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FINAL CUT PRO POST FOR THE COEN BROTHERS FILM
Fans of Joel and Ethan Coen's eclectic brand of film- making should be thrilled with their latest effort, Inside Llewyn Davis. The story follows a struggling singer in the Greenwich Village folk scene in the early 1960s, just before Bob Dylan's early career there. Llewyn Davis is played by Oscar Isaac, who most recently appeared in The Bourne Legacy. The story, though fictional, was inspired by the life of musician Dave Van Ronk, as chronicled in the book The Mayor ofMacDougal Street.
Although this is the Coen brothers' most recent release, the film was actually produced in 2012 in true indie filmmaking fashion: without any firm commitment for distribution. It was picked up by CBS Films earlier this year.
The Coen brothers tackle post with a workflow that is specific to them. I had a chance to dig into that world with Katie McQuerrey, who is credited as an additional editor on Inside Llewyn Davis. McQuerrey started with the Coen brothers as they transitioned into digital post, helping to adapt their editorial style to Apple Final Cut Pro. For many of their films, she's worn a number of hats-helping to coordinate the assistant editors, acting as a conduit to other departments and, in general, serving as another set of eyes and ears while Ethan and Joel are cutting their films. (As film editors, Joel and Ethan Coen go by the moniker Roderick Jaynes.)
McQuerrey explains, "Ethan and Joel adapted their approach from how they used to cut on film. Ethan would pull selects from film workprint on a Moviola and then Joel would assemble scenes from these selects using a KEM. With Final Cut Pro, they each have aworkstation, and they are networked together. No fancy SAN management-just Apple file sharing and a Promise storage array for media. Ethan will go through a project, review all...