Editorial for Jahela! has some unique challenges that make constructing the film different from the average project. Initially, Jahela! took most of its cues from the animation world, which tends to do most editing in the beginning. Using this technique is important for understanding the virtual spaces and planning out lighting and the use of the green screen. However, unlike animation, we do not always have complete control over the actions of the characters. They may move faster or slower, turn left instead of right, or any other number of things that need to be accounted for AFTER the shoot. So the storyboards and animatic guide the picture edit, but ultimately we have to treat the footage like any other live-action film and make creative decisions based on the information captured in camera. This means that the editor has to be able to visual the environment when it’s not really there. While most people close to the project can do this, many others will have difficulty. To deal with this, we do a process now known as “post-viz” where we put in temporary artwork to suggest what the final product will look like.
This is not only helpful to us, but to others who are tasked with giving feedback on the film, so that they don’t have to imagine what’s happening, but can rather just react to it.
JAHELA! 