For the Post Production stage, I still have to assume the role of the director to communicate my vision of the final product to my editor.

During this stage, we encountered quite a few obstacles such as conflicting ideas and editing styles. During production, I have asked my DP to shoot extra coverage and pick up shots in addition to the master shots to give my editor more choices and options to play around with during the post-production phase.

There has been quite a number of mis-communication between me and my editor as his vision of the script is different from what I envision my story to be like. The rough cut that he showed me did not match with the emotional beat and the pacing I have envisioned for both my script and the screen play. He preferred using negative space and master shots to express the dynamics between the three siblings in the story, while I actually preferred cutting to a tighter shot to let audience experience the emotions, the angst and the regret experienced by Dr Ng and Kelly.

My editor is more of a technical guy who is sensitive to cutting to shots that might look awkward and ugly and hence he proposed the usage of a wide shot to smoothly tell the story. I personally feel that a wide shot does have its own positive side, but overall while watching the film, I realised that it actually does not bring the audience into the story itself. A wide shot does establish the dynamics but it fails to let audience relate and empathise with the characters in the story.

I feel that as a director, I have to give some creative space and freedom for my editor as he is ultimately not a button pusher and I cannot tell him which frame exactly do I want to see a cut and so forth.
I communicated my intentions of the script to my editor and told him that he needs to feel the beat and pacing of the story itself, before deciding on which is the appropriate time to make a cut. I suggested that he should put aside technical aspects and issues and fully concentrate on the content that he needs to present for screen-play.

I realised that an editor always have the tendency to let technical aspects and issues to motivate his decision while making a cut. At times, they are too clouded by technical aspects that they fail to feel and see the final project as an emotional piece. Our edit has yet to be refined and it still has a lot of room for improvements given the amount of coverage we shot during production.
During this phase, it’s crucial that I help the editor break the barrier of technical thoughts and immerse himself into what I envision the story would be presented on screen. I need to advise him not to strictly follow what is written on script and explain to him that the most important decision to make a cut is never motivated by technicalities. It should be motivated by his emotions and his gut feelings.

Throughout the weekend, I am going to try to do a rough director’s cut to give my editor an idea of how I would want the final product to be like. I also have to help him source out appropriate music that actually matches the emotional beats of the script. I realised that if you compromise on using what you can find for the music, it actually taints and tears down the entire screen play, converting something that is touching, into a total comedy.

As a director, I feel that my job for post-production has just begun and there is still a lot of potential for the editor to create a convincing final product.