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Interview with editor Iker Bilbao

  • When did you decide that you wanted to be an editor? Did you try your hand at any other type of filmmaking positions?

Since I was 14 I have been fascinated by video editing I made my own trailers of my favorite movies and series. I have also been a director and director of photography on other projects.

  • How do you prepare to start editing (organizing scenes, takes, files and folders)?

Usually, I import all the material that I am going to use, such as clips, sfx and music that I think will work. I classify them in different folders. In this case, the shots that appear in the trailer were the only ones I have worked with because I had to create them in 3D.

  • How do you decide when/where to make a cut?

First, I arrange the shots one after the other and then I insert the dialogue. Later, I include the music and that helps me to set up the rhythm, so that I can know at what specific point could place each phrase and cut in order to make it dynamic and fluid.

  • How can editing change the tone or emotion?

In this case I wanted to achieve a sinister and tense tone at the beginning and more epic feeling at the end. So, the shots are slower and more static at the beginning and as the trailer progresses, the length of each one gets shorter and became more dynamic, colorful and spectacular.

  • What kind of problems come up during editing?

The biggest problem was the ignorance of the field in which I was working: 3D, because I have never used it before. As I was creating the shots, that problem decreased. The other big problem was the lack of inspiration. I sometimes spent weeks, even months thinking about a single shot.

  • How does your work as the visual editor feed into the work of the sound editor?

I have been a sound editor as well as a video editor, which I also consider an advantage, because at the time of editing I had in my mind what kind of sounds and music I wanted to put in and that helped me out a lot to get an idea of ​​how the final assembly could be.

  • With all the adjustments, how much can a movie end up deviating from the original script?

It was a trailer script and it was very conceptual and varied a lot, especially in terms of amount and content of the shots. What I did maintain from the beginning was the dialogue so as not to deviate from the story I wanted to represent.

  • How much creative input the editor has, or how do you get your director accept your ideas?

I can’t say much because I have been both director and editor.

  • Were you influenced by any directors or film editors in the development of your craft over the years?

For making this trailer I was influenced by many movies, like Blade Runner, Arrival, Gravity, The Martian, Avatar y Star Wars among other.

  • Quite a few directors that once they find their editor, that’s who they continue to work with. Do you find that that’s the case with you?

As I said before I don’t know because I have been both director and editor at the same time.

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