| |
|
|
| |
|
|
2016 Ellie Awards - Call For Entries
|
Dear Members,
I hope all are well and productive, or enjoying a well earned break as it has been pretty busy across post-production lately.
I have just finished the Freelance Business Skills course for Editors and it has been mind blowing! It was just fabulous, as entertaining as a weekly cabaret, delivered by Monica Davidson. Attendance was impeccable, everyone excitedly returning each week agog for the next instalment. There was a lot of referencing of wine and interpretive dance (you had to be there..). All of us came out feeling we had learnt so much more than we expected about the unique issues we have in our negotiations, entitlements, marketing ourselves, taking emotion out of the equation, but laughing all the way. We were able to welcome members from the ASSG, and hope we can do it again in the future and offer it further across the country to our members.
We have had a good response to the new online application system for the Ellies, with films rolling in and membership growing. Accreditation applications will be online soon.
We stepped back in time in both Sydney and Melbourne to celebrate our “Class of 2006” Accreditees. See industry news below for a wrap up of both events.
In Adelaide the ASE combined with the ACS to discuss the cinematography and process of post production on “A Month of Sundays”. Ken’s assistant Karen McKay had the daunting job of talking on behalf of editorial as editor Ken Sallows ASE was unable to attend. Enjoy reading her report below.
And of course our Western Australian colleagues have stepped up to the next level with a workshop on DaVinci Resolve which looked very well attended.
I had a wonderful time attending the Queensland Film Festival to talk about French editor Valérie Loiseleux and her work on Eugene Green’s unique films. Axel Grigor and Dan Rice, in true form ensured that all technical aspects were well checked while I was flying over, so that we had a smooth run. Valérie sent me a fabulous film made by her daughter, which gave insight into her approach to editing. You can see the film here. Interestingly it showed her editing the films of Manoel de Oliveira, the oldest working film director, who died last year at the age of 106.
After the screening and discussion, it was great to catch up with Axel and Dan, and other ASE members including Simon Smith, Charlotte Cutting, and Sunita Jariwala for a more wide ranging discussion which for some of us ended up in a scrummy Indonesian Restaurant..
And now the AACTA awards nominations are out, congratulations to the editors of all those nominated films across the many categories for helping tell the wide range of stories and bring their films to the juror’s attention.
Fiona Strain ASE
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
On Saturday 30th July the WA branch of the ASE hosted a Da Vinci Resolve workshop. This was attended by 17 enthusiastic Da Vinci novices.
Local editor and accredited trainer Charlie Collin facilitated the event which confirmed for many of the participants that colour grading is indeed a dark art. After wrestling with vectorscopes and nodes, the ability to use Da Vinci Resolve to manipulate video data was made comprehensible through Charlie’s clear and concise presentation.
 
Most of the participants were professional off-line editors who are not normally called upon to provide colour correction solutions. However the workshop gave some insight into how much remedial work can be done to a problem shot within a sequence by an experienced Da Vinci Resolve user.
After the workshop, as tradition dictates, we relocated to a nearby bar.
David Fosdick ASE Chair - WA Committee
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Matt Saville’s immersive ‘A Month of Sundays’, starring Anthony LaPaglia, John Clarke, Justine Clarke and Julia Blake, was the focus of the South Australian ASE’s latest Q&A session. Run in conjunction with the Australian Cinematographers Society (ACS), guest speakers Mark Wareham, DOP on ‘AMOS’, and Assistant Editor, Karen McKay answered many questions from the audience.
 
It was a fantastic event beginning with drinks and a social gathering allowing members and associates to reconnect and discuss upcoming productions. The ringing of the bell announced the start of the screening and the audience was taken on an absorbing heartfelt but humorous ride edited by ASE member, Ken Sallows.
The film explores the emotional journey of real estate agent, Frank as he tries to make up for missed opportunities with his decease mother via a wrong number caller with a motherly voice.
 After the screening was complete there was an extended Q&A session with Mark, Karen and producer Kirsty Stark. Mark showed some photos from production and gave a brief history of the pre-production and production decisions. The film was shot over twenty days in the heat of January in Adelaide and Mark explained how this affected the decisions made by the camera department, their lighting techniques and Matt’s shooting style.
 The colour palette of the film was a major discussion piece that extended from production to post-production with the amazing work of colourist, Marty Pepper from Kojo mentioned. Karen (substituting for an absent Ken Sallows) talked through the post-production process and stylistic choices. The ease of the production was apparent within the discussions of inter-department processes and positive support and understanding between the speakers. Great questions were asked and professional conversations flowed across the night.
