I mentioned in a previous thought, the method that we're using to cut the film is a process we've coined "tell, shape, refine". I'll try and explain that here.
With scripted film, you have a script that you can work from as an editor even before you get a frame of footage to work on. You can set up a board that describes the main scenes or even use the story boards to plan your edit in combination with the actual script. You may even be fortunate enough to have built some ideas on how things will look in your head even before you get the film.
With a documentary, the challenges are immense. Not only do you not have a script to work from initially, you may end up with a shooting ratio of something like 500:1 or 500 hours of video to paw through for every hour you cut.
Epic documentaries like those that you see on PBS or netflix for that matter with a known outcome can follow something very closely resembling a script, and the more well funded the project, the better the resources to do the research and build a script.
With this project, hundreds of hours were shot "in the moment". Jay had no idea of knowing what the outcome would be until the company either survived, was sold or went under.
Wrangling all of that footage, understanding its context and trying to come up with a way to tell the story before the Kickstarter supporters came after us with pitch forks and torches, proved extremely challenging.
What I suggested that we do in this case, because it's really just the two of us working on the edit, is a process that I referred to as "tell, shape, refine".
Since Jay has an encyclopedic knowledge of both the story and what he shot, I asked that he first define the major scenes and the themes they need to cover. His next task as director was to tell each scene by performing string outs of interview sound bytes in a timeline that I could ingest later. He then needs to go through the footage library and string out all of the footage that I might need to cover the interview/narrative portion of the story. Doing this, I'll end up with two timelines for each segment; one that contains all of the interview sound bites relevant to that scene, the other containing the b roll or coverage I may need.
These timeline string outs may be as long as an hour to two hours in length, but the idea is for him to just get me the best material to tell that part of the story and not concern himself with cleaning it up.
I then take these string outs and shape them into a scene that will get all of the major points across in a manner that reflects the voice we've decided to use for the film.
We then go back over the shaping that I've done and refine the sections together with him advising me on shot selection or adjusting interview talking points. The two of us work on it together until we're both satisfied with the narrative and coverage.
The process has worked amazingly well and now that we've hit our stride results in about 15 minutes of mostly completed film each week.