CHAPTER 41

USING ANALYSIS AND FEEDBACK

After perhaps months of sustained editing work on a film, a debilitating familiarity sets in. As you lose objectivity, your ability to make judgments on behalf of an audience departs. Every version begins to look the same, and all of them seem too long. You become obsessed with particular faults in your footage and curing them seems an overwhelming task. Not unusually, you want to hang on to a sequence or a minor character that the editor and others think is redundant. These aspects of the film are your darlings, and the director must kill the darlings if the film is to be consistent and work well.

This disabling condition is particularly likely to overwhelm the hyphenation, the director-editor, who has lived closely with the intentions and the footage since their inception. But it also afflicts whole editing crews at this stage and is why you should now prepare to call on outsiders' reactions to the piece.

DIAGRAMMING YOUR FILM

After you have already altered, abbreviated, or transposed so much of the original, you usually feel you cannot possibly need any further analysis, but this is wrong. Before you show the cut to outsiders, make an abstract of your film in the form of a block diagram so you can spot anomalies. Some you will easily fix because diagramming alone brings revelations and new ideas.

MAKING A DIAGNOSTIC FLOW CHART

As we have said before, to better understand something, translate it into another form. Statisticians, for instance, know that the full implications of their figures are not evident to the great, unwashed public until expressed as a graph, pie chart, or other proportional image. In our case, we are dealing with a slippery, deceptive medium whose mesmerizing present-tense detail inhibits much sense of overview. But by using a flow chart you can take control and find a fresh and objective perspective on your work.

A useful dual-purpose form that speeds up the job of analysis can be photocopied from Chapter 17, Figure 17-1. Run your film a sequence at a time and:

1. Make a brief note of each new sequence's content in a box (characters and main action).

2. Next to the box, write what the sequence contributes to the development of the film as a whole. This might be factual information; it might introduce a setting, a character, or a relationship to be developed later in the film; or it might exist to create a special mood or feeling.

3. Now look at the flow chart for your film. Like any representation, it has limitations because film sequences are not like a succession of soloists, each singing a self-contained song, but more like the delayed entry of several parts in a choral work. Each entering voice joins and cross-modulates with those preceding. Some foreshadow or make references that will only make sense later.

4. Draw and annotate lines indicating any special relationship existing between each new sequence and those preceding. This might show that in parallel storytelling, for instance, one sequence is too far away from its counterpart.

5. Examine how much time each sequence takes and give each an impact rating so you can assess how the film's dramatic pressures evolve.

Analyzing your work in this way forces you to conceptualize what actually comes from the screen and to translate what are conveniently inchoate sensations into hard-edged statements. It is vital, therefore, to do this work from the life on the screen and not from memory or the script. Articulating what each sequence contributes will help you to see dispassionately and functionally what is truly there for an audience.

What does the progression of contributions in your film add up to? As with the first assembly, you will again find some of the following:

• The film lacks early impact or has an unnecessarily pedestrian opening that makes it a late developer (fine for 19th-century Russian novels but fatal for a film that may depend on TV showings).
• The main issues are unclear or take too long to emerge (writing problem, but you may be able to reposition a scene earlier, even ahead of titles, to commit the film to an interesting line of development).
• The type and frequency of impact is poorly distributed over the film's length (feast or famine in dramatic development and progression).
• There is a nonlinear development of basic, necessary information about characters, backstory, and environment, including

• The film makes the same dramatic contribution in several ways (three consecutive scenes reveal only that the hero has a low flashpoint; choose the best and reposition or dump the others).
• A favorite sequence or character does not contribute to the thrust of the film. (This is one of your darlings. Close your eyes and swing the ax.)
• The film's resolution emerges early, leaving the remainder of the film tediously inevitable (rebalance or withdraw indicators in the film to keep resolution in doubt, so audience stays interested and working).
• The film appears to end before it actually does (false or multiple endings are a common problem).

Naming each ailment leads to its cure. When you have put these remedies into effect, you will sense the improvement rather than see it. It is like resetting a sail; the boat looks the same but surges under new power.

DIAGNOSIS: USING THE FLOW CHART AGAIN

I cannot overstress the deceit film practices upon its makers. After several rounds of alterations, make a new flow chart to ensure that housecleaning has not introduced new problems. Even when it seems utterly unnecessary, you will almost certainly find another round of anomalies sitting there like time bombs. Filmmakers of long standing know this and subject their work to intensive formal scrutiny. Most of the discussion during the cutting of a feature film is during the last phases and centers on the film's dramatic shape and effectiveness.

A TRIAL SHOWING

Preparing flow charts brings one more benefit. Knowing now what every brick in your movie's edifice is supposed to accomplish, you are excellently prepared to test the film's intentions during a trial show for a small audience.

AUDIENCE

Your audience should be half a dozen or so people whose tastes and interests you respect. The less they know about your aims the better, so tell them as little as possible.

PREPARATION

Check sound levels and adjust them in your software, or you will get misleadingly negative responses. Even film professionals can drastically misjudge a film whose sound elements are inaudible or overbearing.

Once you have your audience members in their seats, warn them that the film is a work in progress and still technically raw. Also warn them if any music, sound effects, or titles are missing. Incidentally, it helps to give the film a working title because a title signals a film's purpose and identity to its audience and forms part of the viewer's “contract” with the film. You may also want to call out, while the film is running, a brief description of any vital sound component that is missing.

