Frankenbiting

This is a short post... but a really good term I learned from Cinema Editor Magazine (which if you're a passionate filmmaker I suggest you subscribe to this magazine! Doesn't matter if you aren't an editor...it talks a lot about the editors role in a production and their relationship with others on the crew)

Anyway... I was reading a brief article about reality television editing and was introduced to a term that makes it very easy to describe a very typical feature of dialogue editing. This term applies to any aspect of editing, though reality tv and documentary films use this technique more than any other.

The term is Frankenbiting. It refers to the splicing of pieces of dialogue and piecing it together with other pieces of dialogue to create a complete thought or a story. So you're taking sound BITES of dialogue and freakishly conjoining them together to create something new... similar to the idea of the monster FRANKENSTEIN... hence, FRANKENBITING.

You can look at this as taking things out of context.... and sure, sometimes it is.... but when you have hours of interviews to cut down to an hour and a half documentary... or a 30 minute show, you don't have much choice but to cut a lot down and out to make sure you have a story there that viewers will want to watch. Though it's easy to take it too far and completely change the purpose of your show/film, creating a monster such as Frankenstein.... it doesn't mean it has to be so bad. More times than not, this technique will save you from complete failure or slow pace of your story.

Let's face the truth of editing people... it's not just about putting pictures in a good order to move from scene to scene or shot to shot... when you look even deeper at what an editor's purpose is, the essence of what they must accomplish (all you editors should know this... and if you don't, PAY ATTENTION) The soul of an editor's job is simply this.... STORY. No film will work if the story doesn't make sense.. or if the story is boring... or if the story is happenings too fast or the latter, too slow. This goes for television shows and documentaries... people watch a film/show for the same reason they read a book. They want a good story!

The story doesn't have to be like INCEPTION... deep and complex... or romantic, like THE NOTEBOOK. The story can simply be good vs. evil, with all the lights and whistles of an action film... i.e. DIE HARD. But there is still a story there.... even shows such as Poker Championships, the story is about winning the game and who is doing well vs who isn't. Commercials also have stories... the product or message they want to advertise... if a Commercial can't convey this story properly... then it's a bad commercial and a company loses a lot of money, hence why ALL commercials CANNOT function without the complete and utter devotion to it's story. Whereas you can occasionally get a film with no real story... i.e. TRANSFORMERS...or the more recent M. NIGHT MOVIE'S.

All joking aside... when it comes to these type of shows and films, Frankenbiting will be your saving grace in many cases. It's not a bad thing, but must also be used in the proper way... you don't typically want to take everything out of context, just create a more compelling and interesting story.

That's it.... learn the term, use it. When it comes to a lot of the commercials I've been editing lately, I've had to use this technique and have come to love this term. I'm thinking maybe it'll be my next tattoo.... perhaps.

Also, if you don't have Cinema Editor Magazine from ACE... get it. It's so good and one of the only magazines that I read from cover to cover.

That's it. More coming to you, when it comes to me!