The 'Dennis Norden' School of Editing

For all you young folk out there, this is Denis Norden, who presented a series of bloopers shows on ITV.

As we said in our previous post, the Eton Crow editor is a law unto himself. This is not an exaggeration. Having handed over what one of our stars termed our 'acres of footage' on Sunday night, hehas spent the last week putting together a usable cut of a four and a half minute conversation.

The key word here is 'usable'. As we previously said, we here at Eton Crow are not professionals. If it's just as much of a shock now as it was then, seek therapy.

But, as we say, if you're planning to make a film, keep the word 'usable' in mind at all times. Of the total three hours of footage, approximately a third of this was usable. The rest was not, because of a variety of reasons, but primarily the following two;

(I) Outtakes - the finished conversation is four-and-a-half minutes long, while the finished outtake reel is only thirty seconds shorter. In these four minutes you can experience bongo drumming, random comedy quotations, occasional flatulence, strange sounds from off-set and general larking about.

(II) Framing. We love our actors here at EC, but even they will admit that while they have flashes of genius and talent, they are also not professionals. And so, at least half an hour was spent on the day finding imaginative places to hide the script so that it was in view of the actors but out of view of the camera.

This was a partial success.

Our director was also experimenting with multiple running cameras on the day - which is partially why we had enough usable footage - and this was a qualified win. Qualified, because, from some angles, the script hiding process was not so much successful as crashingly obvious.

This is why our editor has been locked up for the last week, intermittently watching Peter Gabriel videos (although, oddly, not the one you might expect.

One conversation, four and a half minutes (including a minute-long sight gag), four days of editing. Welcome to our world! Our director now has The Fear about shooting the fight sequences to come...

On the value of serendipity

It's probably a good time to make a fairly candid admission; we here at Eton Crow are not professional filmmakers.

It's a shock, I know. Trained operators are standing by on the helpline to help you cope with this sudden revelation.

But we really love what we do. This must be true, because people who didn't love it wouldn't volunteer to dress up as ninjas, samurai, toxic journalists, mariachi, seventies disco proprietors or heavy metal enthusiasts without feeling some love.

Here's the thing, though; it wouldn't work without one thing. The necessary soundtrack. Without the proper sounds, our short films - such as they are - would just be the sound and fury of foolish but enthusiastic people, signifying nothing.

And this is why we'd like to talk about serendipity. Our director was, and is, a member of Barbelith. Whatever the current status of that forum - with a lot of respect, it's kind of glacial at the moment - a while ago, it was a fairly amazing place to be. He's really hesitant to talk about it in terms of 'in it's prime', but our director does get a little misty-eyed and nostalgic about Barbelith circa 2004 - 2007.

The big thing about the (B), we're assured, was the people who hung around there. One of whom, Eton Crow is proud to work with, and whom we should have talked about before.

It's a little humbling, because we should have talked about him before, given that he's scored three of our trailers, one of our short films, and is currently scoring another. But it was the music we heard tonight that made us realise that we'd been neglecting our duties, because of it's sheerly amazing nature. It was the kind of soundtrack that re-affirms your faith in filmmaking, and, no, this is not hyperbole, nor is it praise for praises' sake.

Who is this person, you ask?

Why, we could tell you. But instead, we're going to ask you to visit his music sites at http://grantimatter.com/ and http://guildofscientifictroubadours.com, and, if you find them interesting, then move on to http://www.flyingfists.org.

This is a plug overdue by a long, long time, for which we hope Mr G can forgive us. But, enjoy!

Not with a bang but with a box of cheese sticks

And so, it is with some happiness that we can announce that we've started filming the second Eton Crow filming project, and our first 'proper' short film - with a script and a plot and everything! - in the hope that we'll have it all done by the end of August.

However, this has, for us, illuminated a curious insight into one of the more curious aspects of filmmaking; sometimes, the least complicated section of a script will take the most time to film.

For instance; when we originally filmed the demo reel, we managed to film three ninjas assaulting a man who's saved by a mariachi in approximately three hours, even managing to include a Seventh Seal reference. We even managed to film a jidaigeki - or, more accurately, Chambara - trailer, sword-fights, love interests, flashbacks and all, within four hours.

Yesterday, filming a conversation lasting approximately three minutes took up approximately four hours. A conversation between two men, sat down, without anything else happening other than them talking.

It's mostly down to our director's mildly OCD nature when it comes to filming - the actual conversation was repeated four times, and there was a lot of time built in for corpsing and other such issues that come up on occasion. (It turns out that if you want to keep your actors serious, showing them this before shooting had begun was not necessarily the smartest of ideas. You live, you learn.)

So now, the actors have been given the rest of the week to recuperate while our editor - who is a law unto himself - tries to piece together a single conversation of approximately two to three minutes out of an hour and a half's footage.

Happy days!

And yet, you can't plan for everything.

Hopefully, we'll be doing some more filming on Sunday.

I say hopefully, because of the following factors;

(I) The 'Leading Actor' - such as he is - will probably still be drunk from the night before. This is not a slight upon his character, or an indication of dipsomania; it's just very likely.

(II) The 'Supporting Actor' may either have to drop out, or may suffer some sort of stress-related cardimyopathy on set, because of outside factors.

(III) The 'Director' - again, such as he is - will be trying to corral everyone into a location that we may only have for a very short period of time, without (I) throwing up somewhere. Again.

Don't get us started on the lighting, the sound issues, or the organising of the beautiful extras, because once started, it may never stop, and we're sure you all have buses or trains to catch.

Here's the thing - as was laid out to (II), earlier. Filming is something our director finds very important, but he has a valid perspective on it; film is a personal thing for him, but 'personal isn't the same as important'. Put simply, if it all went vertical tomorrow, and nobody could make it to the filming date because of personal issues, then we walk and replan, reschedule and redo.

The funny thing, of course, is that being drunk - or hungover - will actually be perfectly in character for (I) on the day, and that's some lateral symmetry you don't see every day...

It's boring, it's boring, it might put you to sleep

I love the fact that Eton Crow has developed three followers on Twitter even though we haven't posted anything yet.

Well, that's not quite true. We've posted exactly one tweet, just prior to our last filming date. I can only assume that we're piquing people's curiousity precisely by not posting anything; it's like anti-publicity, and we're driving people wild by not telling them anything.

Such is, as they say, life.

Anyway, yes, we're still here, and still here too, if you still get off on being recursive. Yes, the website really, really sucks at the moment, but that's because although we're many things, we're not website editors. This too shall pass.

Anyway, a recommendation for you today;

First Love, by Emmy the Great, just because of the lyrical work. See what you think.

You were just like a verse that I didn't want to learn

I feel I've learnt some important lessons over the last few weeks.

(I)

- If you're at a training session, and the trainer is bald and camp, and then offers you three post-it notes to express your feelings on - one word per note - then the following options are not necessarily viable;

"Right", "Said" and "Fred"
"I'm", "Too" and "Sexy"
And even, at a stretch, "Richard", "Fair" and "Brass".

(II)

- Just because the anti-Swine Flu posters in the loos at work state that "The Power is in your Hands", I cannot refer to my penis as "The Power" in mixed conversation.

(III)

- While your mileage may vary on Baz Luhrmann, Sunscreen really is the answer.