So I was going through a manuscript today…previously published. I am oddly confident in what I publish. I am aware that every book – even the ones published by the big publishers – often still have typos and other minor issues. There was only 2 minor typos. I was quite impressed. Now that being said…I wonder how many times I have missed errors. I employ a multiple eyes on a project policy. This…
HOLY SHIT GUYS, LOOK! I WAS AT COMIC-CON 2 AND THE RADICAL PHOTOGRAPHER AT ARVAL PHOTOGRAPHY TOOK THIS PICTURE OF ME. THE EDITING IS SUPERB AND MAN I FEEL SO HONORED.
Saturday saw me write this definitive text…and I got to say I am trepeditiously pleased. A little over a year in the abstract making and I have a trilogy on my hands! Final word count was 300,074, with page # at 619 enough to see each book comfortably with 200+ pages – of course that’s just cursory, I still have the whittling and honing of editing to do and that always gives or takes!
Hello all! Just a reminder that editing commissions are open, and this time I have a carrd!! All information about my commissions can be found inside, so please click the link and check it out!
As always, I reserve the right to refuse any commission I am personally uncomfortable with. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me either via dms or the email found inside my carrd!
I’m very happy to announce that I FINALLY finished my first video for my Youtube channel!
You probably don’t know this, but, instead of being a tumblr, 9thtrapdoor was supposed to be just a yt channel. But I couldn’t seem to finish anything I started, so I decided to take a chance on smaller projects, like images and gifs.
But video editing has always been my main passion, so I never stopped editing whenever I had a free time/inspiration hit me. Mafia II - City Life was the first one that I started editing back in july 2017. I finallyfinished it and I’m so happy and proud of it. It isn’t perfect, obviously, but I’ve learned a lot from it, and my videos will be a lot better in the future (or so I hope)!
More videos are coming soon. Hope you guys like this one <3
Some filmmakers can do action. Others can do comedy. But for 40 years, the master of combining them has been Jackie Chan. Let’s see how he does it. (Note: to see the names of the films, press the CC button!)
For educational purposes only. You can donate to support the channel at
I’m working on a new video right now and it should hopefully be done in the next 7 days. So hang tight.
This blog post is about my experience at Adobe MAX 2014. It features a lengthy bit about seeing GONE GIRL with the post-production team. Full disclosure: I was an Insider for Adobe, and they gave me a free ticket and hotel room to go to MAX and write about it.
If you don’t care about this stuff, feel free to skip this post. Your video desires will be sated soon.
GONE GIRL
My favorite Adobe event actually happened before the conference even began. On October 5th, there was a screening of GONE GIRL with Kirk Baxter (editor), Tyler Nelson (assistant editor), Peter Mavromates (post supervisor) and Jeff Brue (engineer).
BEGIN NERDY POST-PRODUCTION TALK 80% of this film was modified in After Effects in some way. Backgrounds, splits, reframing, minor adjustments, you name it. The one thing they never did? Add a fake “camera move” in post. All the camera movements were real camera moves, but smoothed out in Premiere & AE.
If you have Premiere Pro CC, you’ll notice the improved feature “Dynamic Link render and replace” which allows you to roundtrip to AE, render it out and replace the file in Premiere. This is much better than the older method, where we’d dynamic link and then quickly hit undo. Apparently this feature was pushed through b/c the GONE GIRL team needed it.
Fincher shot 500 hours of footage, a 200:1 shooting ratio. Jesus.
I was happy to discover that Baxter doesn’t seem to care which NLE he uses. When prompted about Premiere, he just said, “I’m the easiest person to please.” As long as the program works and doesn’t annoy him, he’ll cut with it. He first used Premiere on a Calvin Klein commercial from 2012 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbC7_GJhQgE).
Tyler Nelson gets my respect for some intense workflow problem-solving. He seems to be part of a trend where older editors use the NLE, while younger assistants have AfterEffects experience and handle basic compositing and splits. This keeps most things in-house and lets the post team move quickly through iterations. As I understand it, dude conformed the entirety of Social Network & Dragon Tattoo (edited on FCP7) in AfterEffects. I remember hearing this back in 2010 and thinking that was insane.
Fav#GoneGirl panel quote was from Tyler Nelson. Apparently Fincher once said to him “Make it perfect, then we’ll go from there.”
Everybody cuts out of the same offices in L.A., even while Fincher’s shooting in Missouri. They keep in touch with PIX. I’ve wanted to play with this software for years, but it costs a bundle and seems to be exclusive to major studios. Lame. Do you have any idea how much time I’d save doing corporate work if the client could just draw an arrow pointing to the problem?
I asked Baxter a question about the Gone Girl opening titles, which are cut quickly with very slow music underneath. Apparently Fincher gave him a fast song and said “let’s get through the credits fast.” So he did. Then Fincher replaced the fast song with a music cue by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross. The end result is fast cuts and slow music, two rhythms that don’t quite match, which Fincher apparently liked. I think dissonance is an underused tool, so yay dissonance.
