Interviewer: Is film editing a complicated job?
Film Editor: Oh yes, a lot of people probably don't know how complicated a job it can be. It's far more than just sticking pieces of film together.
Interviewer: How long does it take to edit a film?
Film Editor: Well, it depends. You can probably expect to edit a 10-minute film in about a week. A 35-minute documentary, like the one I'm editing at present, takes a minimum of four to five weeks to edit.
Interviewer: Can you explain to me how film editing works?
Film Editor: There are different steps. 'Synching up', for example.
Interviewer: What do you mean by synching up?
Film Editor: It means matching sound and pictures and that is usually done by my assistant. The film and the sound tape have numbers stamped along the edge which have to be matched. The details of the film and the sound are also recorded in a log book, so it's quick and easy to find a particular take and its soundtrack. This operation is called logging and is again done by my assistant.
Interviewer: So what do you usually do yourself?
Film Editor: A lot of things, of course. First, I have to view all the material to make a first selection of the best takes. There's a lot of film to look through because to make a sequence work the way you want, you need a lot of shots to choose from.
Interviewer: Does that mean that you have to discard sequences?
Film Editor: Oh yes. On average for every foot of edited film, you need twelve times as much unedited film and therefore you have to compromise and, of course, discard some of it.
Interviewer: What do you do after selecting the material?
Film Editor: First of all, I prepare an initial version of the film, a 'rough cut' as it is called. That means that I actually cut the film into pieces and stick them together again in the new order.
Interviewer: And after this 'rough cut' what happens?
Film Editor: Well, after the 'rough cut' comes the 'fine cut' when the film takes its final form. The producer and the director come in for a viewing. Some small changes may then be necessary, but when the 'fine cut' has been approved by everyone, this is the final version of the film.
Interviewer: At this point is the film ready for distribution?
Film Editor: Oh no. After the final version of the film has been approved, there is the dubbing, there are voices, music, background noises and sometimes special effects to be put together for the soundtrack. And after the dubbing, the edited film is sent to the 'neg' cutters.
Interviewer: What do the 'neg' cutters do?
Film Editor: They cut the original negatives on the films, so that these match the edited film exactly. And after all that comes the best part—I can sit down quietly with my feet up and enjoy watching the film!
Man: Hi.
Woman: Hi.
Man: What'd you do last night?
Woman: I watched TV. There was a really good movie called Soylent Green.
Man: Soylent Green?
Woman: Yeah. Charlton Heston was in it.
Man: What's it about?
Woman: Oh, it's about life in New York in the year 2022.
Man: I wonder if New York will still be here in 2022.
Woman: In this movie, in 2022 ...
Man: Yeah?
Woman: ... New York has forty million people.
Man: Ouch!
Woman: And twenty million of them are unemployed.
Man: How many people live in New York now? About seven or eight million?
Woman: Yeah, I think that's right.
Man: Mm-hmm. You know, if it's hard enough to find an apartment now in New York City, what's it going to be like in 2022?
Woman: Well, in this movie most people have no apartment. So thousands sleep on the steps of buildings. (Uh-huh.) People who do have a place to live have to crawl over sleeping people to get inside. And there are shortages of everything. The soil is so polluted that nothing will grow. (Ooo.) And the air is so polluted they never see the sun. It's really awful.
Man: I think I'm going to avoid going to New York City in the year 2022.
Woman: And there was this scene where the star, Charlton Heston, goes into a house where some very rich people live.
Man: Uh-huh.
Woman: He can't believe it, because they have running water and they have soap.
Man: Really?
Woman: And then he goes into the kitchen and they have tomatoes and lettuce and beef. He almost cries because he's never seen real food in his life, you know, especially the beef. It was amazing for him.
Man: Well, if most people have no real food, what do they eat?
Woman: They eat something called soylent.
Man: Soylent?
Woman: Yeah. There's soylent red and soylent yellow and soylent green. The first two are made out of soybeans. But the soylent green is made out of ocean plants. (Ugh.) The people eat it like crackers. That's all they have to eat.
Man: That sounds disgusting.
Woman: Well, you know, it really isn't that far from reality.
Man: No?
Woman: Yeah. Because, you know the greenhouse effect that's beginning now and heating up the earth ...
Man: Oh, yeah, I've heard about that.
Woman: ... because we're putting the pollutants in the atmosphere, you know?
Man: Mm-hmm.
Woman: I mean, in this movie New York has ninety degrees weather all year long. And it could really happen. Uh ... like now, we ... we have fuel shortages. And in the movie there's so little electricity that people have to ride bicycles to make it.
Man: You know something? I don't think that movie is a true prediction of the future.
Woman: I don't know. It scares me. I think it might be.
Man: Really?
Woman: Well, yeah.
The native Americans, the people we call the 'Indians', had been in America for many thousands of years before Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492. Columbus thought he had arrived in India, so he called the native people 'Indians'.
The Indians were kind to the early settlers. They were not afraid of them and they wanted to help them. They showed the settlers the new world around them; they taught them about the local crops like sweet potatoes, corn and peanuts; they introduced the Europeans to chocolate and to the turkey; and the Europeans did business with the Indians.
But soon the settlers wanted bigger farms and more land for themselves and their families. More and more immigrants were coming from Europe and all these people needed land. So the Europeans started to take the land from the Indians. The Indians had to move back into the centre of the continent because the settlers were taking all their land.
The Indians couldn't understand this. They had a very different idea of land from the Europeans. For the Indians, the land, the earth, was their mother. Everything came from their mother, the land, and everything went back to it. The land was for everyone and it was impossible for one man to own it. How could the White Man divide the earth into parts? How could he put fences round it, buy it and sell it?
