Lessons

Lesson Info

Refining the Story

Let's look at other statements. So I want to talk about doing the opening statement. Okay, the opening statement is gonna require statements from different parts of the clip, so we're gonna listen to the whole thing, okay, and we're gonna try to figure out here where some good nuggets are for us to actually be able to pull out a good opening statement. Before I do this, I want to just hone in. Remember my opening statement. I wanted something emotional. I said I want to go with something emotional, then I want to talk about maybe their history, and then I want to go into what you're gonna experience, then talk about the family or community and then end out on I think the why. So this is just another part of that edit. And if you start to think about your edit in that way, just little sections, how much easier is that? What did we just finish? We just finished walking to the gym. That's done. It's done. That part's done, it's in the can. Well, not really, you gotta add B Roll to it, but...

that's done. The easy part's the B Roll. The hard part's this part. Yeah? Hard part's this part. Let's do it again. Let's do it again. Absolutely, yeah. Well, my goodness. I've been extremely blessed to be in this space. When I first started 10 years ago, I just walked around the city looking at spaces. Looking at little warehouses, looking at all different places and I was very fortunate to look at this space here in the South Lake Union area, and I fell in love with it. We looked into it and it was a situation where it was growing, not knowing how big it was gonna get, it was crazy. The fact of the matter is that right now, there's a lot, a lot of energy in this area. They're knocking down blocks, neighborhoods to build up for the Amazon campus and for the biomedical field in this area. When we first started, the clientele came because we had a very good MMA program. It was very competitive, lots of fighters. Yeah, it was all awesome. It was really tough. But then little by little. My name's Ivan Salaverry. I have a MMA gym here in the South Lake Union area of Seattle, Washington. I'm used to dealing with a bunch of neanderthals (laughs) so having these guys that come through that are extremely smart and very cerebral change the dynamics of this gym and I love it. It's incredible. We have had a range of different types of personalities and people that come through here that give it depth and I enjoy it very, very much. It's not what I thought I was gonna do 10 years ago, but now... do 10 years ago, but now, man like I said, I'm blessed. Okay. So what are your first impressions of that footage? A lot. It's really dense, okay, super dense. And it's not easy. He doesn't really say anything that strikes out at me as being like ooh, I gotta cut that. So that first technique of ooh, I gotta cut, cut, cut, cut might not be, so now I gotta listen to it again and be very discerning. Listen for themes. Listen for thematic elements. Listen to that narrative. Get back to your storyboard. Lean on that. What's this section about? It's something about emotions. It's emotional. It's something we need to lean on really, really hard right now because I've got what, three minutes of footage here that I gotta get down. I gotta cut it down, all right? So here we go. Absolutely, yeah. Well, my goodness. I've been extremely blessed to be in this space. When I first started 10 years ago, I just walked around the city, looking at spaces. Looking at little warehouses, looking at all different places and I was very fortunate to look at this space here in the South Lake Union area and I fell in love with it. We looked into it and it was a situation where it was growing, not knowing how big it was gonna get. It was crazy. The fact of the matter is that right now, there's a lot, a lot of energy in this area. They're knocking down blocks, neighborhoods to build up for the Amazon campus and for the biomedical field in this area. When we first started, the clientele came because we had a very good MMA program. It was very competitive, lots of fighters. Yeah, it was awesome. It was really tough. But then little by little. My name is Ivan Salaverry. I have a MMA gym here in the South Lake Union area of Seattle, Washington. I'm used to dealing with a bunch of neanderthals (laughs) so having these guys that come through that are extremely smart and very cerebral changed the dynamics of this gym and I love it. It's incredible. We have had a range of different types of personalities and people that come through here that give it depth and I enjoy it very, very much. It's not what I thought I was gonna do 10 years ago, but now. 10 years ago, but now, man, like I said, I'm blessed. I'm blessed. So, same technique guys. You go through. You listen. You cut. And then you go through, you listen and you keep cutting and this is what I mean. This is, this is the meat and potatoes to editing. This is the mind-numbing, boring, really, really agonizing part of editing that you will begin to love. That you're gonna end up loving and hating. You're gonna hate and love it. It's gonna be something that's so necessary, yet so evil in your life. So, at this point, if I've spent two hours doing this stuff already, I'm walking away. I'm walking away. I'm taking a 20, 30 minute break. 