NSW
Ask and ye shall receive! As a direct result of ASE members asking for help in negotiating wages and conditions, our wonderful President Fiona Strain managed to negotiate a free Tafe course for members: Freelance Business Skills for Screen Editors - presented by creative industries leader Monica Davidson. Over four weeks, Monica made every attendee feel empowered, like they were not alone in the big, fierce, freelance world, and equipped them with the knowledge and tools to start or take their careers to the next level. Subject covered were Business Skills, Contract Negotiations, Money, and Time Management to name but a few. The course was attended by editors and sound editors of all levels, from students about to embark on their new editing careers, through to seasoned feature film editors.
Very happy customers!
Hopefully the guild will be able to organise more opportunities like this here and interstate. In the meantime, Monica is giving a condensed version of this course in Sydney on the 19th of August, and in Melbourne on the 16th of September. Details on the AFTRS website.
 
Plenty of laughs every week Fiona Strain ASE practises her handshake
Here are some testimonials from those who attended:
.... after only our second session Monica had given me the skills and the confidence to negotiate with a big corporate to double the fee on offer, to the base minimum for a corporate job. It’s really put the creative juice and practical planning into the yucky business stuff and I’m enthusiastic about it now - getting this sort of quality help earlier would have made my working life so much easier. Frayne Dyke-Walker
Coming from overseas, I thought I was the only one lost with the dark business side of our job. It was scary and encouraging at the same time to see experienced editors on the same boat. And to realise we have a lot of progress to make. But this is what we do best, we make sense of chaos. This course was much more important than any other software I learned in the past few years. Daniel Jesus
 To have such dense but essential material delivered in a fun and relatable way has been a godsend. Apart from anything else, having the opportunity to sit in a room full of editors and realise how many challenges we are all facing together has been great. Danielle Boesenberg
The course has helped me to be better equipped for the business and lifestyle of an editor, especially for someone who is starting out like me. It's great to be inside of a room with so many like-minded people, plus Monica as a teacher who knows editors better than I could ever ask for. Monica and her magical way of guiding us through various subjects has made it not only easy but entertaining for us to learn the business side of creative work, which is a skill that doesn't naturally look appealing to many creative professionals.
Tao Do
Monica Davidson
A big thank you to everyone that came and see you at the next one!
QUEENSLAND
Greetings fellow editors!
‘Tis the day after EDITOFF, one of the most memorable gatherings our Queensland branch has staged to date. A full report will follow once the edit dust has settled, but let’s just say that ‘competitive’ editing definitely has a future as a fascinating spectator sport!
Big thanks to the team at Chop Shop Post in West End for hosting and co-arranging this enjoyable and well-attended event. I also want to give a big shout-out to Charlotte Cutting & Jason Hargreaves for providing the gorgeous rushes, ASE Qld committee member Dan Rice for co-ordinating the event, Audio Network for providing music, our four editing pros (Sue Schweikert ASE, Tony McGrath, Steve Thomas and Michelle McGilvray) and four editing students for all being such good sports. It was a joy to watch each team tackle the various obstacles that were thrown into their paths. Entertaining and insightful from start to finish. More about EDITOFF in next month’s newsletter!
At the recent 2nd Queensland Film Festival, we once again presented the session THE ART AND CRAFT OF EDITING. This year we had the absolute pleasure and privilege to welcome our guild’s very own President Fiona Strain ASE to Brisbane. Fiona and UQ Architecture Professor John Macarthur presented a fascinating look at the work of celebrated filmmaker Eugene Green and his editor Valerie Loiseleux. An event report by Qld committee member Simon Smith follows below.
Coming up: we’re planning a session looking at the job of the Assistant Editor. We’re also looking at doing another instalment of our popular PostInsider events. details on which local post house we will visit next will be sent to all Qld members once we’ve settled on a date. Make sure to keep your ASE membership up-to-date so you don’t miss the email invite! And don’t forget to tell your fellow Qld post & editing colleagues to join up.
Until next time,
Axel Grigor - Chair, Queensland Committee
VICTORIA
 On 5 August 2016 Friday afternoon a crowd gathered at the National Gallery Victoria Ian Potter theatrette. They were there to see the editor of Bad Girl that had its Australian premiere screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival.
Cindy Clarkson ASE introduced Simon Njoo to the packed out session being mostly film makers and students. He showed a promo that he had edited for Bad Girl which was beautifully crafted, everyone wanted to know his story. Simon was quickly handed a microphone and started to tell of how he came to edit this film. Simon had spent the earlier part of his career in France editing commercials and documentary.
In Australia he had success with Babadook and Spear and had various offers one of which was to start editing a film in LA. He didn’t go as the shoot had already been completed and was lucky enough to be offered Bad Girl which was still in the pre production stage. This was also a more interesting script for Simon as he wanted to be more involved in the production process.