Naturally, when the White Man started taking all the Indians' land, the Indians started fighting back. They wanted to keep their land, they wanted to stop the White Man taking it all for himself. But the White Man was stronger and cleverer. Slowly he pushed the Indians into those parts of the continent that he didn't want—the parts where it was too cold or too dry or too mountainous to live comfortably.
By 1875 the Indians had lost the fight: they were living in special places called 'reservations'. But even here the White Man took land from them—perhaps he wanted the wood, or perhaps the land had important minerals in it, or he even wanted to make national parks there. So even on their reservations the Indians were not safe from the White Man.
There are many Hollywood films about the fight between the Indians and the White Man. Usually in these films the Indians are bad and the White Man is good and brave. But was it really like that? What do you think? Do you think the Indians were right or wrong to fight the White Man?
Interviewer: Today, there are more than 15 million people living in Australia. Only 160,000 of these are Aborigines, so where have the rest come from? Well, until 1850 most of the settlers came from Britain and Ireland and, as we know, many of these were convicts. Then in 1851 something happened which changed everything. Gold was discovered in southeastern Australia. During the next ten years, nearly 700,000 people went to Australia to find gold and become rich. Many of them were Chinese. China is quite near to Australia. Since then many different groups of immigrants have gone to Australia for many different reasons. Today I'm going to talk to Mario whose family came from Italy and to Helena from Greece. Mario, when did the first Italians arrive in Australia?
Mario: The first Italians went there, like the Chinese, in the gold-rushes, hoping to find gold and become rich. But many also went there for political reasons. During the 1850s and 1860s different states in Italy were fighting for independence and some Italians were forced to leave their homelands because they were in danger of being put in prison for political reasons.
Interviewer: I believe there are a lot of Italians in the sugar industry.
Mario: Yes, that's right. In 1891 the first group of 300 Italians went to work in the sugarcane fields of northern Australia. They worked very hard and many saved enough money to buy their own land. In this way they came to dominate the sugar industry on many parts of the Queensland coast.
Interviewer: But not all Italians work in the sugar industry, do they?
Mario: No. A lot of them are in the fishing industry. Italy has a long coastline, as you know, and Italians have always been good fishermen. At the end of the nineteenth century some of these went to western Australia to make a new life for themselves. Again, many of them, including my grandfather, were successful.
Interviewer: And what about the Greeks, Helena?
Helena: Well, the Greeks are the fourth largest national group in Australia, after the British, the Irish and the Italians. Most Greeks arrived after the Second World War but in the 1860s there were already about 500 Greeks living in Australia.
Interviewer: So when did the first Greeks arrive?
Helena: Probably in 1830, they went to work in vineyards in southeastern Australia. The Greeks have been making wine for centuries so their experience was very valuable.
Interviewer: But didn't some of them go into the coalmines?
Helena: Yes, they weren't all able to enjoy the pleasant outdoor life of the vineyards. Some of them went to work in the coalmines in Sydney. Others started cafes and bars and restaurants. By 1890 there were Greek cafes and restaurants all over Sydney and out in the countryside (or the bush, as the Australians call it) as well.
Interviewer: And then, as you said, many Greeks arrived after the Second World War, didn't they?
Helena: Yes, yes, that's right. Conditions in Greece were very bad: there was very little work and many people were very poor. Australia needed more workers and so offered to pay the boat fare. People who already had members of their family in Australia took advantage of this offer and went to find a better life there.
Interviewer: Well, thank you, Mario and Helena. Next week we will be talking to Juan from Spain and Margaret from Scotland.
(1) A: It doesn't sound much like dancing to me.
B: It is; it's great.
A: More like some competition in the Olympic Games.
C: Yeah. It's (pause) good exercise. Keeps you fit.
(2) A: But you can't just start dancing in the street like that.
B: Why not? We take the portable cassette recorder and when we find a nice street, we (pause) turn the music up really loud and start dancing.
(3) A: We have competitions to see who can do it the fastest without falling over. Malc's the winner so far.
B: Yeah, I'm the best. I teach the others but (pause) they can't do it like me yet.
(4) A: You're reading a new book, John?
B: Yes. Actually, (pause) it's a very old book.
(5) A: Now, can you deliver all this to my house?
B: Certainly. Just (pause) write your address and I'll get the boy to bring them round.
(6) A: Good. I've made a nice curry. I hope you do like curry?
B: Yes, I love curry, I used to work in India, as a matter of fact.
A: Really? How interesting. You must (pause) tell us all about it over dinner.
The Foolish Frog
Once upon a time a big, fat frog lived in a tiny shallow pond. He knew every plant and stone in it, and he could swim across it easily. He was the biggest creature in the pond, so he was very important. When he croaked, the water snails listened politely. And the water beetles always swam behind him. He was very happy there.
One day, while he was catching flies, a pretty dragon fly passed by. 'You're a very fine frog,' she sang, 'but why don't you live in a bigger pond? Come to my pond. You'll find a lot of frogs there. You'll meet some fine fish, and you'll see the dangerous ducks. And you must see our lovely water lilies. Life in a large pond is wonderful!'
'Perhaps it is rather dull here,' thought the foolish frog. So he hopped after the dragon fly.
But he didn't like the big, deep pond. It was full of strange plants. The water snails were rude to him, and he was afraid of the ducks. The fish didn't like him, and he was the smallest frog there. He was lonely and unhappy.
He sat on a water lily leaf and croaked sadly to himself, 'I don't like it here. I think I'll go home tomorrow.'
But a hungry heron flew down and swallowed him up for supper.
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