The joyful process of film-making

On Wednesday it happened. All the edited sequences in order on the timeline. And hey, only two hours, what a relief!

For the last 2,5 years I have been working on a film, on commisson. A portray of Krister Olsson, owner of Balticgruppen and The Developer in/of Umeå. For different reasons it came to be a slow process and has been a great companion to me.

Producing a documentary film is a process in many steps. Research, planning the shoots, the shooting, going through the material (naming the sequences and files, writing protocol to make it easy to navigate the material), putting together the script for editing, and finally the editing.

The film is actually two stories. The one about Krister Olsson, and the one about his latest project Väven, the new waterfront building for cultural arts in Umeå. And the two stories are told parallel.

Earlier, when a film was shot on a video band with a certain length, you new exactly how much material there was. 8 hours, 12 hours, 16. Today, as footage is stored on memory cards and hard drives it is impossible to know. In this project, it was a lot, that I knew for sure though.

The other thing was, I was certain the footage was really good. The building process of Väven is fascinating och the about 20 persons interviewed about Krister Olsson, all delivered. In a way both a nightmare and a dream to dig in to for finalizing.

To me, getting ready for traveling and putting together a story is very much related. You have a deadline. You need to be on the airport a certain time and you have a date for the broadcast or delivery to the client. And the time up until the deadline is basically packing too much stuff in a way too little space. This is the time when deadline nightmares show up in my sleep. They are all like being too late in the studio for a live cast or having to throw out things from my luggage at the airport. Horrible!

Every step in the process of film making has it’s own deadlines and consequently it’s own nightmares. But I also love every step! The research when I get to know the subject and ideas for how to tell the story comes. The planning for the shoots (it’s becoming real!), the shoots (it’s happening!), going through the footage (yes, it’s there and it’s looking good!), writing the script ( this was what I had in mind and it seems like it’s working!) and finally the editing. Yes the editing.

For me editing is pure pleasure. And has always been. In the old days while putting together a radio story, literary feeling it finding it’s form in my hands. At the TV station, in company with super experienced editors in the cozy dark of the editing room. And now, together with my youngest son in my bright downstairs office.

I am an organized person alway well prepared. And I often have a clear picture of where I am going. But I also love and need the input of my crew, and the collaboration with the person doing the actual cutting is crucial. At the editing table that’s where the story comes to life. What’s been an idea in my head and on paper will now be tested. Will it work? Will it really work?

In this case, we started putting together the themes for the interviews and I could tell right away that they would be very interesting. And way way too long! The second round we managed to cut them considerably but we were still far from what would work from a viewer’s perspective. There was also the story about Väven and different parts to add which would make this a motion, a flow, a journey, a film.

 The deadline nightmares began rolling in during sleep. And I had a constant pressure over my chest. On Wednesday all the sequences were edited and done, and we started putting them on the timeline in the editing system. Adding one to another. In order, the way we are thinking it would work the best. Part to part. Piece by piece. I glanced at the time code at the end of the last sequence. 2 hours and 5 minutes.

How can that be a relief? Two hours is a really long film! Yes, but the truth is I could have made a series in three one hour episodes out of this material and it would still have been interesting. And although we had cut the interviews more than I wanted I had expected to land on three hours at our first stop on the timeline. So two hours is manageable and really good news! Now, the intention of course is to edit the film down even more, but believe me, we have already killed so many darlings there is probably a separate heaven for them somewhere. 

I can’t say though, how much I am enjoying this part of my work. To watch the story unfold on the timeline. To compose it. To find the rhythm. To see how the idea I started out with 2,5 years ago (which I had been pitching for 9 years) becomes the film I have been dreaming of and hopefully a story Krister Olsson will appreciate and be proud of. The gift he intended for his children and grand children.