Simon Njoo and Cindy Clarkson
With Bad Girl he had shot extra footage during the shoot as a second unit camera to use in the edit. This proved invaluable as he and the director Fin Edquist worked together in the fine cut.
To illustrate this point much to the awe of the audience Simon showed various assemblies and fine cuts via a projector played from his laptop to show how the edit process evolved. Simon discussed at length how he shapes a scene, how you can favour shots to evoke more from the rushes and the assembly and the role he now plays in becoming more involved with each new project.
 This was the classic true master class in editing and for the audience an insight into the film making process.
The applause and cheers at the end of the session said it all.
The ASE thanks Simon for giving up his time and presenting a fascinating discussion and to Cindy who organized this event.
Barrie Munro ASE - Chair Victoria Committee
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
THE ART AND CRAFT OF EDITING, editing session at 2016 QFF
Fiona Strain ASE and John Macarthur at the Queensland Film Festival
On the 16th of July, the ASE Queensland branch teamed up with Queensland Film Festival to arrange a special session on editing. This year, discussion focussed on the work of director Eugene Green. In particular, the session looked at his recent feature film “La Sapienza”, which tells of a love story that develops amid baroque architecture in Rome.
The panel consisted of University of Queensland architectural professor John Macarthur and our very own ASE president Fiona Strain, who discussed the ways the films’ editor, Valerie Loiseleux, was able to both evoke the Baroque past and create new meanings.
Enriching the experience of the film they had just seen, Macarthur fascinated the healthy sized crowd with historical insights and by pointing out of the many layered architectural in-jokes that many had missed, as Strain played out how the editing reinforced these meanings.
Strain also highlighted the many unconventional editing techniques, such as suddenly cutting down the line of action with the characters eye-line straight to camera, or conspicuously hanging on an empty frame after the characters had left to invoke suspense and even paranoia.
Finally, to finish off the hour-long presentation, the audience were then engrossed by Strain's presentation of rare footage of Loiseleux at work, which also delved into the long-standing collaboration between her and Green.
Simon Smith
CLASS OF 2006
On the 7th of August, editors gathered to celebrate Accreditees from 2006. In Sydney, Karen Pearlman interviewed three of our editors, Drew Thompson ASE, Andrew Macneil ASE and Jane St Vincent Welch ASE about their careers and where they are now. Their stories were funny, insightful and covered the world of features, advertising, documentary and reality television. All spoken about with passion, and genuine love for the job. Thank you Karen for running the interviews and Adrian Barac for photographing and recording the Sydney event.
 
Top left: Karen Pearlman chats to Andrew Macneil ASE
Top Right: keen listeners
Bottom Left: Our wonderful National Administrator Margaret Slarke
Bottom Right: Karen Pearlman chats to Jane St Vincent Welch ASE
Karen Pearlman in conversation with Drew Thompson ASE
In Melbourne, Nick Meyers ASE was doing his own step back in time to talk about “The Boys” at a different event, so we congratulated and celebrated him in spirit. At the Northcote Social Club a group of Editing legends and not so legendary got together to celebrate Tony Stevens ASE's long and varied career.
Tony with his wife, and friends
Steve Robinson ASE and long time Victorian committee member introduced Tony to those younger members who were unaware of his achievements. He went through the list of credits in drama documentary and features that Tony had done over the last forty six years. Yes forty six years with film, tape and non linear.
Tony started in 1970 and worked at Crawfords prior to joining the ABC in 1976. After cutting many Drama productions he left in the early eighties to follow a career in music videos. Tony not only ended up edited features, Road to Nhill and documentaries, Family Footsteps but many music clips from bands like the Reels and Hudu Gurus.
Most of all Tony will be remembered for the iconic “Living in a land down under” by Men at Work which was one of his first clips he directed and edited.
A great time was had by all and thanks to Andrew Brinsmead for organizing the venue. Congratulations Tony.
Barrie Munro ASE
The recorded interviews will be live on the ASE website soon.
AACTA UNVEILS FEATURE FILM LONG LIST
If.com.au reports on the 24 Australian feature films on the AACTA Awards longlist.
MEDIA COMPOSER v8.5.2 NEW FEATURES OVERVIEW - VIDEOCRAFT EVENT ONLINE NOW
James Taylor, Sales Director of Videocraft Australia, gave a session to ASE members on the new features in v8.5.2 - watch this online now.
