Having just taken on my first feature film editing job I have had a lot of opportunity to think about the way that organisational skills impact filmmaking. A boring topic, I know, but having a pre-established system of organisation really is what separates a professional from an amateur. Without a definitive way of tracking your decisions throughout the whole filmmaking process something is always going to get lost. For any budding editor or assistant editor I would definitely recommend Make the Cut by Lori Jane Coleman and Diana Friedberg. It has a plethora of information on how to organise your work-flows and keep track of things. Just when I thought I was being too anal about my bin layout in Avid, this book showed me that I wasn't being nearly anal enough.
Before this film I had taken somewhat of a break from filmmaking as I focussed on teaching my various degree, diploma and short course students all the wonderful features of Avid and the intricacies of Music Video production. Coming back the world of filmmaking has stared to give me a fresh dose of Director Envy, which is a great way of motivating me to finish my short film script. Hopefully by the time I have finished this feature I will be ready to think about shooting it. I can hardly wait.
