Charley Weber Portfolio

Note: I am looking for an editor interested in this project. Although most of the work is now done. Unfortunately, Petra Schmidt, the editor on Ragamuffin’s Tale, recently suffered a stroke and doesn’t feel well enough to edit this second book.

How to Edit a Film. LA – Part I

After more than five years abroad, I stepped onto a flight from Istanbul to LAX, film editing contract clutched tight and nerves humming with anticipation. At JFK, my layover took a sharp turn when immigration officials zeroed in on my missing visa. I confessed: somewhere between Istanbul’s editing suites, I’d misplaced the physical copy. I promised their system would confirm my green card. After a suspenseful silence and a glance at my contract, they finally waved me on to my Los Angeles-bound flight.

Instead of watching the in-flight entertainment, I decided to look over the script. The story of Swing – the movie – revolves around the struggles of a young songwriter to extricate himself from what seem like selfish demands and advice of his family and girlfriend, who think his decision to pursue a music career will go nowhere. His father wants him to continue working at the family business, a deli market in San Francisco. His girlfriend wants him to dedicate himself to a more responsible, less speculative career.

Into this mix enter a few mentors, from both this world and the next, to help him navigate these difficult life choices. The first of which is an eccentric ‘uncle’ character, played by Jonathan Winters. The second, and arguably more central figure is an enigmatic dancer and mentor figure, played by Jacqueline Bisset, whom he meets one night when he stumbles across and enters an inter-dimensional Swing club in downtown San Francisco – the doorman to which is Jim Hanks, who in the film looks and sounds exactly like his brother Tom Hanks.

I fell asleep thinking about the odd similarity between the early lives of so many talented young musicians, including the director on this project Martin Guigui, who’s played on any number of leading artists’ live projects, like the Stones live and the recent Doors reunion.

Touching down at LAX around three in the morning, just days before Christmas, I shuffled onto the HERTZ shuttle, expecting a smooth pickup. Instead, I found no car reserved for me and, with my Turkish bank card useless in the States, I trudged back to the terminal. There, I curled up on a bench, waiting for daylight and a decent hour to call the producers for help.

When I finally got Ken, the producer, on the line, he directed me back to the rental terminal so staff could contact Mary Keil, the writer and Executive Producer, for payment approval. As her photo ID slowly slid from the fax machine, I felt a peculiar déjà vu, as if fate itself was signalling that Mary would soon become important in my story.

I chose a sporty, mid-size Pontiac, the closest thing to the European cars I was used to, and followed Martin’s directions up the 405, winding through canyons and past West LA. Ventura Blvd finally delivered me to Universal City and the Sheraton, where Martin, my old friend, waited at the entrance, grinning. He looked me over and laughed, insisting I hadn’t changed a bit. After a warm hug, he ushered me to my luxury suite, urging me to shower and rest before dinner with the crew.

Christmas Eve dinner at the Sheraton was relaxed and full of introductions. I met Mary Keil, the driving force behind the project, along with Ken, the official Producer, and Dahlia, Martin’s multi-talented wife, who also acts in the movie. The group radiated warmth and generosity, making me feel instantly at home. Mary asked about my background, sharing Martin’s version of my story—a perfectionist filmmaker and single dad raising his son while crafting cinematic documentaries, corporate films, music videos, and commercials in New York.

I couldn’t help but laugh inside as Mary recounted Martin’s generous pitch about me. While there were kernels of truth everywhere, Martin’s poetic license in storytelling was unmistakable. Not wanting to contradict him in front of the team, I clarified that my son Beau spent two holidays every year with me in Manhattan, which was amazing for us, but otherwise went to school and lived with his mother in London for the rest of the year.

Curious about Mary’s story, I asked about that and how she came to write and produce this film. She told me she’d worked mostly in business, managing finances, and long ago, was once given some shares in a startup from an admiring boss. Years later, those forgotten shares had grown into a small fortune. With her marriage on the rocks, when her son was accepted to Harvard and her marriage collapsed, she decided to sell the shares and use the windfall to pursue a new life: writing and producing a movie. That was how SWING was born, and soon after, she connected with Martin and Dahlia, who had just wrapped another film.

​My brother always contends that, because we lost my mum at such an early age, a pattern emerged of me being attracted and attached to slightly older female partners. Although I generally deny this, it was also true of Beau’s mother, Susi, who, although also unusually attractive, was a hair more than a decade older than I am.