ART OF THE CUT WITH THE EDITING TEAM BEHIND 'STAR TREK BEYOND'
Read Steve Hullfish's interview with the editing team behind the new Star Trek movie on Provideocoalition.com
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
MEET THE MEMBER: JOELLE BAUDET (NSW)
 After graduating from VCA 19 years ago Joelle Baudet started her editing career at Karl Marks Films, learning from some of the best in the industry. Since then her work has taken her to Tokyo where she spent 2 years editing a monthly half hour series on urban living for New York based TV station She TV, then to Paris for another couple of freelancing years. Now back in Australia she pursues her interest in cutting documentary, short films, TVCs and online content.
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
NSW
Those of you who are lucky enough to have held one of our Ellie Awards trophies would have marvelled at it's weight and expert craftsmanship. The makers of our wonderful trophy are hosting a new exhibition and have invited ASE members to come along.
AUSTRALIAN BRONZE PL
SCULPTURE HOUSE AND FINE ART GALLERY
TIME: 630 PM
DATE: FRIDAY 19 AUGUST 2016
ADDRESS: 19 NORTH FORT ROAD MANLY 2095
DRINKS AND SNACKS WILL BE SERVED
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
FACILITIES CRAWL
Watch this space for an exclusive Facilities Crawl especially for our members... coming in October.
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
AFTRS OPEN: 
GOT A QUESTION: study@aftrs.edu.au
AFTRS OPEN - EDITING & VFX SHORT COURSES
AFTRS Open has a range of short courses year-round, all taught by industry experts in AFTRS state-of-the-art facilities. Here are some highlights:
INTRO TO VR
This course will give you a good overall understanding of the Virtual Reality landscape and specifically how to approach this new medium from a narrative and storytelling perspective. You will also learn about the entire production and post production process involved in creating a 360 video.. (24 September)
OPEN DAY AND POST-GRADUATE INFO EVENING
Learn about 2017 courses (10 & 21 September)
GET CUTTING WITH AVID - ONE DAY INTENSIVE
This highly practical course will introduce you to the fundamentals of using Avid Media Composer, getting you up and running quickly in one day. It is most suitable for Post Producers or Production personnel who already work in the industry but are new to Avid. (25 August)
TV ASSISTANT EDITOR
The Australian TV industry is crying out for more trained and effective Assistant Editors. This 3-day, intensely practical course gives students a fast, but thorough, hands-on experience in the duties, technical skills and responsibilities of the Assistant Editor. No prior editing experience is required. ( 29 - 31 August)
To view all upcoming courses visit the AFTRS Open website .
Digistor has a range of trainers available for specialist tools such as Premiere Pro CC, Avid Media Composer, Autodesk 3ds Max, MAYA, Cinema 4D and DaVinci Resolve & Fusion plus The Foundry Nuke. We specialise in short notice customised training to suit your requirements so if you have any specific training requests please let me know and we can organise a trainer to suit.
NEW – Don’t forget Blackmagic Design Fusion training Thursday 7th July. For further information training@digistor.com.au or http://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/blackmagic-fusion-training-registration-22721852673
We can also offer 1 on 1 or small group training for your entire team on demand. For further information or to make a booking: http://www.digistor.com.au/Training.aspx
Adobe After Effects CC Training Thursday 25th and Friday 26th August
Adobe After Effects CC for Compositing. Our instructors are experienced in editing and post-production pipelines and real-world use of the tools they teach. You and your team will receive the benefit of practical guidance from specialists who understand deadlines and workflow and are committed to staying up-to-date with developments and passing this information onto customers.
Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve Fundamentals & Advanced - New dates coming soon
We also supply custom training for many different applications including Cinema 4d, MAYA, 3ds Max and much more. If you would like to discuss your specific requirements please contact us. Digistor offers training discounts for members of industry organisations. For a discount code please contact training@digistor.com.au
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
Send us a picture of your workspace and win an Australian classic DVD.
Tell us what you love (or hate) about your workspace.
Jane St Vincent Welch (NSW)
In early July this year I was working at CAAMA (Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association) in Alice Springs for 3 weeks. I was cutting a short documentary and mentoring young first time director Viviana Petyarre.
I was so really looking forward to getting out in that gorgeous red coloured earth, the big skies and all that.
I ended up editing in a small narrow windowless room - close to the hard drive hub in the next room. So I brought in some of my own bush from the banks of the Todd River to brighten it up.
I loved editing this film ‘Petyarre', (first thing I’ve cut on Premier-pro) about Viviana’s Nanna’s, Gloria, Violet and Kathleen Petyarre, who are well known painters from Utopia who had travelled throughout the world exhibiting their artworks in the 1980’s and 90’s. Viviana found all this wonderful archive of this in the vaults of the CAAMA which we intercut with her recent interviews with them out on their country. It’s about preserving stories in a new way. We were thrilled when it got into the Margaret Mead Film Festival in NY.
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
