Another member who worked with Shortflix was Rachel Durance an incredible editor, she came in to speak about how she edits films, and she gave some great advice. For me the people who visited for Talent Lab couldn’t have been chosen better, there was such a variety.
Rachel used “Avid Media Composer” this is an editing software that she explained all the best editors are using and that we should train ourselves quickly on there, She explained when you start editing you must first get the story’s skeleton. Something she found extremely frustrating was when she’s given a particular project to edit and the director or producer asks her to “create pace within the edit” she went on to explain you must have shot and scripted the pace for it to be created within the edit.
Tips she gave was to read online scripts, use cuts to make faster pace, she also mention a film is made 3 times (script, Film and edit) and the film changes throughout all 3 of these processes, Although the film is really made within the edit this is where all the elements come together.
Rachel took part with editing Shortflix films such as: Ladies Day, Loosing it and Batty Boy she got involved on Shortflix through our 3rdyear tutor Loran Dunn, Rachel never went to film school and instead studies theatre, she was never really exposed to editing as a job until she got in contact with producers, AD’s, Line producers to make connections via email. The line producer from the well know Manchester TV show shameless got in contact with her and allowed her to do some work experience for one month, the assistant editor from shameless said that she needed to move to London to begin working on more edits, so Rachel did, she became a runner at a post production house and worked on programs such as TOWIE.
After a while in London she decid3ed it was her dream to work on feature films, she wrote to editors on big films, Billy Harrington from Kick Ass got in contact and they and a meeting during Kick ass 2. Her first big feature being kinsman and working her way up to be 1stassistant and then the editor, she has many more short films and features coming up within the future.
She went on to discuss how almost all editing work is based in SOHO London, many features outside of London are actually brought back there to be edited, she then told us the main city’s for editing:
1. London
2. Manchester
3. Glasgow
4. Cardiff
5. Bristol (Factual Documentary / David Attenborough)
She then explained how going from film school to a film set is a completely different ball game, you must send out a thousand emails to be noticed and always use instagram to stay alert