Mary’s story was captivating, but it was her presence that truly drew me in. She radiated a quiet magnetism, shaped by her devotion to meditation, a Japanese movement of ‘light,’ and Pilates. Though a little older than I found, Mary Keil was, quite simply, undeniably attractive.

Back in my New York days, when I was producing commercials and corporate films, Martin and I became close friends. He was a gifted bandleader, though perpetually short on cash, so I’d find ways to bring him on as a cameraman or assistant whenever big-name directors of photography were involved.

I’d met him at a party we threw at Stringfellows in New York for a TV Pilot I’d shot called the Cha Cha Club, which I produced, but a collective of talent had gathered together to produce a more hip alternative to what were at the time fairly formally shot TV music shows.

The group included Cleo Roccos, Madam Whiplash from the Kenny Everett show, who played the matron of the Cha Cha Club; my friend, the cinematographer John De Borman; and Peter Chelsom, a talented comedic actor who later became a successful film director, known for films like Serendipity, Hear My Song, and Shall We Dance. Peter played an over-the-hill director with one too many anecdotes and a career that had ceased to exist. He was a comedic foil to the relatively straight owners of the fictitious club, Cleo and her co-bandleader, Dominic, from their upscale  Chelsea sort of wedding band. Into the melee of which guest bands would come and play in a performance recorded before a live audience. It was a big and complicated production from a technical point of view, as we cut our teeth on it, since many of the parts were ad-libbed around setups during recording, which we did to grow into something more theatrical than a production company shooting straight performance videos, which we had been doing up until then.

Martin Guigui walked in off the street into what turned out to be a party at Stringfellows, shared between two quite disparate groups, a compromise handed down from on high, Peter Stringfellow, who booked our free drink promo event alongside a Brooklyn-based Association of Italian Small Business – mafia. Not for the first time, I learned that a big event space would be cross-booked for commercial reasons, resulting in a perfect culture clash of crowds. I later found out, this was the case at Timothy Leary’s public funeral service at the San Diego Aerodrome, which was scheduled to run alongside a spy or snooping conference. The possibilities of which, for comedy I’m sure wouldn’t have been missed by Dr. Timothy Leary himself.

Although there was a definite undercurrent of tension for the ‘other’ alien crowd sharing the room, in reality, the only time it threatened the peace, was when a member of the association of Italian family business’ felt he was not getting enough attention from the topless bar staff at the club. The member of the bar staff acted quickly enough to stop the firearm from being drawn. Of all the motley assortment of characters who showed up that day, which included new York media as well as Anglo-Turkish intellectuals, like the editor of GQ – the son of Ataturk’s physician – Martin Guigui was the only one I felt uniquely drawn to. Although the party featured the Cha Cha Club running on screens, how many people watched the show I suspect were not many, and the event itself turned out to be more of a social get together. With Martin, however, I did strike up a genuine, long-term friendship.

Continuing our dinner conversation at the Sheraton, the film’s main line producer Ken, an experienced writer and producer, who was part of the gay mafia in LA, he related how on his last gig as a co-writer on Desperate Housewives, he and his friends had written the show as a roundtable group based on the day to day lives and conflicts in West Hollywood, which when you look back on the tone of the show – incredibly pulpy, high camp – makes perfect sense. They simply substituted one member of a gay couple for one of the desperate housewives in the show, and it seemed to work like a charm. Rather than anything sinister, the west coast gay mafia are  essentially a network which help each other out working in the film industry, a connection between Ken and the manager at the Sheraton, allowed us the benefit of what might otherwise have been too expensive suites at the Sheraton, for Mary Keil and I. Mary lived in San Francisco, where they’d shot the film in a studio and at various locations around the city. Mary and I were the only key post-production crew members staying at the hotel, as the director, Martin, and the producers, his wife, Dahlia, and Ken, all lived in LA.

​

Baraka’s Studio Ranch in Sun Valley

Our editing location was a hidden gem. Baraka, a music producer friend of the director who’d worked with acts like Weezer and Sting, owned a sprawling property overlooking the San Fernando Valley, with a pair of high-end Pro-Tools recording studios nestled in amongst the semi-rural paradise. The place felt like a hidden pocket of the Californian countryside. The production had rented an Avid Film Composer and, to my relief, provided an assistant to wrangle all the film footage into the system using flex files, the 35mm reel, and a time-code tracking method for film projects.

