We chat to the editor of the short film Sweetheart
CCT: Yours is the fresh eye and the last word in a long line of creative contributions and decisions. What techniques/mind-sets do you employ to ensure you do the rest of the Sweetheart creative team justice when you cut and pasted the film into the final product? And were you ever nervous about how the others would feel about editing decisions you took?
Daniel : Mine is not the last word in the line of creative decisions. Rather, it is the beginning of a new line of creative decisions, which all revolve around how best to tell the story. In terms of deciding which editing techniques to apply, it’s not really a conscious choice but more feeling ones way through a scene and punctuating emotional highs and lows and then placing that scene in the context of the film to ensure fluidity. We always tried to put ourselves in the seats of the audience, to see the film from a fresh perspective, which proved to be one of the toughest challenges.
We work in such a collaborative way that it’s hard to be nervous about showing each other our work, however everybody’s opinion is listened to and discussed.
CCT: In choosing which shots/scenes (delete whichever is inappropriate) to include, and which to bin, you must’ve thought through the story very carefully. Did your understanding of the narrative deepen/change with poring over all the audio-visual footage? (if so, please explain; if not you can perhaps just give us a short description of how YOU understand the narrative – it can be very helpful to readers to see how you see the storyline)
Daniel : I always saw Sweetheart to be about what isn’t there. It’s about the isolation and detachment from reality Sweetheart experiences and how she gets strength from those feelings. From the moment we first saw the footage we knew we’d let the narrative breathe through the cinematography, this really helped shape the way we told the story.
We also chatted to the rest of the Sweetheart team. The main story will show you the way.
Short film, not small talk : Sweetheart tells (almost) all | Creative Cape Town
December 17th, 2010
[...] Daniel : Mine is not the last word in the line of creative decisions. Rather, it is the beginning of a new line of creative decisions, which all revolve around how best to tell the story. In terms of deciding which editing techniques to apply, it’s not really a conscious choice but more feeling ones way through a scene and punctuating emotional highs and lows and then placing that scene in the context of the film to ensure fluidity. Read more… [...]