'cause I know that this, I'm not gonna be able to get right if I'm sitting there hacking away at it. So I'm gonna get there. I'm gonna make my little whack-a-mole cuts and I'm gonna go away for a bit. Go play a video game. Go run around with my dog, dogs, whatever. Hang out for a minute. Let my brain absorb what I've just seen. And then I'm gonna come back and start looking at it again. And what you're gonna hear is you're gonna hear other elements that are gonna creep up in this narrative and hopefully as we start to hack away at it even more, the stuff starts to rise to the surface a little bit for us. You know, editing is so organic because what you're doing is you're responding to the footage that you have shot over and over and over again and no matter what, the process is entirely dependent upon how you shot the footage, how you interpret the footage and how you are going to present the footage. That is what is so powerful about this. This is truly where you get to be creative. This is truly where you get to say something. And this is your opportunity now, as a content creator, to take what someone else has said to you and be their mouthpiece, which for me, is so cool. That's the cool part of this thing. Cool, so let's actually go through it again and then I'll show you what we ended up doing or what I ended up thinking I was gonna do. I ended up changing it for the final, but let's look at it again. Absolutely, yeah. Well, my goodness. I've been extremely blessed to be in this space. So he says blessed in the beginning and I know he said blessed at the end and I chopped the blessed at the end because it sounded better. So I'm gonna get rid of that first statement, just because I know I've got something else that says blessed and I'm gonna just hack at it. When I first started 10 years ago, I just walked around the city, looking at spaces. Looking at little warehouses, looking at all different places and I was very fortunate to look at this space here in the South Lake Union area. Okay, so I'm gonna pull these two statements across, so I'm gonna separate them. I'm gonna play them together for us, just so we can get a feeling for what they sound like together and what they sound like separately. When I first started 10 years ago, I just walked around the city. Okay, walked around the city. Is that a good statement? I think so. What about this one? When I first started 10 years ago, I just walked around the city, looking at spaces. Looking at little warehouses, looking at all different places. Okay, I would go... And I was very fortunate to look- I would probably cut it right after spaces. So let's do that. Let's actually zoom on in here. Let's find that phrase. Spaces. Okay, cut it right there. And then move that side out. So here's his statement. When I first started 10 years ago, I just walked around the city, looking at spaces. That's a good statement. That's a great statement. Now I'm gonna keep going. Listen to the rest of this. So that means this guy, I can get rid of. I don't need it. This guy right here. Looking at little warehouses. He saw warehouses. At all different places. It's talking about still looking around. Don't need it. Get rid of it. Okay, now we're back over here to the other clips. And I fell in love with it. We looked into it. Wait, and I fell in love with it. Spaces. Not quite what I need. And I fell in love with it. We looked into it and it was a situation where it was growing, not knowing how big it was gonna get. It was crazy. The fact of the matter is that right now, there's a lot, a lot of energy in this area. They're building out. You know, that's just a lot of background I don't need, so I'm gonna cut that whole statement and get rid of it all. To build up for the Amazon campus. Don't need it. Anything referring to any other business or any type of people, don't need it. Do you know why? I don't want to pigeonhole him into being oh, the Amazon gym. Forget it, get rid of it. And when we first started, the clientele came because we had a very good MMA program. Wait a second. When the first pad of clientele, it was 'cause people- I need that statement because it's honoring, remember in the first segment? Honoring his older customer? He has that customer still. We need to honor his original customer base, so I'm gonna find a way to salvage that statement out. It was very competitive, lots of fighters. Yeah-- Okay, I don't need that reh. So, I'm gonna use this statement. And when we first started, the clientele came because we had a very good MMA program. It was very competitive, lots of fighters. That's a great freaking statement. In just a simple phrase, boom, I've touched upon their history. So, let's go ahead and, give me a second. Let's bring these three statements together. Why isn't it rippling? Okay, well here, just do this. Okay. All right, let's listen to this real quick. When I first started 10 years ago, I just walked around the city, looking at spaces. And when we first started, the clientele came because we had a very good MMA program. It was very competitive, lots of fighters. Holy shnikes. (audience laughs) When I first moved here 10 years ago, I was looking at spaces and our first clientele came here because... Got rid of all that stuff and brought it down to a factual, small, digestible nugget that just illustrates exactly what we need. This is editing. It's down in the weeds, listening to what your subjects tell you, listening to the things that matter. Playing whack-a-mole. Getting rid of that. Crafting those statements. Crafting those statements, okay? So now, let me just flip over to the opening that we got out of those statements, okay? Passion for fighting and wrestling. If you experienced it, you understand it. It's incredible. It's like you think about it, you obsess about it. Those are passion statements that I pulled from other parts of the footage. You go running, you think about it. At nighttime, you think about moves, you think about old wrestling matches from the Olympics and NCAA, so you're completely obsessed by it, if you like it. I loved it, so it was incredible. My name is Ivan Salaverry. I have a MMA gym here in the South Lake Union area of Seattle, Washington. And when we first started, the clientele came because we had a very