C.A. is ostensibly an editor, but as a business partner in The Film Factory, he sometimes takes more of a hands-on role. For example, he describes Night Drive, which Indi-genous Films are releasing on 15 October 2010, as “very close to my heart. I started developing the story with director Justin Head about two years ago. I also produced the film.”

The challenge on Night Drive was genre, which took the editor completely out of his comfort zone. “I’ve never worked in the thriller/horror genre before, so Night Drive gave me the opportunity to work in variations of styles within the same project,” he says.

Even though the process of editing horror was interesting, he still has his reservations. “I don’t know if it’s good to be exposed to that much violence for that long,” he laughs.

Another film being produced by The Film Factory is Bakgat 2, which is coming out on 20 September 2010. C.A. was executive producer of the film. 

The challenges on Bakgat 2, C.A.’s first sequel, were very different than those on Night Drive as they were mostly narrative and structural.  C.A used music to create pace and tone in the film.

On Die ongelooflike avonture van Hanna Hoekom, releasing 13 August 2010, C.A. purely edited and graded, but the film had its own unique challenges. 

“Hanna Hoekom has seven animated sequences, which were shot on a green screen.  This was the first time I worked on a film with this amount of animation, and that in itself presented certain challenges.”

Director Regardt van den Bergh knew what he wanted for the animation sequences, which C.A. had to then define and create in the edit.

C.A. explains that even though the process of editing is largely the same, each film had a different emphasis. “Your main concern in edit, despite all the technical aspects of the craft, is audience engagement levels, especially on an emotional level. The edit interpretation changes as the genre changes.  It’s very important to understand the genre and audience you are creating the film for,” he says.

Each film took approximately four weeks to edit with an additional two weeks, per film, for the directors and producers to get to picture lock. “Because of the budget constraints on most South African productions, we can’t spend as much time in edit as we’d like to,” he says.

Next up for C.A. is Cobus Roussouw’s Getroud met rugby – die movie; Stefan Nieuwoudt‘s Superhelde; and Paul Ehlers’ Roepman.  Then there’s the drama series, doccies and music videos C.A. edits in-between big jobs to “keep his editing skills sharp.”

C.A. works on Final Cut Pro 7.

Sally Fink