EVERY STORY NEEDS A SPINE

I have written this before, years ago, most people where dismissive and replied that “every story needs a spine’ was defeating the editing paradigms of the magnetic timeline concept in Final Cut Pro X.

A lot of time has passed and I reflected on those past comments.

Time and time again I use my spine approach for edits, it seems to get my clients the results they come to me for.

What do most clients come to me for, beyond a finished edit, a script outline or storyboard ?

I am known as a fixer.

A device, clients turn to when time is running out and others let them down. Most projects started off on a different editing system, all the great names of the trade. Yet they are all not exactly geared for fast freeform edits that yield results without large amounts of setup time.

For me, Final Cut Pro is the equivalent of a blank piece of paper. The type of paper artists use to outline with broad strokes, then refine it with finer ones until shapes form and an image appears.

Other NLE’s are in my view more of the perforated stationary type, lined, checkered paper stock that help with outlining. 

A blank timeline is daunting. Specially for those who are used to see at least some formatting reference like tracks, or layers.

This is when I bring in a Spine !

Most commercial projects are based on a format, a set length, a set goal that a story needs to reach.

Story traditionally is divided into a story arch. The three act structure is one of the most basic formats used since the ancient greek times. Everything is possible today, but a directors, story creator and editor has to have an idea of the structure before starting the assembly of a story.

TV programs have defined slots, with a set structure of commercial breaks, opening titles, closing titles and more. The more can be the recaps after each break, the recap at the beginning of each episode.

This elements form the spine of a the story.

In the above example I use a 30min format. A ‘gap’ is placed and timed to the duration of the project.

This is the spine that the project will be built up on.

Formatting the story begins with the known elements, in this case opening and closing titles. The producer defined them to be 2min (a random number).

Further the commercial breaks are inserted, as blank placeholders to start building a pacing model for the story.

The producers want a climax to build before each break, followed by a small recap of previous acts. In the traditional way of editing, even with the Final Cut Pro X magnetic timeline would require the editor to work more or less linear from left to right. Well I don’t like to work that way !

The reason being, the money shots for the climax, the grand finally are key to the show. Most of the time its easy to spot which shots to place there, but not so much which shots and how much time to allocate for what comes in-between.

The in-between is where a lot of the time gets lost. Editing a dialog scene, shaving it down to the bear necessity is time-consuming. While staring off with certain constraints makes the picture very clear from the get go.

Quickly shots can be loosely placed in position where they make most sense. This allows me to grasp with little effort the pacing that will be required to reach the end of a scene, each act.

More often than not I will go to a click audio track, a pacing tool. I know that a high paced climax will best run on 150+ BPM’s. A dramatic and scary build-up will start around 60 BPM and ramp up to 120 and more, depending on what the story requires.

Logic Pro is a great companion tool to create this click tracks.

Now, with some key clips and a click track, I can easily edit, while having a pacing scheme that will hold its waters.

The above example scene could look like this at first.

Knowing the script, I decided I needed a steady climb of pacing towards the climax, starting off from a moderate 120 BPM, climaxing at 150.

Tempo changes were chosen more or less arbitrarily. I wanted a slower start after the recap, maybe some romance. Raising the stakes a bit when the villain emerges and resolve it back to normal pace.

After all a script will tell you, what needs to be placed into each scene and act. 

The click track helped me refine the pacing to an imaginary beat.

Since the click track is based on musical measures, a composer has much less of a hassle to conform to the edit with less forth and back at later stage.

The resulting gaps between the individual shots can now be gradually filled with what fits the narrative. B-Roll elements, or maybe some pick-ups are becoming visible now.

And because its Final Cut Pro X, with magnetic timeline, ‘Overwrite to Timeline’ brings back the power. We have gone from creating a spine with all the freeform benefits to something that unleashes all the powers of FCPX !

I kept some clips above the spine, until I am sure how they join and connect with more footage that matches the story.

At this point the remainder can be turned into a compound clip and edited without affecting the main timeline duration, until everything fits and is returned to the main assembly spine.

This is my method of editing with a spine – Every Story Needs a Spine.

 

And because of this method, I worked in-part right in the middle of the project without impacting the overall duration. Which allows me to push dailies of rough cuts at any time that conform with the project specs.

Some projects require many other departments to be involved. Visual effects, graphics overlays, title designs, sound design and scoring.

Because the overall structure is always maintained, there is little risk that the work of others gets thrown too far off.

In the ideal world, we lock an edit, before sound and scoring even come into the picture. Today this is nearly impossible with the compressed unrealistic timelines.

Unfortunately, I rarely get hired for a full start to finish project, most of the time I play the fire department – fixing things that others messed up. For this reason my methods and workflow might be far off from what most get to do.

Please leave comments and suggestions.