Once Upon a Timeline

So, what is it and why is it useful? Well, this skill is about identifying, planning and deliberately constructing the subtle visual elements that reinforce the overall arc of the story. Quite simply, we sprinkle elements across the timeline at key points to reinforce the intended reality.

Now, we’ll always have a journey, an arc for our film no matter what it’s duration but that journey will need to be made up of a mixture of both obvious and subtle narrative and visual cues for the audience to guide them through the experience. And this week, we’re going to be focusing on the subtle side of that equation.

People change when they know there is a camera pointed at them and this causes all kinds of issues for us editors, especially in non scripted editing. One of the fundamental laws of our art form is the create believable performances on screen otherwise the suspension of disbelief is broken and the audience switch off.

On this weeks episode of Once Upon a Timeline we talk through the psychology of this effect, it's impact on our work and what we can do it mitigate it.

There's a whole bunch of barriers standing in our way in terms of designing and navigating this path successfully. But on this week's show we're going to focus more on the creative residue that needs to be discarded when moving from one to the other.

There are common creative errors, what we at Inside The Edit call Promo-itus, that need to be surgically cut away in order to survive and thrive in the longer durational films. An essential subject to tackle for any budding doc, drama or observational long form editor.

The pressure was immense, the hours were punishing and the shooting ratio was enormous. They had air craft carriers, F-18’s fighter jets, insane arial sequences, Covid lockdown, Tom Cruise was starring, Jerry Bruckheimer producing, Joe Kosinski directing and hundreds of millions of dollars on the line. No pressure.

How the hell did Eddie Hamilton and the Top Gun Maverick Team pull it off? Well, he’s back on the show to tell us all.

Eddie has taken time away from his Mission Impossible 7 timeline to come back on the podcast and talk through all of the trials, tribulations and triumphs of his latest collaboration with Tom Cruise.

Come and join us on this week’s episode of Once Upon a Timeline to get an exclusive, behind the scenes look at the creative editing decisions of one of Hollywood’s greatest editors.

There are a huge array of psychological, behavioural, action and dialogue based considerations we need to go through in order to get the best elements onto the timeline.

In this week's episode of Once Upon a timeline Paddy breaks down all of these factors in detail and provides editors with a useful exercise to do in order to squeeze every last bit of high end content out of the raw footage.

There is a psychological and subconscious grading system with which the mind views new images and what it thinks is most important within a new shot. Much of it is the result of our evolution over thousands of years and understanding this order and priority list is a key insight for the professional editor. Join Paddy for an entertaining journey through the mind of the audience and the emotional impact of how they see our work.

It's not good enough to just focus on the craft, there are numerous psychological traits we must be aware of as well. On this week's show I'm going to be talking about a major one; the art of creating value in the mind of the client.

If you'd like to learn how to create the best perception possible of your creative skills with directors and producers, then tune into this week's episode of Once Upon a Timeline: The Creative Editing Podcast.

How are many scenes structured? What are the can and can't do's in visual logic? When and how can we break the rules? These are just some of the editing questions we'll be discussing on this week's show.

We also have a fantastic free Creative Editing Masterclass for you which takes you through everything you need to know to build a rough cut. Episode 7 of Once Upon a Timeline: The Editors Guide to Visual Grammar is now live!

We're kicking off our first podcast episode of the new year with a discussion around Full Disclosure and all its perils. Crafting the information and story content is one thing but knowing when and where to disclose that content to our audience is a delicate art.

Too much too soon and we overload the audience, too little and the narrative won't make sense and create that magnetic interest from the viewer. Join me for this week's in-depth creative editing discussion on Once Upon a Timeline: The Creative Editing Podcast.