A Revolution, A Pandemic And The Road To ‘Valens’.
How Editing My Own Film Made Me A Better Storyteller.
Note to Reader: Before I continue, I’d like to first acknowledge that the following essay pertains to a collaborative experience shared with my trusted colleague and editor, Nancy Patiar on our short film entitled ‘Valens’.
In this essay, I’ll aim to break down the series of events which led me to helming the ‘director’s cut’ of my first film and the invaluable lessons learned along the way.
LONG STORY SHORT
‘Valens’ was a short story born out of both necessity and desire while workshopping a feature film in Lebanon during the Summer 2018.
Due to my limited experience behind the camera, it finally dawned on me that I had no choice but to go back to the drawing board and develop a smaller (and more attainable) project if I was ever going to win the confidence of my investors.
With that in mind, I returned home and penned a screenplay which totaled 15 pages. Six months later, I was back in Beirut and ready to hit the ground running.
With my dedicated and steadfast team, we successfully wrapped principal photography after 6 weeks of intense pre-production and a 7-day shoot schedule.
ROUND ONE
With filming in the can, I was tremendously excited to begin editing on what was technically considered my first film.
I employed the services of a well know post-production lab in country as I didn’t know the first thing about transcoding, color correction and editing thematic footage. But following a rough assembly of the film after about a week in their care, I quickly realized that being outside of the editing room was going to cost me a considerable amount of both time and money.
Not-to-mention the eerie suspicion that if I wanted to see my story on the screen the way I had envisioned, then I would have to take matters into my own hand.
So having already paid for the work done on the film so far, I was ready to head the recommendation of one of my producing partners, Jean Kharsa who had been on the ground with me in Lebanon and mentioned an editor he knew of who had assembled all of his commercial work up to that point.
ROUND TWO
This is when I was introduced to Nancy Patiar.
We met at Jean’s apartment, a far more intimate and conducive working environment, and following a quick read of our script over cigarettes and tea signed on then there to have a look at our footage and begin editing the film from scratch yet again.
We continued to meet at Jean’s place a few days a week and slowly but surely began to reap the fruits of our labor.
It was in that apartment where I began to gain invaluable insight on the process of editing through Nancy’s intuitive process and collaborative spirit.
Three months later — we had our first cut of the movie.
It incorporated almost all of the footage we had gathered during principal photography and then some (B-roll, stock footage, etc.).
THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION
On October 17, 2019; the citizens of Lebanon took to the streets in cities all over the country in a sign of unprecedented unity against their inept and corrupt government following months of economic inflation and an executive order to further tax free messaging platforms such as WhatsApp.
Jean and Nancy, being the patriotic citizens they are, made a concentrated effort to document and record as much of the historic movement as they could.
For three months, the pair acquired breathtaking footage which began to echo the theme of our film; The Ghandi-esque notion of ‘Becoming the change you wish to see in the world.’
Now I got to thinking…
COVID-19
As January 2020 rolled around, I had expired my time in country and was ready to return home to New York City.
As March arrived, I was beginning to comprehend the extent to which the Coronavirus pandemic would alter life as we knew it. With lockdown protocols and social distancing measures in place, I wasn’t going anywhere again anytime soon.
By then and following several test viewings of the our first cut — It became abundantly clear that we still had some more work to do.
ROUND THREE
I had inherited a first cut of the film by Nancy which had been drafted using Adobe Premiere Pro.
Up until that point, I was only comfortable using Final Cut Pro and made the decision to once again go back to the drawing board, preserve as much of Nancy’s edit as I deemed valuable and start fresh yet again.
This is where things get interesting…
You see, one might think that as both writer and director of the film, I’d be more inclined to preserve as much of the source material as possible in a vain attempt to showcase the story born on the page.
Perhaps at first that was the case but through multiple private screenings of our first edit, I quickly learned that I would have to be far more flexible and economic with my approach if I was ever going to tell a story which audiences would respond favorably towards while of course preserving my artistic integrity.
This is where I learned my first lesson of editing:
Don’t Be Afraid To Share Your Work In Progress.
The feedback here can prove to be invaluable as you learn to view the film through fresh eyes. This invariably leads to dynamic new choices and a bolder overall approach.
As days turned into weeks and weeks into months, the film began to speak for itself. I was able to clearly see where ‘trimming the fat’ so-to-speak was allowing for the more vital moments of the film to stand out in a big way.
This indeed led me to a second profound realization:
Remain Flexible In Your Choices.
At the end of the day, your final film may either resemble your script completely or not at all. As long as the story remains concise and effective, you may discover a whole host of avenues to go down when editing your footage together.
In the case of ‘Valens’, I soon realized for example that Jean’s footage of The October Revolution months prior was not only incredibly timely but vastly appropriate for use in our project following its prologue. This would not only ground the film in reality but it certainly helped increase our production value.
This of course brought me to the third and perhaps most important lesson of the project:
Keep Experimenting.
If art indeed imitates life, then we as filmmakers should be acutely aware that nothing is set in stone.
Until you’re in a place of complete and utter satisfaction with your final cut — you’ll more than likely be tempted to tweak a sequence here and there until what you see on screen either meets or surpasses your original vision — and that’s the point.
The final runtime on ‘Valens’ was six minutes shorter than Nancy’s cut and incorporated footage which was never scripted. Be open to change if and/or when it arrives. Your film will most likely be all the better for it.
I’ll leave you with a quote from famed auteur, Quentin Tarantino which I think best sums up these points:
“I’ve always equated the writing process with editing, sort of like when I get through editing the movie, that’s my last draft of the screenplay.”
Thanks so much for reading! Whether you’re a veteran filmmaker or have just set out to produce your first picture, I hope these insights can be of as much use for you as they were and will continue to be for me.
The most important thing is to get out there and get your film made however way possible — until next time, Happy Editing!
‘Valens’ is set to debut in Summer 2021.
