ur film is probably the most economical and
will yield the best results for your money.
Some things to keep in mind, however:
Cutting on a flatbed is slow and time consuming unless you are experienced. However, if you
are like most indie filmmakers, what you have is time and what you don't have is money. At $8
an hour you can afford to be a little slower. Unfortunately, because the process is so time
consuming few editors will take the time to experiment with the footage like you would on a
computer. At least you will have a projectable print when you finish your film.
Another thing to consider is how you will be editing sound. Are you going to transfer to
Magstock and splice tape? It is far more difficult to obtain a high quality soundtrack using
splicers and a squawk box and you might want to consider other options.
Remember that before you enter any festival, they will want to see a VHS preview so you will
have to have your film transferred to video at some point. If you hit your exposures right on
and you take good care of your workprint, there is no reason you can't have it transferred one
light to tape.
In cases similar to yours, we advise people to have all their footage transferred one light
to 3/4" tape with KeyKode and Timecode windowburned outside of the Video Safe. The numbers
will appear on an overscanned screen (your editing monitor) but not an underscanned one
(a regular television). Then you edit picture and sound on AVID and dump your finished copy
to VHS and create a cut list for your negative cutter. The transfer to 3/4" is far cheaper
than Beta and if you plan on finishing on film, you don't need the quality of Beta for offline
editing and 3/4" will provide more than adequate quality for a preview. Believe it or not,
this is how editing is done on Hollywood features. Why pay for Beta when you're not going to
use it? If someone decides to use your film for broadcast or cable, let them pay for a
retransfer to Digibeta. You can even postpone having your negative cut and getting your
answer print and final mix until you know what festivals you've been accepted to.
The last method may cost more money but it is something to consider.
When budgeting, make sure to take into account the time you're spending with your film on
the flatbed in terms of what your time is worth.