Horror Short BTS
Shorts, meaning, and editing
As I come up to shooting the last couple of days on my first feature, Genesis, I’ve taken a look back at a BTS film I put together for my first “proper” short, The Devil’s Harvest. This short I created as part of my Masters at Raindance, a process I loved every minute of (though it was a challenge).
I’ve always wanted to make films and I’d been struggling making ones that had the depth that I wanted - which is why I undertook the Masters, focusing on exploring visual subtext. Specifically, I wanted to know how to put my interests in psychoanalysis and other stuff I read for fun (I know) beneath the surface. The Devil’s Harvest was my first attempt at using a conscious workflow and I felt it was the first time my voice came through in film.
Since then I’ve continued looking into the subject. At the moment I’m reading Walter Murch’s excellent new book, Suddenly Something Clicked, where he goes deep in places into editing theory. A particularly useful chapter was on editing as poetry. It helped me enormously in starting to shape the scenes I’m doing for the feature. My default (even though I know it’s lazy) is to go for standard invisible editing. Murch argues against this. When I recut the scene I was struggling using Murch’s poetic method the whole scene came to life. It’s so subtle but makes a massive difference. The basic idea is to anticipate the thoughts of the audience and cut for that, rather than for scene grammar. It was a lightbulb moment. Funny, sometimes I need to read someone else articulating something I’m struggling with to give myself permission - not that I claim to know what to do until I’d read this approach. Maybe it’s because the day job is freelance shooting/editing and often I’m not expected to do more than continuity cutting. Another great book for editing theory is Film and Video Editing Theory by Michael Frierson. It’s summary of different editing theories in a single book. Recommended.
Anyway, here’s the behind the scenes of The Devil’s Harvest. I’ll also put a link to the final short underneath as well. Watch them in whichever order you choose.
Making of:
The film:
And if you feel you can donate a little something to help us get over the line on Genesis (with some lovely perks!) please visit the crowdfunder. Every little helps!
Keep making films.
Bobby
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