor going through her lines too fast and a slow speaking machine to insert. NIGHTMARE!! What I ended up doing is cutting the frantic actor\visual about 75%. I just dubbed her conversation in over footage of an intruder entering the house. It’s really starting to come together now. I’ll post a piece of this nightmare once I’m done. To be continued….