END NERDY POST-PRODUCTION TALK
My elderly neighbor, my dentist and my cleaning lady all told me about the Gone Girl post production workflow in Premiere. Everyone knows.
This conference is for nerds. Professional nerds. One of the only places where you could say “I make fonts” and people would get sexually aroused. A place where you make your own Threadless t-shirts (for free!) but some think the software “doesn’t give me the fine control I want.” A place where someone can demonstrate real-time updating of a project file and people cheer with their hearts and souls.
There are lots of people here, from lots of places. I met photographers, illustrators, pattern designers, web designers, graphic designers, sound designers, filmmakers, editors, and a sculptor. People who make things, even if they are often intangible ones and zeros.
If you are a nerd, this place is for you.
ADOBE MAX KEYNOTES & PRESENTATIONS
They pulled out all the stops for this. It was like a U2 show onstage. I still have that catchy-ass song stuck in my head. If you want to watch them, they’re here: http://max.adobe.com/sessions/max-online/
My favorite announcements at MAX included:
–Adobe Premiere Clip, which is basically Premiere on an iPhone or iPad. I can start a project on the iPad and then move it onto the computer. But you know what I would really want? The ability to do the opposite. Start a project on the computer, then move it over to the iPad and use my fingers to play with it. Sometimes you don’t want all the tools at your disposal. Sometimes you just want to see what happens when you move one clip in front of the other one. Dear Adobe, trust me on this. It would be amazing.
–Adobe Color, which was previously Kuler (that color wheel on the internet). Now I can point my phone at things and automatically generate a color palette. I tested it on a Wong Kar-Wai film.
—Weird Al Yankovic. Never thought I would say this, but some of the most interesting information I gleaned from MAX was from this guy. It was fascinating to hear that even a rich musician has to contend with unpaid fees from his record label re: YouTube views. He also got free music videos from different websites by offering them exclusivity for a brief window. Huh.
—The part where everybody got a free Surface 3 Pro. Yes, it’s true. Microsoft gave everybody at the conference (all 5000+ attendees) a $1300 device.
ADOBE MAX SESSIONS
I like sessions that are just artists talking about stuff they’re good at. So my favorite sessions were hosted by
I also dig random workshops about stuff I don’t normally encounter
The Visual Thinking Revolution, about using pictures to communicate in meetings instead of Powerpoints with words Type Camp Calligraphic Script Workshop, which was 3 hours of me writing with a calligraphic pen, failing and enjoying it immensely. I sent my mother my best work.
Mostly, I used MAX sessions as a way to learn software that I don’t normally use, in ways I don’t normally use it. Do I know if this will be practical? Beats me. Sometimes I just like to sit in a room and have no idea what’s going on. At 8 o’clock in the morning. Keeps me on my toes.
And that’s it. That was MAX. I loved it, had a great time, met a bunch of people. My only request, Adobe? Next time: Bahamas. All sessions on the beach. Unlimited pina coladas. 2015.
20 Movies I Study for Editing (Not definitive, just 20 to watch if you’re interested)
Sherlock Jr. (1924) ed. Buster Keaton The Man with the Movie Camera (1929) ed. Dziga Vertov The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) ed. Daniel Mandell The Red Shoes (1948) ed. Reginald Mills The Wages of Fear (1953) ed. Madeleine Gug, Etiennette Muse & Henri Rust Seven Samurai (1954) ed. Akira Kurosawa Rififi (1955) ed. Roger Dwyre Shoot the Piano Player (1960) ed. Claudine Bouché & Cécile Decugis Last Year at Marienbad (1961) ed. Jasmine Chasney & Henri Colpi Branded to Kill (1967) ed. Akira Suzuki
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) ed. Nino Baragli Rosemary’s Baby (1968) ed. Sam O’Steen & Bobby Wyman F for Fake (1973) ed. Orson Welles, Marie-Sophie Dubus & Dominique Engerer The Conversation (1974) ed. Walter Murch Star Wars (1977) ed. Marcia Lucas, Paul Hirsch & Richard Chew Goodfellas (1990) ed. Thelma Schoonmaker Drunken Master 2 (1994) ed. Peter Cheung Hana-bi (1997) ed. Takeshi Kitano & Yoshinori Ohta In the Mood for Love (2000) ed. William Chang Suk-ping Millennium Actress (2001) ed. Satoshi Terauchi
Five South Korean Movies I Like Take Care of My Cat (2001) dir. Jeong Jae-eun Memories of Murder (2003) dir. Bong Joon-ho Oldboy (2003) dir. Park Chan-wook Save the Green Planet! (2003) dir. Jang Joon-hwan 3-Iron aka Bin-jip (2004) dir. Kim Ki-duk
Five Short Films I Like One Froggy Evening (1955) dir. Chuck Jones La Jetée (1962) dir. Chris Marker Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers (1993) dir. Nick Park The Heart of the World (2000) dir. Guy Maddin Fast Film (2003) dir. Virgil Widrich