SURVIVING YOUR CRITICS AND MAKING USE OF WHAT THEY SAY

LISTEN, DO NOT EXPLAIN

Asking for critical feedback must be handled carefully, or it can be a pointless exercise. After the viewing:

• Ask for impressions of the film as a whole.
• Say little, listen much, and retain your fundamental bearings toward the piece.
• Focus and direct your viewers' attention or you may find the discussion quite peripheral to your needs.
• Avoid the temptation to explain the film in any way. Explanations at this stage are not only irrelevant, they confuse and compromise the audience's own perceptions. Among strangers, your film must soon stand or fall on its merits, so concentrate on hearing what your audience may be telling you.

Taking in reactions and criticism is an emotionally draining experience. It is quite usual to feel threatened, slighted, misunderstood, and unappreciated and to come away with a raging headache. You need all the self-discipline you can muster to sit immobile, say little, and listen. Take notes or make an audio recording of the proceedings so you can go over what the audience said in peace.

LINES OF INQUIRY

Because you usually need to guide the inquiry into useful channels, here are some open-ended questions that move from the large issues toward the component parts.

• What is the film really about?
• What are the major issues in the film?
• Did the film feel the right length or was it too long?
• Were there any parts that were unclear or puzzling? (You can itemize those you suspect fit the description because audiences often forget anything that passed over their heads.)
• Which parts felt slow?
• Which parts were moving or otherwise successful?
• What did you feel about _ (name of character)?
• What did you end up knowing about _ (situation or issue)?

With these questions, you are beginning to test the effectiveness of the function you assigned each sequence. Depending on your trial audience's patience, you may be able to survey only dubious areas or you may get feedback on most of your film's parts and intentions.

BALANCING CRITICS'VIEWPOINTS

Dealing with criticism really means absorbing multiple views and then, after the dust settles, reviewing the film to see how audience members could get such varying impressions. In the cutting room, you and your editor now see the film with the eyes of those who never understood that the messenger was the workmate seen in an earlier scene. You find a way to put in an extra line where the woman asks if Don is still at work and, without compromising the film in any way, the problem is solved.

Before rushing to fix anything, you must, of course, take into account the number of people reporting any particular difficulty. Where comments from different audience members cancel each other out, there may be no action called for. Make allowance for the subjectivity and acuity of your individual critics.

THE EGOCENTRIC CRITIC

An irritation you must often suffer, especially among those with a little knowledge to flourish, is the person who insists on talking about the film he would have made rather than the film you have just shown. Diplomatically redirect the discussion.

MAKE CHANGES CAUTIOUSLY

Make no changes without careful reflection. Remember that when people are asked to give criticism, they want to leave a contributory mark on your work. You will never be able to please everyone, nor should you try.

HOLD ON TO YOUR CENTRAL INTENTIONS

Never let your central intentions get lost and never revise them unless there are overwhelmingly positive reasons to do so. Act only on suggestions that support and further your central intentions. This is a dangerous phase for the filmmaker, indeed for any artist. If you let go of your work's underlying identity, you will lose your direction. If in doubt, keep listening and think deeply about what you hear. Do not be tempted by strong emotions to carve into your film precipitously. You may need to wait a week for your contradictory passions to settle.

MEA CULPA

It is quite normal by now to feel that you have failed, that you have a piece of junk on your hands, that all is vanity. If this happens, take heart. You might have felt this during shooting, which would have been a lot worse. Actually, things are never so awful as they seem after the first showings. Keep in mind that the conditions of viewing themselves invite mainly negative feedback. Lay audiences (and even professionals) are often disproportionately affected by a wrong sound balance here, a missed sound dissolve there, a shot or two that needs clipping, or a sequence that belongs earlier. These imbalances and rhythmic ineptitudes massively downgrade a film's impact. The glossy finish you have yet to apply will greatly improve the film's reception.

THE USES OF PROCRASTINATION

Whether you are pleased or depressed by your film, it is always good to stop working on it for a few weeks and do something else. If this degree of anxiety and depression is new to you, take comfort; you are deep in the throes of the artistic experience. It is the long and painful labor before birth. When you pick up the film again after a lapse, its problems and their solutions will no longer seem overwhelming.

TRY, TRY AGAIN

A film of any substance usually demands a long evolution in the editing room, so expect to make several rounds of alterations and to try the film on several new audiences. You may want to show the last cut to the original trial audience to see what changes they report. Sometimes you can get a real sense of progress made during editing and sometimes not.

As a director with a lot of editing in my background, I know that a film truly emerges in the editing process. Magic and miracles appear from the footage, yet even film crews seldom have much idea about what really happens. It is a process unknown to those who have not lived through it, and for the beginner it will seem extremely slow. Putting a year of part-time work into a 30-minute film is not unusual for a new director who wants to make the work live up to its potential. To abridge this work is like pulling a car chassis off the assembly line and driving it away because the engine is already connected to the wheels.

KNOWING WHEN TO STOP

Never set a deadline for the end of editing. Instead, be aware of when the learning curve begins to flatten. Some directors will go on fidgeting and fiddling with the cut ad infinitum. This is the fear of letting go. Ending editing is like giving up being the shepherd to your children. There comes a point where they are as grown up as they are going to be, and you must let them go forward alone, to win friends as they may.