Working in Digital Media Wk4
In each guest lecture the topics are varied so todays guest speaker was Ian Cudmore, a freelance editor. In to talk mainly about post production editing.
Ian began with a little of his background…
Following a degree in Product design, Ian studied at Trinity college for a further 2 years where he gained a masters in Music and Media Technology. Similarly, like our course – this followed a broad spectrum of many different digital technologies!
Beginning then with a little of his post grad life! During a short stint in a (now defunct) company he produced some of those crappy jingles and ringtones that annoy us so much… Not sure whether that left him without a job or Ian left before the company ceased operating but it was here he began freelancing(ish). Rather than twiddle his thumbs and wait for unlikely calls, he admirably set about trying to get work to come to him. Or at least open a few doors to work… paid or otherwise. He contacted Scottish folk musician, James Yorkston, through myspace. I think he made a some sort of music video of him as he was a fan? Anyway, James liked what he saw and asked him to do his EPK. An EPK apparently is an Electronic Press Kit, used to promote artists to mass media. Depending on the industry and target audience it might contain a short doc/promo reel/short biog etc.
Oh dear, I hope I get this right cos I’m relying on memory and scribble for recall… Anyway, this kinda started things sort of snowballing for him. It led to him doing a music video for Yorkston which in turn led to him meeting Donal Dineen, a notable Jack of all trades… photographer/presenter/film maker! Together they began to collaborate on a number of projects, notably one for Lisa Hannigan! An unknown then, 10 of her videos were uploaded to youtube and 1 of those ended up totalling over 800,00 views in a short space of time. Luckily for Lisa this led to a guest spot on a major US Show and luckily for Ian it brought him to the attention of Liam Mcgrath!
To shorten things, Liam works for/owns? Scratch films, a company for which Ian began to do alot of work for! Editing shows starring the likes of Maeve Higgans and PJ Gallagher…
Dependant on project size obviously there can be 3 types of editor:
- Assitant Editor
- Editor editor liase with director
- Assembly editor
I suppose it’s the pecking order of who does what…
He mentioned also that the ratio of reel from raw footage to final edit is 20:1! That’s a lot of unused tape!!!
So anyway, I found his talk very interesting! He’s a cool, down to earth guy and obviously carries a fair bit of personal motivation:-) He provided a lot of good advice and told us all he wished he’d been told before going out into the big wide world of work – such as looking into recieving Council and Arts Grants etc.
It goes to show that unpaid work really can get you places, it’s always worth your while to carry on with self projects during unemployment periods. Fire out a few letters and emails in the hope that one of them lands in the hands of the right person at the right time… I’ve did it myself plenty of times and gained experience with design and photography. Maybe you’ll be a dogsbody and poorly paid at best? Maybe not… Either way it’ll still be mutually beneficial and lead to who knows where!
I don’t really know exactly what part of the industry I want to end up in but like he says, the diversity of our course has real advantages! He’s often met great cameramen who couldn’t use Final Cut Pro and vice-versa-ish. Therefore his main advice was to really get to grips with all available/relevant technology and network, network, network!
Kurt Vonnegut 10 tips for short stories (shown to us during lecture)
He also recommended reading:
“In the Blink of an Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing” by Walter Murch.
Oh and i’ll check out this software too – he mentioned ‘I Stopmotion’ as worthwhile stopmotion software!
In Clodaghs class, continuing with Illustrator, we created a brush in order to make a nifty retro look type poster thingee… and had a bash at creating a ‘shiny button’.
Efforts below:-)
