by Peter John Ross (www.sonnyboo.com)

You got to be organized when shooting a movie or video production. Pros understand the value of shot sheets, storyboards and other planning techniques. However, you aren't shooting digital beta or logging around 35mm film gear - you are shooting with light and "consumerish" DV gear.

However, just because it's DV doesn't mean you shouldn't log your shots during
principal photography. 

Logging details about the takes, the camera angles and all the basic info can make your edit session more economical and timely. If you know there are only 2 good takes on an entire DV tape & you know from a log sheet where  on the tape the good takes begin & end, you can just type that into the BATCH CAPTURE mode of most non-linear editing systems. 

Then you can be creative with the footage at hand, and not waste time looking for the good shots, or filling up valuable hard drive real estate with gigabytes of in between and not so good takes.

For myself, I edit the whole piece together, not necessarily in sequential order, but from the most obvious scenes and takes and then assemble together a rough cut. From the rough cut, I then chisel away at the unnecessary lines or even whole scenes to get to the final edit.

Check out the TIMECODE BURNS article to help you become more efficient. if you can't afford a SCRIPT SUPERVISOR/CONTINUITY person,  I find that incredibly helpful in familiarizing yourself with the footage so that you are aware of your options.

After having been an editor, I am always shooting for the edit. I will start or end a scene with push-ins or pull outs of something like a light bulb or the dark part of a painting or wall for natural transitions. Pre-planning these kinds of things and storyboarding before shooting helps focus on what to shoot and how it will tie into the editing later.

You should always be aware that for every scene, you should try to the two "C's" -
COVERAGE and CUTAWAYS. These are the things that make editing possible.
Finding something relevant to enhance the story as a CUTAWAY is essential to
shooting for the edit. COVERAGE allows someone to edit out unwanted dialogue, and also tap into reactions, not just people speaking.

If you  write, direct, produce, shoot, and edit your own movies - then prepare yourself for a completely different mindset as an editor. This job is very different than the other aspects. This job is about telling a story with the raw footage. If you were there when it was shot, you have a bias in that you know what the geography was, and how the ambience felt like. Well, as an editor, it's your job to orient the VIEWER, who has never been to that set and didn't see everything. It's your job as editor to give the viewer a sense of the location, and tie it into the acting, the costumes, the set design, and most importantly the story the director is trying to tell. 

Of course, if it was not shot with anything other than close ups, you can't really edit much, so it's a team effort. The director needs to "shoot for the edit", meaning getting all the aspects of a scene so that editing can help shape the story in post
production.

copyright 2003 Peter John Ross

Check Out Other Articles by Peter John Ross

How to Get Music for Your Indie Film

Use Public Access TV to Promote Your Films

Save Your Camcorder by Doing Time Code Burns

Indie Film Cliches

Get Your Films on the Net

Also check out

Shoot for the Edit & Kill Those Babies

Audio for Video

Automatic Video Editing