“Suchst du etwas?” After constantly rewinding, rewinding, looking at other takes, watching a new cut, I can’t count the amount of time I heard this line while editing our narrative projects. The other week, all the groups that shot narrative scripts switched projects for editing. Of course, our group got the project that was translated into German and had the longest script. To say that editing week was trying, would be an understatement.
One of the biggest challenge of editing this project was the fact that it was in a foreign language. Yes, there were other issues that arose from the video and camera, but most of the other narratives has similar problems so we were all on an even playing field there. Editing in German was daunting to our entire group, but it was not until we started wading through the footage that the full immensity of the task hit us. We were provided with the script in German with English translations and some good production notes. That gave us a little something to work with thankfully, but while everyone else’s finished cut averaged 3 minutes, ours averaged ten... So, right off the back you can see what we were working with. But, back to the main idea.
Editing in a foreign language is more difficult than I even anticipated. Though we had the English words right in front of us the whole time, it was still so jarring to have to listen to all the German that sounded like gibberish to my ears. Deciphering the different words became easier as I went along, but it was still a back and forth between the script and my monitor. The constant questioning of whether the line was correct made it difficult to even concentrate on the take. For example, in one take one of the actors messed up his lines and started apologizing and saying let’s take it from a certain line and keep rolling. This would be perfectly easy to understand, had it been said in English.
Instead, I thought it was dialogue I was missing or was improvised. It took me a few times watching the take to realize that it wasn’t even part of the scene. I never realized how much I took for granted editing in English. By the end of the week, I was so exhausted by the energy it took to edit in German. Though it was a very trying week for our group, I did enjoy the learning process in the edit. The most frustrating part of the week was just that I wanted to do the best job possible. It took a while, I was literally the last person editing in my group. Editing in German made me want to learn more of the language and to never again take for granted the fact that I can edit in English. It was such a long week for our group, but in the end I think each of us ended up with a cut we could be proud of.
Written by: Sarah Bush