​

Baraka’s ranch felt like home from the start, almost like my old school, Summerhill, with discarded sailboats and surfboards scattered around where we worked. Baraka was laid-back and endlessly affable; his wife was equally charming, and their adopted son, Liam, delighted us with youthful exuberance and an advanced understanding of trick perspective photography. An ageing wolf-dog, slow but loyal, greeted every visitor to the farm. I grew fond of that dog, and looked forward to seeing him on the daily drive into work from the hotel, often catching his reassuring gaze through the French doors as I worked on my edits. His quiet presence became a grounding character during our sessions amid the creative and technical storm. The ranch, with its cast of characters and sweeping views over the L.A. valley, was a stroke of production genius.

​

Alongside Jaqueline Bisset and Tom Skerrit, the film featured a fascinating cast, including Nell Carter, a Grammy-winning singer and Emmy-winning star of ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’.’ Nell had weathered storms in her personal life, from turbulent relationships to battles with addiction and the elusive fickleness of fame. Having recently overcome a serious cocaine habit, she was savouring her new chapter and relishing her role in the film. She played the matronly owner of a retirement home, where Jonathan Winters’ character, mentor to the young protagonist, resided.

​ Alongside Jaqueline Bisset and Tom Skerrit, the film featured a daring cast, including  Jonathan Winters, mentor to the young protagonist, played by Innis Casey, a newcomer. Nell Carter, who played the matronly owner of a retirement home, where Winters’ character also resided.

a Grammy-winning singer and Emmy-winning star of ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’.’ Nell had weathered storms in her personal life, from turbulent relationships to battles with alcohol and cocaine addiction and the elusive nature of fame. Having recently overcome a serious cocaine habit, she was savouring her new chapter and relishing her role in the film. ​

Though Nell had been clean and sober for a while, embracing her new life and work on Swing, when I arrived and started a rough preview to get an idea of the footage,  I was informed that, unfortunately, recently a tragedy had struck—a heart attack had claimed Nell’s life only days before we began editing.

Martin related this story as he had us first formally review the footage for a credit roll scene, to be a dedication to Nell, which included the whole cast dancing at the film’s wrap party, set to a tune from the film. We then set the sequence aside to edit once we had completed editing the whole film.

Both creatively and technically, this is a good process call, as working on end-stage materials, like marketing, trailers, and end sequences or outtakes, tempting though it is, will and should always be informed by having a greater awareness of the entire film, and sequences once you have locked the film’s edit. Locking the main edit of the film,  priority-wise, is the primary goal – coming through with the deliverables set out in your contract. So, for me, the main work involved first collaborating with the director and assembled producers to deliver a working rough cut, followed by a more professional fine cut and EDLs, along with digital outputs for the optical labs, as well as outputting editing lists for the sound, scoring, and dubbing mixers.

1st Cut – Rough cut the Film

The editing process involves reviewing the best takes for each scene and assembling a first pass rough cut of each one until the end of the film is reached. This should take roughly two weeks to one month to complete.

I had been worried about the learning curve for transition to editing a long form feature – as opposed to documentary, and short-form commercials –  but it turned out I needn’t have been as, like in commercials, what you are actually editing are a series of smaller, individual scene edits, where each is broken down into several storyboarded actions and events, with script notes; shots and takes you can then choose from.

Although you need to tweak the timing and temporal feel of the transitions between scenes, the natural rhythm and feel within the individual scenes should dictate themselves according to the narrative plot points, the camera movements, and interaction between characters, while also working in your establishing and cutaway shots.

​

2nd Stage – Fine Cutting The Film

The next phase in the process is to return to the start of the film, add any placeholder elements, such as title credits and rough credit titles, and work from start to finish to create a more kinetic and rhythmically frame-accurate fine cut of the interaction within each scene. Although during this process you may be asked and need to explore further, additional take options, according to the director’s recall, to explore alternative takes that the director may have been trying to achieve on set.

