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Once upon a time there was a blog…and an editor who had time to write! Here is an archive of my blogs from 2010 – 2017. Enjoy your meander down Shirley Thompson Editorial memory lane… Aloha!

Welcome to Shirley Thompson Editorial

Once upon a time there was a blog…and an editor who had time to write! Thanks for poking through my new website far enough to find this post. In the redesign, I decided to keep a blog page with an archive of my blogs from 2010 – 2017. Read More

5 Tips for Editing Your Sample Reel

I see the sample as a short film with one very specific goal: to leave the potential funder wanting to see more so badly that they will write the filmmaker a check. In the last blog, I wrote about how to get started editing a sample reel. Once you’ve defined the best of the best of your footage, it’s time to come up with a plan or a script for editing your sample. Here are five tips for making the strongest sample reel possible.Read More

Editing a Doc Sample Reel

This spring we’ll be editing a sample reel for A Paradise Lost, a documentary in progress by Laurie Sumiye.

I often get approached to help people edit sample reels for documentary films in progress, usually to show potential funders as part of a grant application. Editing sample reels is very different than editing a film trailer, where the film is at the fine cut stage, if not already completed, and so you clearly know what the film is about. Editing a sample reel is also different than cutting a crowdsourcing video for a platform like Kickstarter, IndieGoGo or GoFundMe, where there is usually a direct on-camera appeal from the filmmaker included.Read More

Film Finishing Prep: Copying Media Using Premiere Pro

KK at Onipa‘aPicture Lock! After months of editing, Marlene Booth’s documentary Kū Kanaka is nearly finished. I am sitting in Stanford Chang’s edit room at Gravity in Honolulu as he color corrects and finishes final picture on this mostly-Adobe Premiere edit.

In order to move the picture locked sequence to Stan’s system, I needed to learn and use Adobe Premiere Pro’s Project Manager feature. But first we spent some time cleaning up our sequence and getting the highest resolution stills and archival footage possible. We also upconverted a lot of SD sources to HD via Teranex hardware. I will detail this process in this blog, and I will talk about Project Manager in additional detail in the next blog.Read More

Your iPhone is a Mic

Here’s a quick post about using my iPhone as a quick and dirty recording device. I happen to have an iPhone 5, but I’m sure this would work on any newer smartphone using a comparable app.Read More

Moving a doc from FCP to Premiere Pro

“DON’T!”…would have been my advise in the past with regards to changing editing software or operating systems or computers in the middle of an edit. But if you aren’t too deep into your editing, you might consider getting off that reliable but ancient workhorse Final Cut Pro 7. Read More

Organizing Docs for Premiere Pro

After years of editing on Final Cut Pro 7, it was finally time to choose a new editing software. I weighed the advantages of going back to Avid versus learning FCP X or Premiere Pro CC. Ultimately the marketplace decided for me…most folks here in Hawai‘i were switching to Adobe Premiere, and that is what they are now using at the local film school where many of the filmmakers with whom I collaborate teach.

KuKanakaTimelineSM

Last summer I began editing Kū Kanaka: Stand Tall with producer/director Marlene Booth, using Adobe Premiere Pro CC, 2015 edition and we are now about 3 months into editing it. Many people have been asking if I have come up with a written best practices workflow, and so I’ve begun to document how we are editing the show. Read More

Trailer-o-Rama

A-Chance-to-Dress-SQSo fun to do short trailers for films in the midst of editing these multi-year epic documentary projects! Last spring I had the pleasure of editing a couple of trailers for a couple of great docs. I love getting the chance to collaborate with filmmakers and helping to spread the word about a film I really believe in.Read More

WINNING GIRL premieres!

WINNING GIRL - Documentary Show Open - Trailer

Buried! Buried in edits! That’s where I’ve been. After nearly a year of editing and post, we were thrilled to premiere the documentary WINNING GIRL at Hawai‘i International Film Festival in October. We spent approximately 11 months in post, pouring over 4 1/2 years of raw footage, learning the basics of both judo and wrestling, and watching amazing Teshya Alo grow from spunky 12-year-old phenom to poised and powerful 17-year-old at the top of her game. Read More

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