DREAMFARM

"Art is the concealment of effort" -- how I wish I had said that. If you take any great piece of editing in a film -- you either notice it or you don't. Either way, you can tell whether it is good or bad, if you notice it, in the first place. The best editing can be seamless and invisible. It doesn't get in the way of the story, but it certainly pulls the story forward. The pacing creates tension. The pacing can also be like notes in a piece of music -- building to a pitch or climax. But what if you have editing that is obvious because it is cool? SHERLOCK HOLMES, directed by Guy Ritchie, has a signature feel to it. Slamming fast beats with a freeze for emphasis at the end. With LOCK, STOCK and TWO SMOKING BARRELS by the same director, it was crisp editing, it was new, kinda fresh. It had an original indie appeal. But with SHERLOCK HOLMES, the big Hollywood blockbuster (that takes place in the 19th century), the editing wasn't true t...

Non-linear editing brought about the ability to create *mash-ups*. I have fallen in love with this genre of editing. It is both a fine audio cut and a fantastic visual compilation. You have to get the audio to work before you even try to address the visuals. And if you can get that to work seamlessly, you have it made. Didn't we all include these in our demo reels at one point -- we called them -- a montage. My favorite, these days, happens to be a version of Rick Astley (oh gosh, remember him) singing his hit "Never gonna give you up" mashed-up with Nirvana's "It smells like teen spirit". How about seamless? Works, yes!

A director that I have known for years explained, "The true definition of BIV is -- Boring Industrial Video". If you are "bivin' for a livin' ", well, you know what I mean....we aren't doing art, we aren't making "films", and we aren't making porno (unless you choose to look at it that way) -- just plain old corporate video. We, BIV-ers are the unsung heros of American media. We roust the the legions of corporate marketers. As they watch the marketing propaganda, they can hold their heads up high, and listen for the true corporate-speak, those familiar words ringing out - "due diligence", "cross-platform", "smart thinking" or "accessibility". Who the hell talks like this? Once in a while, we (the universal BIV-ers) can get a vicarious thrill. For instance, agency commercial editors, film and documentary editors have looked down on our legions for decades. They would surmise that the w...