Cinematographer and director Joseph Eriksson breaks down his editing process
You may have wrapped production, but the film isn’t finished until someone clicks ‘export’ in the editing software. This means much of how a film feels comes from choices made in the post-production phase. “70% of my projects, I edit or colour myself,” explains Joseph Eriksson.
“As a cinematographer, I like to have control over it – when I’m filming, I normally have a look in mind. Tweaking it in post to actually get to where I’d imagined it is super important.”
Editing a project
As a commercial filmmaker, Joseph is used to wearing many hats and working in many styles. He will often spearhead a production from inception to delivery, meaning he’s present and responsible for everything from pre- to post-production.
For a heavily storyboarded film Joseph recently filmed on the FUJIFILM X-H2S, the editing process was somewhat simplified. “Hopefully, I have a plan in the beginning as to what it’s going to look like,” he remarks. “For this film, it was super strict, and the editing process was basically watching the storyboard and making it look exactly the same.
“I don’t think I made many changes at all. All I was trying to do was find the best-looking scenes, the takes with the best pacing and so on.”
However, for projects without such an in-depth plan, the editing process is where the exact order is decided.
“For a lot of things I do, I try to find some sort of start that is pre-planned – then I often leave a gap that’s broader and more flexible which I can play around with in post – before keeping the ending strict as well,” Joseph explains.
“On set, I need to get these scenes for the beginning and ending, but what’s in between will all be up to post-production, so I can work more freely when filming.
“Whenever I have worked like this, I try to bring everything into the editing program and trim it down – so I go through every piece of footage and cut out all the resets and unusable footage.
“This normally takes a lot of time and is really painful – by which I mean, it’s super uncreative. It’s the part that requires the most mental strength. If I’ve filmed 40 minutes of material, going through it takes at least 40 minutes.
“Then I boil it down to ten minutes of usable or good material. From that, I boil it down once again, and just pick the cherries out of the pie.
“After that, I treat it like a puzzle. Okay, I want a wide to start, and then maybe something else here, then a close-up,’” Joseph continues. “I find these from the selections I’ve already made and start to piece the film together.
“In a way, this helps make it feel natural. Also, I know that whenever I get feedback, it’s easy to change that scene – I don’t need to go through all the rushes again as I’ve already processed the usable footage.
“Everything after that initial editing process goes quickly. Doing the rough cut and boiling it all down takes time and energy, but in the long run, it makes everything easier and faster.”
Colour grading
With the edit in order, colour grading can begin. To give his footage plenty of malleability at this stage, Joseph records in Fujifilm’s log profile, F-Log2.
“It feels like a good standard profile compared to the rest of the industry,” he remarks. “In terms of contrast, it looks beautiful. And the base is super flexible, so you can use a lot of LUTs that weren’t designed for it – and they work well as a starting point.
“Normally, I don’t need to tweak it too much. It’s always at a good starting point whenever I do a Rec. 709 calibration – then I normally use a plugin to get a bit of grain and analogue structure in the colours.
“Of course, for most of my projects I want to make some corrections with the exposure, highlights or contrast – but it’s not like I need eight nodes in DaVinci Resolve to get where I want, it’s normally just two or three.
“I like grading, and what colour does to a project. It’s a big way of showing who you are as a creative, whatever style you’re trying to get.
“But also, I don’t want to spend too much time with it. I want to be on set or out on a production. I don’t like being sat by the computer too much. It’s great having these files that come straight out of camera looking so good, and that I don’t need to spend a lot of time working on.”
Finding references
For those looking to start breaking down the editing process, Joseph recommends going in with a vision. “I would probably begin by looking for inspiration,” he suggests, “and actually planning something.
“Doing the pre-production before you go out and film will help you a lot in evolving, and finding the way you want to create.”
Watch as much material as possible, he says, then pick out the aspects you want to mimic in your own work. “I watch a lot of different things. Being able to see something you can analyse and understand how it’s done – that’s so inspirational,” enthuses Joseph.
Even in the seemingly unattainable standards of production seen in high-budget film and television, there are qualities that can be targeted.
“Some things I watch and think, ‘Oh I wish I could do that!’ Sometimes you need to realise that what made it look what way was a huge amount of money and a lot of people. But that can still inspire me – I’m always trying to pick out aspects of that look to work towards.
“I also get inspiration in other areas. Maybe find someone on YouTube that creates videos by themselves? This can make things creative and inspiring. If you know they can do it by themselves, you can analyse how to do it and implement it yourself.
“Learn from them and create something that you can stand for – and that you find fun to make along the way.”
