Documentary Editing

Jacob Bricca, ACE is an Associate Professor at the University of Arizona's School of Theatre, Film and Television, where he teaches classes on editing and documentary filmmaking. A member of the American Cinema Editors, he has edited over a dozen feature films, including the international theatrical hit Lost In La Mancha, the New Yorker Films theatrical release Con Artist, the Independent Lens Audience Award Winner Jimmy Scott: If You Only Knew, and the Sundance Special Jury Prize winner The Bad Kids. His directing credits include Pure, which screened at the 2008 Berlin International Film Festival, and Finding Tatanka, which premiered at the 2014 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.

Acknowledgements

Introduction: The Construction of Meaning in Documentaries

Principles of Documentary Editing

Your Documentary Editing Panel

Part I: Setting the Stage for a Successful Edit

Chapter 1: Planning Your Schedule

Documentary Schedules: How Many Weeks?

Chapter 2: Organizing Your Footage

File Organization on Your Hard Drives

Bringing The Files Into Your NLE

A Clean Window on Your Footage: The Feng Shui of File Structure

Documents You Will Need

Chapter 3: Everyday Work Practices

Work in Stages

Focus

The Vital Importance of Taking Breaks

Duplicate and Archive: Leaving a Trail of Breadcrumbs Behind You

Scraps Sequences & Alternate Shots

The Director/Editor Relationship: Working Together and Working Alone

Part II: Finding Patterns

Chapter 4: Viewing and Digesting

Chapter 5: Making Select Reels

Creating Source-Based Select Reels

Creating Topic-Based Select Reels

Chapter 6: Refining Select Reels

Drawing Initial Conclusions About Your Narrative From Your Select Reels

A Fork in the Road

Part IIIa: Constructing and Refining Scenes

Chapter 7: Evidentiary Editing: Building Interview-Based Scenes

Constructing the Framework: Anchor with Audio

Finding "Hinge Clips"

Stitch Together the Seams with Cutaways

Smoothing Edits

Chapter 8: Verité Editing: Building Observational Scenes

Build Up or Trim Down: Two Options for Finding "The Good Bits"

Invisible or Self-Referential?

Microbeats: Sculpting Human Behavior Onscreen

Body Language

Verité Cutaways

Workarounds for Insufficient Cutaway Material

Making Amalgam Scenes

Integrating Audio from Unrelated Scenes

Mixing Evidentiary and Verité Editing with the "Pop-in" Moment

Chapter 9: Building Montages

Media Montages

Part IIIb: Building the Rough Cut

Chapter 10: Choosing and Framing Footage

A Hierarchy of Experience

A Hierarchy of Intervention

The Limits of Verité

Chapter 11: The Fundamentals of Narrative

Text and Subtext

Experimentation

Chapter 12: Working with Narrative

The First Scene

The Beginning

The Middle

Endings

Reshoots

Creating Meaning Through Association and Juxtaposition

Alternative Approaches to Narrative

Chapter 13: Working with Details

Music

Archival Material and Stock Shots

Reenactments

Graphics and Animations

Lower Thirds

Location Cards

Subtitles

Chapter 14: Working with Time

Marking Time

Rhythm

Pacing

Dynamics

Pauses

Transitions

Part IV: The Refining Process

Chapter 15: Feedback

Evaluating the Work and Taking Direction

Why Hold a Rough Cut Screening?

Tips for a Successful Rough Cut Screening

Interpreting Notes

Chapter 16: Fine Cut to Final Cut and Beyond

Clarity Is King

Trimming Scenes Down

Cutting Scenes To Remove Redundancy

Cutting Scenes To Improve Narrative or Emotional Logic

Removing Unnecessary Pauses & Utterances

Inspecting and Improving Cutaways

Moving Backwards: Overcutting and How to Avoid It

Picture Lock and Beyond

Part V: Seeing It All Come Together: Analyses of Four Films

Chapter 17:Analyses of Two Feature Documentaries

My Kid Could Paint That

An Inconvenient Truth

Chapter 18: Analyses of Two Short Documentaries

Skip

Hotel 22

Appendix

Appendix A: List of Films Cited

Appendix B: Case Studies of Schedules for Feature Documentaries

Appendix C: Documents You Will Need