Picture lock, meaning story is also locked, AKA the final rewrite, doesn’t happen until editing. One of the reasons we were in post production for so long is because what I had written didn’t exactly work as written. Scene by scene, yes the scenes absolutely worked. What we shot worked. The actors did their jobs, our sound guys, our DP’s, everyone was awesome! So why isn’t this working I found myself asking after I saw the first few assembly’s.

Sure, the story has many layers and part of the synopsis does say: intertwining stories, but jeez louise, why was it so freakin’ hard to intertwine them!? One of the story lines is from a stand alone short film that I expanded, so I brought on the talented editor from that project. He had moved out of state, so for months and months we worked remotely, going back and forth trying to get an assembly that worked and it Just, Wasn’t, Working. Ugh! I  didn’t have the means at the time to travel and go sit with him for weeks but that is what needed to happen, we did our best but it simply wasn’t working.

That editor gave up, I gave up and I really thought it was over. This wasn’t going to work. Ever! Devastated, I told my friend and co producer Jesica Andres about my pains, which she then relayed to her husband Satish who just happened to be an editor and the rest as they say…is history!

Good people, when I tell you how unusual the entire process was, oh man! Somehow though, everything ended up being a complete blessing.  At the time, Jesica’s husband Satish Ferrando had just finished studying at Video Symphony with fellow editor Andre Lamb. The school had shut down and they were both jonesing to work on something. Especially Andre, who had never cut an entire feature film before. 

For several months, when our schedules would allow, Andre and I would meet in Satish’s apartment in Hollywood for a day of editing. It took us forever to get the first assembly out of Final Cut 10 (what the previous editor had used) and into Avid. Avid is what Satish and Andre preferred to cut on, and if you know anything about editing you can only imagine the nightmare it was transferring the project from Final Cut 10 and into Avid.

Scene by scene, and sometime frame by frame. Some scenes simply would not sync! It was crazy. Since I shot the film on three different cameras this made the process even more complicated. Good people, that part alone took weeks. Weeks! Oh yea, I almost forgot about the security footage that we shot. Make that four different cameras. 

Next up: creating a new assembly. It was no secret that Satish hated the assembly that I had and he was right, it didn’t work.  I already knew that but I still thought some of the sequences may have been usable. After all those weeks of transferring the original assembly, we ended up having to re-cut the entire film anyway!

For months, Andre, Satish and I worked together. We discussed story, tempo, cutaways, transitions, plot points, we thoughtfully argued at times and Satish even yelled at me on several occasions! It was great. The passion, commitment, time, energy and thought that was being put into making this story work, we were in the thick of it!

One of the strangest blessings that came out of this situation is that at the time Satish was at home full time with his six month old son Roane, and Satish also loved to cook. I’m not talking about cooking mac and cheese out of a box ,but real cooking. There were days Satish cooked juicy meats, delicious chicken, brisket, roasts, pasta’s and… oh my god, Satish is an incredibe chef! Andre and I were so spoiled.

Most of the day would be spent with me sitting next to Satish while I had his son Roane on my lap. It was wonderful to be able to spend so much time with Roane, as Jesica and I are dear friends and he is such a sweatheart. Andre would be at another table polishing and cleaning up the cuts we had already agreed on.

After months of discussing story, eating amazing food, playing tiddlywinks with Roane and yelling and fighting with Satish, we finally had something,  a brand new assembly! We did it!

That was at the end of 2016 and was also when Andre packed up his computer and post production moved to his studio in Lancaster. Satish got a full time editing gig, and Andre and I would spend most of 2017 cutting the picture.

At the time I lived in Hollywood which is nowhere near Lancaster, so Andre and I would work when we could. Sometimes it was a full twelve to fourteen hours in one day, other times we were able to knock out eight hours several times a week. It was fun, hard work and it was exhilarating as Andre really has a flair and intuitive understanding of story…and sound…and music.

Another blessing came from the fact that I got to meet and get to know Andre’s beautiful family. His wonderful wife Natalie is a healer in her own right and the more I learned about her, the more I understood why in the world Andre would spend so much time, care and energy on Elevate! They are a family committed to God and healing, and healing is the core of what Elevate is all about.

Next up: picture lock. After months and months of working, Andre and I finally had picture locked! So we thought. Ha! I sent a few rough cuts out to a handful of film festivals and when there was no bite, I went back to Andre to rework some transitions and a few scenes.

We soon realized that we needed fresh eyes on the project, we had literally been working on it for over a year at that point, so I grabbed twenty friends/colleagues and had a test screening.

That was so eye opening! Teeny tiny things that we didn’t even consider came up. Any question or confusion that came up more than three times, we had a look at, and we had to fix. What kept me going was the overwhelming emotional response that we received from the majority of the test screeners. Even if a few things lost them, which we later fixed, the response was so positive, I was in Heaven.  Andre, it’s working! It works! We did it!

A handful of editing sessions with Andre had us incorporating the notes, laying down the score, a bit of voice over, cleaning up sound, syncing and exporting the entire film. Oh, and credits! Andre also created the opening and end titles.

Talk about an editor who can do it all… Andre are you sure you’ve never edited an entire feature film before?  Well, now he has and I expect that he will be working on many more. The man is a gift!

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