​

3rd Stage of a feature film edit

Music and Optical Lists – if you’re working from 35mm film prints

As you work through the fine cut toward picture lock, you might need to output optical film lists—especially if your director and cinematographer are die-hard 35mm purists. While most effects are now auto-conformed from 4K digital footage, working with 35mm means exporting scenes and EDLs for the lab, which converts them to analogue film using the flex-files. The lab then recreates optical transitions, such as dissolves and fades, sending back new optical video outputs for you to re-digitise and integrate into your edit. If you’re working fully digital, you can conform all effects in AVID Symphony or Film Composer. For 35mm, the endgame is delivering a cuts-only assemblage list to the lab.

The toughest scene to edit came at the end of part II, near the film’s end, when Innis Casey, who plays the lead, has to say goodbye to his mentor (Jacqueline Bisset) and leave the club—a spirit world—behind, stepping into his own new life shaped by the lessons he’d learned. As he summons the courage and reaches for the door, feverish swing dancers and music build to a climax, and as the door opens and a hopeful new piece of music kicks in, the spirits—the band and dancers—vanish one by one.

This was a scene I had purposely set aside some alone time in the evening, when no one else would be around in the edit suite. I knew I would have to be bold, get fairly experimental, and try out all kinds of crazy ideas with the footage available, but away from the crowd, if I was to have any chance of nailing the scene in a way that convey to the viewer an approximation of the importance of this pivotal internal moment the character had to go through to become his own person, less pushed around by the pressures and forces of nature in the character’s life, and strike out on his own path.

In anticipation of that key scene, I looked through the studio’s archive of CDs, which served as a source of reference and creative inspiration, and pulled out a number of CDs, one with a piece of music I was familiar with from my childhood, Sgt. Pepper’s “A Day in the Life.” I was particularly interested in the symphonic build-up at the end of the piece, which I suspected could be used as a cutting template to mirror the increasingly frenzied action in our film, which had to culminate in a final resolution on a big, climactic note, where everything has changed. However, when I opened the case, it was empty and contained no CD. Whether this was fortuitous or not, I will leave up to the producers to say. But adversity is the mother of invention, and so in the absence of a rough template to cut against, I decided to plug my Stratocaster, which I always kept close by, into the patch bay and try to come up with a rough score to convey the change in mood when Innis opens the door. As it happened, what I recorded was a simple but strong riff and a hook to take the central character out of the club scene and trigger the spirits to go home. I am not sure how much of that remained in the final edit, but for the purposes of cutting and the trailers, it took the scene in the right direction, heralding a new, hopeful beginning once the main character opens that all-important and pivotal door.

After this scene, which comes at the culmination of Act II, I would need to slow the edit down, and adapt to a tempo change, to something more relaxed and expansive, where our lead character and the viewers reflects on all that he has been through, learned and witnessed in this world and the next, while visiting key sites around San Francisco, parks and monuments, wandering ‘lonely as a cloud’ until the lead is in fact sitting on the dock of the bay in San Francisco, mulling all this over in his mind in preparation for putting his learning into practice and laying down the law with his family and his soon to be ex girlfriend.

​Arriving at picture lock took much less time than we imagined. Although we still had the credit party scene with the cast dancing at the wrap party to cut with a dedication to Nell Carter and the marketing trailer and behind-the-scenes material to cut, it left the producers with more time to tweak anything they wanted to. Which, as I understand it, was one shot in the trailer that Mary Keil and I put together, in which the lead character’s soon-to-be ex-girlfriend declares her undying love for him. The director felt this was untrue to the character’s developmental arc in the story and possibly misleading to the viewers.  

My experience with Martin and Mary was, from my perspective, entirely positive; it was a privilege to learn and work with a warm, professional, and enlightened Californian creative team. Although they liked the edit, as a creative producer and writer, I did think they wondered how much of a ‘team-player’ I was during the whole edit, which meant I often pursued different editing solutions, often on my own, I suppose, without hand-holding everyone through my somewhat intuitive internal creative process.

The movie, which wasn’t a huge-budget film, cost $5 million to make, and enjoyed limited releases in art house theatres on both the East and West coasts. For the one in LA, I invited my brother to the pre-release screening at a large, industry palace-type movie theatre on Sunset Boulevard. After the film had screened, I asked him for his impressions. He said he thought the editing looked fairly flawless and for the film overall, he said it was earnest. Which I took to mean it dealt with real issues but less symbolically and more directly.