good MMA program. It was very competitive, lots of fighters, yeah, it was all awesome. It was really tough. But then, little by little, we have had a range of different types of personalities and people that come through here that give it depth and I enjoy it very, very much. It's not what I thought I was gonna do 10 years ago, but now I'm blessed. So that's a statement that I crafted. That was my initial rough statement. As I was playing whack-a-mole, that was the initial rough statement that I used to lead into my edit and I did it over and over and over again until I got to my rough cut. You don't edit a rough cut, guys. You build a rough cut with smaller edits. You don't just go all of a sudden, sit down and out pops a rough cut. You sit down and you hack away at footage and you slowly build statements that then become a narrative, that then becomes your rough cut. When I call it a rough cut, I'm only talking about the complete total narrative, regardless of B Roll. I haven't touched B Roll yet. We do it in stages. Don't rush to the B Roll 'cause if you lay the B Roll, you're gonna get distracted by the B Roll and not listen to the statements. Don't touch your B Roll yet. There's no reason to. So, I'm gonna show you guys the full, without B Roll, rough cut right now. We're gonna listen to it. So this one's nearly four minutes long and I know, that at four minutes long, it's not anywhere close to being done, but I want you to get a feeling for how much footage we had and how much we cut it down into four minutes. We're just gonna listen to it. You're gonna see a picture up here. It's just him talking. What I want you to do is close your eyes and just listen to the story. And what's gonna happen is you're gonna hear it and then you're gonna acknowledge that more stuff needs to be cut. You're gonna stop listening at points. So I'm just gonna play it and then we're gonna go ahead and just listen. Passion for fighting and wrestling. If you experienced it, you understand it. It's incredible. It's like you think about it, you obsess over it. You love it. Everyday you think, you wake up to it, you go running, you think about it. At nighttime, you think about moves. You think about old wrestling matches from the Olympics and NCAA, so you're completely obsessed by it, if you like it. I loved it, so it was incredible. My name is Ivan Salaverry. I have a MMA gym here in the South Lake Union area of Seattle, Washington. When I first started 10 years ago, I just walked around the city, looking at spaces. Looking at little warehouses, looking at all different places and I was very fortunate to look at this space in here in the South Lake Union area. And when we first started, the clientele came because we had a very good MMA program. It was very competitive, lots of fighters, yeah, it was all awesome. It was really tough, but then little by little, we have had a range of different types of personalities and people that come through here that give it depth and I enjoy it very, very much. It's not what I thought I was gonna do 10 years ago, but now I'm blessed. When you first walk into the gym, you might be nervous. You might be nervous, like what am I getting into? What is this? But we take you through the process. You come in here and like anything else, it becomes a step by step process. You come in here, you put your wrestling shoes on and the next thing you know, you do a little bit of stretching. The coach guides you into a warm-up, then teaches you a certain technique and then little by little, you start gaining these techniques and you start wrestling with these techniques and that process, the day in, day out of doing that, you learn how to wrestle. Then comes, obviously, what you get from wrestling. The endorphins, the biochemistry of just the adrenaline. To me, I honestly believe that every man and every woman needs that. And that's what I think that I create- and it might not be wrestling. It could be boxing, it could be kickboxing. Then, all of a sudden, you get this fever for it and that, I believe, is the passion, is that all of a sudden you have become very enthusiastic for the feelings and what you get from it. For every person that's coming in here, I have an array of reasons why they're here. I've had guys in here that are in my MMA program, fighting elite level and they graduated with a doctorates. Then I have construction workers in here that just want to do a little bit of boxing. So, you have to come in here and create your own path. What you get here is organic. It really, really is. You can't put this on a business plan. This environment is very natural and it creates itself because there's so many personalities and the grouping of these personalities creates the gym. I'm blessed to have what I have here and you can't duplicate this as far as the culture. We're not, per se, lifting iron or going on a treadmill or on a bike. We're dealing with human beings and what they experience is addictive. There's nothing more primal than to be able to be competing head to head against a person because it involves competing with yourself. It involves a team. But going head to head against somebody creates a very unique experience and it teaches you a lot about you. So it's at this point in my edit, guys, it's at this point that I now realize I'm only about halfway there. Because you can see how rough it was, right? There's a lot of statements in there. There's a narrative happening, right? We started, we kind of arced up a little bit and came back down and we ended on a why. God, that why was really good. Teaches you about you. You should come to us because you're gonna learn about you. That's such a great why. We want to teach you about yourself is essentially what he's saying. What a phenomenal why. Such a powerful statement