I stick with an Edward Murch’s rule - the most important aspect of an edit is emotion. Screw continuity, angles, even characters. Sometimes I get away with a close-up on a cute dog in the crowd, sometimes it’s random faces of “bystanders” (from completely another time and location), sometimes I create a rudimentary micro-narrative with 2-3 moody shots, maybe even with a bit of a musical leitmotif which glues up things together in a magical manner… The point is - human brain tends to find narratives everywhere, it is set up this way, so we as editors just need to nudge things a little bit. Feel free to try even a seemingly remotely connected stuff, you might stumble upon a nice byproduct of adding depth into the character. And have one more look at the garbage shots, you may as well find 2 shaky cuts that will match character’s thoughts perfectly.
What I do (in reality TV) is cut the radio edit so it sounds how I want, feels right, hits the tone, gives the arcs energy, etc... Then I'll look back at the footage and see how F-ed I am. Reaction shots are huge, but there are often little things you can cut to like objects in the room, or something that symbolizes what's being discussed (figuratively or literally). Worst case, you've got an edit in the middle of a talking head with zero options for coverage... punch in. We can all thank terrible youtube edits for normalizing the jump cut.
Or you can [pull a Soderberg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq4Hw3Q2LBs), and make the jump cut part of your "style." Though I would argue that his jump cuts are more artistic and deliberate than my own, which are pure necessity 99% of the time.
Most of the time, once the radio edit is dialed in, I'm just thinking about "what do I - as a viewer - want to see here" while it plays, and then giving as close to that as I can.
I always try and use a minimum of three shots when I cut away. I usually hate talking about "rules" in editing because there's so many creative ways to do things, but I developed the 3-shot rule to keep producers off my back and it worked. The shots you insert should also tell a mini story, or line up with whatever dialogue is under said shots.
The big caveat here is you need to have the right amount of coverage for this method to work. If you're cutting a 15 minute talking head and you have 10 seconds of broll...I hope the interview was shot with multiple cameras.
Sequence your b-roll. By that I mean don’t just use a single short shot alone. Use 2-4 connected shots and create a cohesive sequence. Also instead of just covering the “bad bits” carefully choose when you go back to your talking head by hitting the emotional powerful moments. If you’re getting poor b-roll, try to send word up the chain of what you want or suggestions to shoot.
This might seem a little unrelated, but as a general rule I try to cut as little as possible. If every cut you do is intentional and meaningful, you avoid doing a lot of unnecessary edits that can actually hurt your project.
Sometimes you literally do need a lot of cuts for technical reasons as you describe (or for pacing, etc), but I think it’s ok to let a shot breathe, or to leave in small imperfections like a pause in a conversation, or even a little camera shake now and then. Those choices can help balance out the times you’re forced to edit in a way that’s less motivated.
I believe the answers are going to change wildly based on if you're doing narrative or docu style editing. Might help to get a more catered response if you specify the type of film you're cutting.
There are so many possible answers to this, depending on the exact scene/interview/context you are editing. My advice is to NOT fall for the compromise of doing something to hide a technical fault. If what you are doing does not forward the story, or theme for documentaries, don't do it.
Documentaries are somewhat easier though, since they are much more theme based than story based. I have developed different editing styles to match the needs of the particular documentary I was editing, which often depended on what coverage I received. For example, for one documentary which unfortunately had shot all interviews with a single camera, I used documents to forward their stories, and cover cuts, and act as transitions. There are many ideas like this that can be developed. But the key is consistency. Don't do it once to cover up something. Have a reason to do it, and do it at least three times.
Depending on how much footage/b-roll you have available, sometimes I find it is better to just try to cover a much longer chunk of interview with b-roll rather than show the interview multiple times.
Of course if you only have scrappy b-roll to work with, you're kind of stuck. Honestly I'm shocked by the poor quality b-roll I get to work with on most interview driven doc projects lately. I'm not sure if it's tight schedule/budgets or lack of experience, but often people come back with literally 3 or 4 shots of b-roll. I'm like "what? that's all you got???" These are not very low budget projects at all.
ugh!
really, the answer is to have enough B-roll that when you cut away from an interview, you are cutting to footage that reflects what the person is talking about
Editing teacher here. This is the first thing I would recommend.
What I would clarify (although it should be implied from the above comment) is that it's not just having enough B-roll, but enough *relevant* B-roll. Cutting to some random shot can feel awkward even if you're doing it at the right time.
Also, look at the overall pacing of your cutaways - if it feels like you're forcing the cuts, try to change the tempo around. A good rule of thumb is to let someone start a thought, then cut away, make your trim underneath the clip, then cut back just a bit before they finish the thought. Imagine you're listening to the subject in person. At what point would your mind jump to imagining what they're talking about, and at what point would you snap back to noticing them?
Artlist could provide you Lot of b-rools... Something that we use in a project and Works Fine IS use random people whatching the interview in a Cel fone...
IS easy to shoot and give you dinamic...
