editing Hatboxes

The Hatboxes shoot wrapped late the night of Wednesday, 26 June.  Our editor, Justine Gendron, submitted a rough assembly not quite two weeks later.  A rough assembly puts the best footage in the order the script dictates.  That version came in at a little over 21 minutes.  You could see everything, but it did drag.

Justine and I have met four times since, refining the film as we go.  As of today, Hatboxes is coming in at just over 17 minutes, right on target at about a minute per page of script. 

Editing detail, Hatboxes, scene 4.

This is no time to get sentimental about the words on the paper, or even some thrilling little fragment; if something doesn't serve the story, it has to go.  Whole scenes have made their way to the cutting room floor (now a dated metaphor, since this is all happening digitally...what used to be "slice" is now "click").  We don't want to rush the story, but we also don't want to drag it down or burden it because someone (usually me) can't let go of something.  An unnecessary turn of someone's head, a line that is, in the end, just "yadda-yadda," one blink too many:  gone.

What's astonishing is how much the actors brighten towards incandescence as we tighten the film.  Its emotional heft seems to be deepening, too.  Like everyone else, I'm anxious to see it when it's done.

Susana Darwin

after the Hatboxes shoot

Not surprisingly, there wasn't much time during the Hatboxes shoot to draft blog posts, but we did keep up with our Twitter feed (backwards chronologically):
https://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/%23hatboxesthemovie



© 2012 Brave Lux. All rights reserved.



The shoot lasted for six days and went well.  We ran into some glitches beyond our control on the first day (the sun does move inexorably; so do the planes approaching O'Hare from the east and the Friday late-afternoon commuter trains), but beyond those, we kept to our schedule, ate very well, discovered that some cats are good at assisting with data wrangling, and came away with some very good footage.

Photos of the overnight shoot (Urban Orchard interior, day 3):
http://flickr.com/gp/esteban_monclova/4b1x5M/

Photos of the night shoot (exterior of the apartment building two doors from my house, day 5):
http://tinyurl.com/6salu8n

I learned more about HVAC controls in those six days than I had known living in 27 different places over my entire lifetime.  It's astonishing how noisy air conditioning can be.

I learned that while the shooting schedule may look modular on paper, when it comes to making scheduling changes, considerations beyond the cold linearity of time and geography require a filmmaker's attention.  It seemed to work out for the best that the two most intense scenes got shot on the last day, but that was a lucky break.  The cast and crew of Hatboxes were an exceptional group of professionals, and working with them was an honor.

I learned that hearing the ingredients in Cheetos read aloud at Hour 11 of Shoot Day Six is unaccountably funny.

We'll keep you posted on our progress.  We've already received a rough assembly of the film, and it looks quite promising.

Susana Darwin