there. I'm at almost four minutes here. So as I go through this edit, as I'm listening, I'm starting to try to hone in. If now I know what that why is at the end, and did I know that going in? No. How did I find that? Just whack-a-mole. Continual whack-a-mole taught me the why for this piece and I guarantee you if you put in the time and if you do it this way, it will not fail you. It will not fail you because in doing this, what's gonna happen is you're just gonna learn how people talk and you're gonna learn how he talks and you're gonna learn how he's gonna say a statement and how he says a statement and how you can restructure that statement into saying something exactly the way he wants to say it to his customer. As we run into shortening our rough cut. So I shortened it again and I went from almost four minutes down to like two or three and 1/2 minutes and then I think since it's so fresh, what I want you guys to listen to is we're gonna listen to the end. We're gonna listen to the end of this piece and you can see how much I cut out of just the end to shorten it up and to tighten up those statements a little bit. So we're gonna listen to the end of the first version. So here's the end. It really, really is. You can't put this on a business plan. This environment is very natural and it creates itself because there's so many personalities and the grouping of these personalities creates the gym. I'm blessed to have what I have here. You can't duplicate this as far as the culture. We're not, per se, lifting iron or going on a treadmill or on a bike. We're dealing with human beings. What they experience is addictive. There's nothing more primal than to be able to be competing head to head against a person because it involves competing with yourself. It involves a team. But going head to head against somebody creates a very unique experience and it teaches you a lot about you. Okay, we're gonna go to the end right away. Per se. This environment is very natural and it creates itself because there's so many personalities and the grouping of these personalities creates the gym. And I'm blessed to have what I have here. And you can't duplicate this as far as the culture. We're not, per se, lifting iron or going on a treadmill or on a bike. We're dealing with human beings. What they experience is addictive. Oops, sorry, okay. There's nothing more primal than to be able to be competing head to head against a person because it involves competing with yourself. It involves a team. But going head to head against somebody creates a very unique experience. And it teaches you a lot about you. We're gonna go to the last one now. Here's the last version of that end. Culture. We're not, per se-- Sorry. Is very natural and it creates itself because there's so many personalities and the grouping of these personalities creates the gym and I'm blessed to have what I have here and you can't duplicate this as far as the culture. We're not, per se lifting iron or going on a treadmill or on a bike. We're dealing with human beings. What they experience is addictive because it involves competing with yourself, it involves a team, and it teaches you a lot about you. Did you guys get that? When you listen to it in succession like that, right? When you listen to it like wow that's a great statement. Ooh, that got better. Oh my god, that's it. It just involved just cutting and cutting and cutting and cutting and cutting and cutting. That's why getting here is so important because here, he's saying too much. Here, it's entirely too much. Right here, it's forcing you to get those statements down in a way that will allow you to communicate the most amount of information in the least amount of words possible. There's a magic feeling around the two minute, 230 minute mark. That's where all the sweet stuff starts to happen. So, you guys got it? Yeah? Okay, that's how I edit and it's not levers and pulleys. It's just whack, whack, whack, whack, whack, whack, whack. Okay? Yeah. Does the client ever go, "wow, "I had no idea I was so eloquent?" (audience laughs) You know a lot of the time, they do say, "wow, that's awesome. "it sounds really good." I think they surprise themselves because these are just their words. You're just putting it together. These are their words. So wonderful, it's great. He had a great, perfect deep voice. Do you ever have clients where you get back in the editing room and they're changing tempo a lot or they have a lot of listing in their voice and it's more difficult to move things around and cut? Is there anything you can do in editing to fix that or is it just kinda cut it, let it go and move on? So, there's two options there. Your first option is if you can catch it in production, you gotta remind them. He spoke very deliberately. Very easy to cut him. I've had people go like mmm, well, you know, I, uh, you know, I uh... So getting someone to stop that because you have to stop that in production. It's as simple as saying, "hey, you know what? "as you answer, just remember that we need you "to just talk a little bit slower "and if I do this, that's all I mean. "Just, hey, I want to get every word you're saying. "so just talk a little bit slower." If for some reason, you can't get them to do that in production or it's unnatural for them, there were some moments in here where Ivan was mumbling and getting his words caught together. If you zoom in. If you zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom in to the timeline, you can usually cut right as that form comes down and get a nice clean cut out of it. And sometimes you try to mash it in and sometimes it doesn't work. That's when you actually just gotta get rid of it. You just gotta know when to hit the eject button. You can try, try, try and if it doesn't fit, get it out.