(Courtesy of Shangri-La Entertainment)

The South By Southwest Film Festival ended last week and once again audiences were treated to an eclectic program of both low budget indie and studio movies. With SXSWi (i for Interactive) becoming just as big as the music and film festivals, perhaps the most significant movie of the festival was Girl Walks Into a Bar, which is the first feature to be produced exclusively for web distribution. Directed by Sebastian Gutierrez (Elektra Luxx, Rise: Blood Hunter), Girl Walks Into a Bar is an ensemble comedy with a terrific cast that includes Carla Gugino, Josh Hartnett, Danny DeVito, Rosario Dawson, Robert Forster and many others. Even though the movie is loaded with indie and Hollywood stars, the movie was produced on a very low budget and shot with Canon 7D DSLRs. I recently chatted with editor Lisa Bromwell, ACE by phone about her work on the movie, as well as working with Avid Media Composer and editing for the computer screen instead of the theater screen. A veteran film editor for over 20 years and an ACE member, this is Bromwell’s third collaboration with Gutierrez.

HDVP: What is your working relationship with director Sebastian Gutierrez like?

LISA BROMWELL: Sebastian and I have a really great relationship because it’s very collaborative. He gets me the script early on and he’s always eager for feedback at the script level. What usually happens—especially with these low budget films—is that he shoots it and then I do a really good first cut by myself. He then comes in and we work together for however long it takes to finish the film to where he wants it to be. We work very well together and I think our sensibilities are the same, as well as having a fair amount of mutual respect.

Carla Gugino plays a would be assassin (Courtesy of Shangri-La Entertainment)

HDVP: In watching the film, it seemed like a pretty straight forward shoot in terms of shot selection. Do you find a traditional style is sometimes harder to cut?

BROMWELL: It really depends on what the point of the story is. Something that is shot very traditionally is pretty easy to cut in that you only have so many things to choose from. It’s sometimes fun to cut things where the camera is moving all around and doing different things. Some of it is happenstance and that’s where you can find real gems while you’re editing. That being said, I feel like audiences are really sophisticated these days and as long as whatever you’re doing editorially is working to tell the story, this is my only rule.

Girl Walks Into a Bar is cut pretty traditionally and is cut faster than I would cut a movie that was designed to screen on the big screen. I think you have to cut things a little bit differently and have to be aware of what the primary medium is going to be. As long as it works for storytelling, I feel like you can do anything you want with editorial. You can cross the line, you can jump cut—basically whatever you want because audiences have become accustomed to these techniques.

(Courtesy of Shangri-La Entertainment)

HDVP: What is the biggest challenge in cutting a low budget movie?

BROMWELL: This film was shot in like 10 days and the problem with movies that are shot very quickly is that, as an editor, you don’t have a lot of options. And usually the actors are giving you one day of their time so they haven’t had a lot of rehearsal, but I  have to say that the actors in this film were really great. There wasn’t a weak link anywhere. But because of a short schedule, scenes are often hard to cut because actors sometimes forget lines and there are times where I really have to work to piece things together.

HDVP: You mean with cutaways?

BROMWELL: That’s one of the problems because usually there aren’t many cutaways. The problem is when you don’t have a important line on camera or in the close-up where you would logically want that line to be in. When that happens, the challenge is that you have to back up and re-edit the scene so it no longer feels logical to be in the close-up. You never want it to feel like you’re cutting around something. You have to deconstruct.

HDVP: This was cut on Avid Media Composer? Do you usually cut on Avid or does it even matter what system you work on?

BROMWELL: Yes, it was cut on Avid Media Composer using version 4.0.2. I usually work with Media Composer. I have worked with Final Cut Pro before and I do not like it. It’s cumbersome and less concise and to be honest, it makes me a little crazy. The first studio film I did with Sebastian was cut on Avid but the two microbudget things we did after were cut on Final Cut and we had so many problems. Girl Walks Into a Bar had to be cut on Media Composer or I wasn’t going to do it.

HDVP: Do you remember what kind of hardware you used for your editing suite?

BROMWELL: We were really bare boned. It was just a [Mac] G5 computer with two screens but I did get the maximum of amount of RAM, which was like 8GB. It was just a computer, a lot of memory and a couple Firewire 800 drives.

Girl Walks Into a Bar editor Lisa Bromwell, ACE

HDVP: Can you talk a little about the workflow process with the Canon 7Ds? Did you work natively with the files?

BROMWELL: You know, I can’t really answer that question, although I know that the files were transcoded. My assistant set up the project in 1080p at 23.976 fps and we continued to work in the native resolution/frame rate that was captured. I was fortunate to have a wonderful assistant, Lola Popovac, to help me do this. Every project you do is different and if I spent all my time learning all of this, I’d never have time to edit.

HDVP: How did the 7D’s H.264 files hold up? Did you notice any defects in the images?

BROMWELL: I didn’t notice anything different. I thought the images were beautiful. The last micro budget film we did was shot on a Sony XDCAM camera and I think the Canon 7D looks better. We had a screening and projected the film on a big screen and I was pretty astonished at how good it looked. I’m getting ready to do a pilot, which is shooting on the RED but they are going to have a Canon 7D on set to do pick ups and a few flashback sequences.

HDVP: This is the first movie with a name cast that is being distributed entirely online. As an editor, what are  your thoughts about screens getting smaller.

BROMWELL: I think any way that gets people to watch more movies is good. I don’t have any problem with it. Like I said, I like to know what the primary viewing medium is before I cut something because when you’re cutting for a small screen, you’re going to cut a lot faster than if you’re cutting for a movie theater screen because things play in a different rhythm. As an editor, it’s important to screen what you’re doing in the size and format that it is meant to be viewed in and cut just for that.

Girl Walks Into a Bar is currently screening on YouTube’s Screening Room, which is a curated program of some of the top films on the web.