A rough cut is a edited pass at a show or movie. It isn't color corrected, the sound is uneven, effects are sometimes missing, and if there's music at all it's generally just a temporary track. We're required to send rough cuts of our episodes to the network for notes. You'd be shocked at how stupid some of them are. "Aren't you going to have music here?" "The color of her jacket seemed to change. It was really distracting." That sort of nonsense. And these people are SUPPOSED TO KNOW it's a rough cut and that these imperfections will be smoothed out in post production.
Many don't. Yes, you're right. How DO they keep their jobs?
I came across a funny parody of the Budweiser "Real Men of Genius" campaign that salutes "Miss I don't know how to view a rough cut lady".
I got to see that on my very first movie! Our ghost dog is supposed to walk behind a tree then disappear -- but the FX hadn't been put into the rough cut yet so you could see both dog and trainer.
ReplyDeleteDirector then gets the helpful note that the trainer is visible in that scene. Yeah, really, we all missed that. Thank God for Eagle Eye there!
That was hilarious. The mention of rough cut reminds me of when I saw Gangs of New York in the theater. There was one brief shot that was still a rough cut and it was very jarring to see. Obviously everyone has heard about the extensive editing down that delayed the release of the film for a year. But leaving a rough cut in is unexcusable, I don't care if it is Martin Scorsese. Leaving in a camera bump is one thing, but a ROUGH CUT? No way man.
ReplyDeleteThat's hysterical. It may be a parody but I believe those are the real voices behind the commercials, it makes me think the target of this version was intended for someone at the ad agency.
ReplyDeleteHere's a site with all of the originals: Real Men of Genius.
I think giant taco salad maker is still my favorite.
Just a bit of trivia - the guy who does the singing on the "Real Men of Genius" ad is the guy who sang "Eye of the Tiger" for Survivor. (Then he hurt his vocal cords and had to quit for awhile, so somebody else sang on their other hits.)
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in the promo department, we edited an animated stills promo done to the "Hill Street Blues" theme. The notes from the rough cut came back to lift the front section and switch it with the back section. I said "this was cut to music" and the answer was, "shut up and just lift them as we tell you to." It really sucked and the notes came back to restore the first cut.
ReplyDeleteI was about to get the file for the first cut to submit, when the Producer said "it took us 6 hours to make that cut" whereupon they blocked out 6 hours to redo it. We spent that six hours having bloody mary's at Chadneys. What a nice day!
Verification word: inisslu - a Football Conference in the South?
Just discovered this blog and I am having a great time reading all the past posts - thanks for sharing your POV - I am enjoying reading the posts and the comments.
ReplyDeleteAs an editor who has screened many rough cuts to clients who had no idea what a rough cut was - this made me smile. Thanks for posting.
word verification, sastri - when twice the level of sass just ain't enough...
Anheuser Busch, St Louis Missouri.
ReplyDelete*You have the track*.
Who do you know?
And your Bickler and... ok, I don't know who has the VO contract for that campaign; they're both *perfect*.
And that's next to impossible.
I would assume this was done *by* the real crew, but I know what Bickler looks like, and that isn't him.
So, how?
sycleme: that new face cream that Katie Heigl has started using cause Letterman made age jokes.
(Thread cross FTW)
That's pretty funny...in one of the few pitch sessions I have had with a studio exec...he had the guts to start a sentence with "In my experience...". He "may" have been 28 years old...tops. Probably a year or two younger than that.
ReplyDeleteI wish someone would elaborate on how many of these people get their jobs.
Jim