American Cinematographer - March 2004 - 14

Editing Documentaries Under the Gun
by Debra Kaufman

Documentaries often highlight the

challenges of film production, but
postproduction offers its own set of
difficulties. Many indie films run out of
money and time for postproduction, and
that goes doubly for documentaries,
which often are burdened with huge
amounts of raw footage to log and edit.
Documentarians Karin Hayes and
Victoria Bruce co-directed and produced
two documentaries within a short

both of which reflect

some

time,

of the post

challenges faced by this genre of filmmaking. They set out to direct their first
documentary on Ingrid Betancourt, a
charismatic woman running for political
office in Colombia. Their grant-writing
was interrupted when Betancourt was
kidnapped by Colombian rebels, and the
duo ran up their credit-card balances in
rushing to South America to cover the
events.

Deeply in debt, they returned to
footage, but
no funds to hire an editor. They

the United States with their
had

decided to edit themselves, but neither
of them knew how to edit, nor did they
have the

equipment to do

what I wanted to do," says
didn't know how to do it."

Final Cut Pro and

it, borrowed

some

so. "I knew
Hayes, "but I
They bought

books

on

how to

laptop, and turned
Hayes' parents' dining room into an edit¬
ing suite. Fortunately, Hayes had a back¬
ground as a graphics designer, and work¬
ing with Final Cut Pro was somewhat
similar to working with Adobe Photo¬
shop and Quark Xpress. She also tried to

use

a

learn Adobe After Effects

animate

so

she could

still images.
problem, then
we'd go to the books and call all our
friends," remembers Hayes.
camera moves on

"I'd work until I had

The filmmakers

a

soon

attracted

a

coterie of

one

found

a

helpers, some of whom were
through mandy.com, a Web site for

international film and TV

resources.

The

of Botero's relatives, located outside

village north of Bogota. "We were
definitely sequestered," says Hayes.
"We felt like we were in hiding. Our

novice editors needed outside eyes,
which they got from film editors Laura

families didn't

Pak and Marc Honma, as well as docu¬

were; we

mentary producer Michael Rose. "If we
ever edit ourselves again, we'll go to

were

them

Premiere 6 software loaded

again," says Hayes. "They were
very helpful."
They finished the edit in time to
send the film, The Kidnapping of Ingrid
Betancourt, to Slamdance, where it

was

acquired by HBO/Cinemax. The distribu¬
tors wanted to re-edit

it, however, and

thus

began the laborious process of
figuring out how to transfer the Final Cut
Pro files to Avid. Assistant editor Victoria

Ford had to rebuild the
EDL

piece from the
(including cutting and pasting all the

subtitles), and editor Geof Bartz did the
re-edit. The documentary premiered on
Cinemax last month.

know where

we

just called to tell them

we

even

fine."

Cusguen, who brought his Adobe
on a

PC, had

edited before with Botero, who trusted
him to be able to work with this sensi¬
tive material. With the timeliness of the

subject matter looming overhead, the
lived and worked together for
three weeks to hash out a rough cut.
During that time, a virus crippled the
computer and wiped out all their media,
and electricity blackouts often corrupted
files. When they snagged an interview
with the vice president of Colombia at
the last moment, Hayes drove to Bogota
on a Friday night, did the interview,
picked up some stock footage at a tele¬
team

Hayes and Bruce's next film, Held
Hostage in Colombia, incorporated

vision station, drove back to the "edit

extensive interviews with American

day

hostages held by guerrillas in the jungle.
The production required the duo and their
Colombian partner, videographer Jorge
Enrique Botero, to work quickly and
secretively. Botero spent weeks in the
jungle at the rebels' camp, conducting an
interview with the captives and showing
them a videotaped message from one of
their mothers. Hayes and Bruce did their
own videotaping of families in the
States. Already under surveillance by

back to the States.

U.S. authorities, and fearful that the

government would confiscate the inter¬
views if they were brought back to the
States, the filmmakers flew to Colombia
to edit. With associate

producer Efrain
Freddy Cusguen,
they installed themselves in the home of
Bahamon and editor

suite," and completed the edit on Satur¬
-

just in time for

a

Sunday flight

The

hostage story broke in
beginning of September,
which meant that Hayes and Bruce had
Colombia in the

a

short window of time to interest U.S.

television networks. CBS News anchor

Dan Rather bit, and 60 Minutes II did a

segment on the story. The History Chan¬
nel

picked up Held
in October 2003.

Hostage and aired it
■
American Cinematographer - March 2004

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