‘Sharknado 2’ editor talks Adobe to film students
Photos by Katherine Rountree
On Oct. 28, Adobe Creative Cloud sponsored their first-ever panel featuring a currently working film editor. Vashi Nedomansky, a film editor who has cut nine feature Hollywood films, including “Sharknado 2: The Second One,” talked to film students about the business of film editing and his own methods.
The talk wasn’t specifically about “Sharknado 2,” though he showed viewers the Adobe Premiere Pro file he used to edit the film and played a never-before-seen clip of raw footage to contrast his final cut with the final theatrical cut. Instead, he offered tips and answered questions from a small but engaged audience.
“As a beginner, the only desire you need is to tell a story,” Nedomansky said. He began at age 12 when he turned in a short film instead of a paper for a book report assignment. Now, as a professional who uses Avid, Final Cut Pro 7 and Adobe Premiere to edit movies, he encourages students to “share all of your work and cut everything you can.” Peer review and practice is crucial to improvement, and the constant cutting will foster versatility.
“You’re going to be more effective and more valuable the more styles you can cut, and the more different kinds of projects you can cut,” he said.
Nedomansky encouraged versatility in all aspects. When editing, he’s also responsible for annotating shots wherever the visual effects team will have to take over. Sometimes he has to write dialogue, too. And he spends a lot of time on audio. Nedomansky always provides some soundtrack and audio effects before sending cuts to the next level. “Sharknado 2,” for example, had 18 layers of audio when he was finished with it.
“The most valuable editor in the Hollywood position is someone who gives something so full, so complete, that the next level, the director or producer, says, ‘wow, this is amazing,’” Nedomansky explained.
Nedomansky showed the audience the Abode Premiere Pro file he used to edit “Sharknado 2.” He also screened a short, never-before-seen clip of raw footage from the film to contrast his final cut with the theatrical version of the movie.
For the rest of the editing process, Nedomansky said it’s all about organization.
“Half your challenge is setting up your project so you know where everything is… Organization is the key, huge thing you have to do,” he said. “You can be a great cutter, a great storyteller, but if you can’t get to your footage, don’t know where it is, then it won’t help in the real world, where time is money and everybody wants everything yesterday.”
Organization keeps editors from being overwhelmed when presented with 80 hours of footage for a two-hour movie and nurtures a professional image. The key to organization is watching every frame of footage at least twice in real time before starting.
“There’s nothing worse than an editor or a storyteller that isn’t familiar with all the footage. You can’t tell the right story,” said Nedomansky.
Nedomansky recommended breaking the work up into manageable chunks. He tries to tackle a ten-minute section of script each workday. This way the job is more digestible and other departments such as audio and visual effects can get to work on scenes right away.
At the same time, he cautioned against losing sight of the bigger picture when working on a macro level.
“One of the hardest things to do is keep the overall view of your entire film when you’re cutting all these little tiny scenes,” he said. “Every scene stands alone by itself, but it must be part of a bigger picture.”
And no matter how much you break down the job, the fact is still that the task is huge and time is short. Nedomansky recommended finding every trick, shortcut and efficiency-booster you can.
“Little things make the biggest differences,” he said. “Any adjustment you can make when you’re cutting that saves a step, saves a minute or second is huge.”
Being open-minded is crucial, too.
“Attempt things that shouldn’t work. You’ll be surprised,” Nedomansky advised. “Never think you know everything. No one does.”
