Case Study #1: Jay Pendragon, The Hacker

Case study: Jay Pendragon, filmmaker: “The Hacker”

From script to screen:
How Rachel helped Jay translate their vision into film

When Jay wrote the script for their second short film “The Hacker”, all they had was a location and a budget. It was enough to inspire them to share about the project on Facebook, where freelance video editor Rachel spotted it.

“I can’t remember the exact words she used,” Jay says, “but it was something along the lines of, ‘If you need an editor, I’m happy to help.’ The unobtrusive tone really resonated with me and I checked out Rachel’s portfolio. Still love the animated short she made! When I saw A Rabbit’s Tale, I think that sealed the deal for me.”

Jay then sent Rachel the eight-page screenplay and they talked about Jay’s vision via messages. Internet was an issue, since Jay would be filming in a small village in rural Bavaria, Germany, where images can take excruciating seconds to load. The easiest and quickest way, they determined, would be to physically mail the hard drive.

Since it was a scripted shoot, Jay kept an editor’s log on the shots and takes, which made culling the footage a lot easier. It also helped when talking about specific versions of the same beat or sequence.

This genuinely worried Jay before the editing process started: “I didn’t know what to expect from working with Rachel. We set up a board on the free project management software Trello, splitting the entire movie into scenes or rather sequences that went on separate lists. Each list had cards for certain smaller beats which Rachel would tackle individually before fusing them together into larger chunks.”

The way Jay tells it, the entire process went incredibly smoothly.
“We could comment on the cards and that’s how we communicated. I’d type up my feedback and my requests or suggestions for adjustments, and Rachel would get to them quickly. Before I knew it, we had a rough edit! I was always so excited to check my notification and see whether I had a new clip to watch on Google Drive.”

Rather than a clear-cut (pun intended) division of responsibility, Jay says it was definitely a collaboration.

“Rachel has a lot of experience and thus great ideas and suggestions as to how we could invoke a specific emotion or how we could circumvent a problem with the footage. I’m a writer at heart, and a filmmaker second – having a pro like Rachel to rely on was invaluable.”

Once they had picture lock, i.e. the edit was finalised, Rachel sent the hard drive with the project file to Alex, the DoP, who did the colour grading. Then it was back to Rachel, who added the original score from the composer, and finally exported the finished short film in all necessary formats for distribution.

It was a long, but rewarding process, confirms Jay. “And I’m glad I chose Rachel. Sure, I probably could have found someone with lower rates, but I doubt I’d have gotten the quality in video editing... not to mention the enjoyable collaborative atmosphere!”

Now that Jay concentrates more on writing, they don’t know when they’ll have another project that requires a fast video editor... But when the time comes, Jay confirms, they’ll definitely hire Rachel again.

You can watch the finished short film “The Hacker” on YouTube or Vimeo.

If you wish to reach out to Jay for a reference or with more detailed questions, you can contact them through their website, jaypendragon.com.