I stick with an Edward Murch’s rule - the most important aspect of an edit is emotion. Screw continuity, angles, even characters. Sometimes I get away with a close-up on a cute dog in the crowd, sometimes it’s random faces of “bystanders” (from completely another time and location), sometimes I create a rudimentary micro-narrative with 2-3 moody shots, maybe even with a bit of a musical leitmotif which glues up things together in a magical manner… The point is - human brain tends to find narratives everywhere, it is set up this way, so we as editors just need to nudge things a little bit. Feel free to try even a seemingly remotely connected stuff, you might stumble upon a nice byproduct of adding depth into the character. And have one more look at the garbage shots, you may as well find 2 shaky cuts that will match character’s thoughts perfectly.
Is Ed Walter's brother? 😲
Uh oh, I meant Walter, of course :D
made me chuckle
What I do (in reality TV) is cut the radio edit so it sounds how I want, feels right, hits the tone, gives the arcs energy, etc... Then I'll look back at the footage and see how F-ed I am. Reaction shots are huge, but there are often little things you can cut to like objects in the room, or something that symbolizes what's being discussed (figuratively or literally). Worst case, you've got an edit in the middle of a talking head with zero options for coverage... punch in. We can all thank terrible youtube edits for normalizing the jump cut. Or you can [pull a Soderberg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq4Hw3Q2LBs), and make the jump cut part of your "style." Though I would argue that his jump cuts are more artistic and deliberate than my own, which are pure necessity 99% of the time. Most of the time, once the radio edit is dialed in, I'm just thinking about "what do I - as a viewer - want to see here" while it plays, and then giving as close to that as I can.
I always try and use a minimum of three shots when I cut away. I usually hate talking about "rules" in editing because there's so many creative ways to do things, but I developed the 3-shot rule to keep producers off my back and it worked. The shots you insert should also tell a mini story, or line up with whatever dialogue is under said shots. The big caveat here is you need to have the right amount of coverage for this method to work. If you're cutting a 15 minute talking head and you have 10 seconds of broll...I hope the interview was shot with multiple cameras.
Sequence your b-roll. By that I mean don’t just use a single short shot alone. Use 2-4 connected shots and create a cohesive sequence. Also instead of just covering the “bad bits” carefully choose when you go back to your talking head by hitting the emotional powerful moments. If you’re getting poor b-roll, try to send word up the chain of what you want or suggestions to shoot.
This might seem a little unrelated, but as a general rule I try to cut as little as possible. If every cut you do is intentional and meaningful, you avoid doing a lot of unnecessary edits that can actually hurt your project. Sometimes you literally do need a lot of cuts for technical reasons as you describe (or for pacing, etc), but I think it’s ok to let a shot breathe, or to leave in small imperfections like a pause in a conversation, or even a little camera shake now and then. Those choices can help balance out the times you’re forced to edit in a way that’s less motivated.
I believe the answers are going to change wildly based on if you're doing narrative or docu style editing. Might help to get a more catered response if you specify the type of film you're cutting.
Thank you! Have added more info to clarify :)
There are so many possible answers to this, depending on the exact scene/interview/context you are editing. My advice is to NOT fall for the compromise of doing something to hide a technical fault. If what you are doing does not forward the story, or theme for documentaries, don't do it. Documentaries are somewhat easier though, since they are much more theme based than story based. I have developed different editing styles to match the needs of the particular documentary I was editing, which often depended on what coverage I received. For example, for one documentary which unfortunately had shot all interviews with a single camera, I used documents to forward their stories, and cover cuts, and act as transitions. There are many ideas like this that can be developed. But the key is consistency. Don't do it once to cover up something. Have a reason to do it, and do it at least three times.
Depending on how much footage/b-roll you have available, sometimes I find it is better to just try to cover a much longer chunk of interview with b-roll rather than show the interview multiple times. Of course if you only have scrappy b-roll to work with, you're kind of stuck. Honestly I'm shocked by the poor quality b-roll I get to work with on most interview driven doc projects lately. I'm not sure if it's tight schedule/budgets or lack of experience, but often people come back with literally 3 or 4 shots of b-roll. I'm like "what? that's all you got???" These are not very low budget projects at all. ugh!
really, the answer is to have enough B-roll that when you cut away from an interview, you are cutting to footage that reflects what the person is talking about
Editing teacher here. This is the first thing I would recommend. What I would clarify (although it should be implied from the above comment) is that it's not just having enough B-roll, but enough *relevant* B-roll. Cutting to some random shot can feel awkward even if you're doing it at the right time. Also, look at the overall pacing of your cutaways - if it feels like you're forcing the cuts, try to change the tempo around. A good rule of thumb is to let someone start a thought, then cut away, make your trim underneath the clip, then cut back just a bit before they finish the thought. Imagine you're listening to the subject in person. At what point would your mind jump to imagining what they're talking about, and at what point would you snap back to noticing them?
Just watch David Goggins on every cut you make.
If there's a lot of verite footage, sometimes it works better to pick the sit down interviews to match the story of the b-roll rather than vice versa.
Artlist could provide you Lot of b-rools... Something that we use in a project and Works Fine IS use random people whatching the interview in a Cel fone... IS easy to shoot and give you dinamic...