A Struggle for Survival Leads to True Love for Crazy Sexy Cancer Filmmakers
When Avid editor Brian Fassett was presented with a batch of 25 MiniDV tapes and a request to create a promotional trailer out of the footage, little did he know the project would turn into a life-changing experience.
The woman who came bearing tapes was Kris Carr, an acquaintance of Fassett's who had been diagnosed with a rare, incurable form of vascular cancer and had decided to make a documentary of her experience working through the medical establishment and seeking alternative remedies. She knew Fassett was an editor, so she asked him to help her put together a short piece that would allow her to shop the project, which she had titled Crazy Sexy Cancer.
Fassett took the job, and along the way, he and Carr fell in love, got married, received a grant for the documentary, and secured a distribution agreement with Discovery Communications, which plans to air it on The Learning Channel (TLC) in late summer 2007. Fassett and Carr also used the project as a launching pad for their production company, Red House Pictures, which is named after their house in Woodstock, N.Y.
"Crazy Sexy Cancer is my wife's cancer adventure journey," says Fassett.
"After Kris was diagnosed in February 2003, she dropped everything and started doing these video journals. They started small and they slowly grew to include four other women Kris met. All five women in the film are in their late 20s or 30s, and this is a demographic of cancer that doesn't get a lot of attention. Usually you hear about the pediatric or geriatric cases, but not much in between."
Another distinguishing characteristic of Crazy Sexy Cancer is its attitude. "The title is irreverent, hip, and flashy, so we felt that the trailer for the film had to reflect this attitude," says Fassett. "It's five women living and thriving with cancer in contemporary society."
"In terms of media management, I didn't have a crystal ball to look into the future, so everything had to grow with the project - the hardware, the software, and the approach to the
organization of the footage."
- Brian Fassett, Editor, Crazy Sexy Cancer
The Project Takes On a Life of Its Own
As Fassett's and Carr's relationship grew, so did the project. What started out as a short editing job evolved into an unwieldy tangle of footage that presented unique challenges, especially given the shoestring budget on which Fassett and Carr were operating.
"From an aesthetic point of view, a lot of this footage was in this video journal format, especially the e
"So, creatively, we were dealing with one person on screen, often with a locked-down camera, talking to [the lens]. We had mass quantities of verbal footage, and I bitched and moaned that we didn't have enough vérité. However, as we got deeper into the project, I finally figured out that we had something going stylistically. Once we embraced the video journal aspect of the material, it started to work."
In order to bring the story to life, Fassett set up a home-based workflow that initially consisted of an Avid Xpress system running on a Macintosh G4 desktop. Because Fassett was digitizing at DV25 resolution, he was quickly maxing out his storage capacity, so he kept adding 180- and 200-gigabyte FireWire drives to his rig. As cumbersome as it was, the system performed well and got Fassett and Carr through the critical, early phase of the project.
In the summer of 2005, they received a grant that allowed them to upgrade to a G5 system and to Avid Xpress Pro software. A year later, their need for hardware acceleration and additional drive space caught up with them, so Fassett acquired an Avid Mojo hardware accelerator and a 2-terabyte SATA tower. He also incorporated a Mackie 1604 audio mixer into his post-production suite.
During the final stretch of the offline editing phase last fall, Fassett added a Macintosh Powerbook G4 laptop and loaded it with Avid Xpress DV 4.8 software. That system served as a "remote" editor that allowed him and Carr to transport the entire project to their second home in Woodstock, N.Y. By that point, they were working with a second editor, Pagan Harleman, and had brought in an assistant, Omry Maoz, to help with offline editorial and media-management tasks on the increasingly voluminous project.
"I had never worked on a project where I didn't know where it was going," says Fassett. "In terms of media management, I didn't have a crystal ball to look into the future, so everything had to grow with the project - the hardware, the software, and the approach to the organization of the footage."
"Because our footage was shot on different cameras, we did a lot of A/B comparisons ... and with the color correction of the Avid Symphony Nitris system suddenly it became seamless."
- Brian Fassett, Editor, Crazy Sexy Cancer
Avid Features Streamline the Offline Edit
From a creative editorial perspective, Fassett took advantage of the many customizable toolsets within the Avid Xpress Pro system. "I'm a very keyboard heavy editor, and I customize my keyboard a lot," he explains about the time-saving shortcuts he relies on.
"I'm constantly editing sound with my eyes as I go, so I programmed a hot button for Show Waveform Palettes. I can't imagine editing without it."
On the media-management side, Fassett made liberal use of the powerful Reveal File feature, which helped him keep track of vast numbers of clips - especially the older media - that were scattered throughout his drives. "We were dealing with at least three times the number of media files that I typically work on, and our footage went back four years," he says.
Fassett had hoped to use the Script Integration tool, but given the modest budget of the project he improvised a system in which the Locator windows functioned as a transcript aide.
"I actually came to like this Locator system," explains Fassett. "By the time Pagan came along in the fall of 2006, I had built selects sequences for nearly all the footage, put in locators and descriptions, and even created a hard-copy book. Once we had an assistant, I had hoped to move over to Script Integration - not necessarily to replace the Locator system, but as an addition. But it was just wishful thinking. The time it would have taken to do all the Script Integration turned out to be impractical given the other demands on our assistant's time."
Applying the Finishing Touches
When it came time for the audio mixing and finishing stages of Crazy Sexy Cancer, the funding that Fassett and Carr received from Discovery Communications allowed them to bring the project to full-fledged post-production facilities. The compositing, color correction, and finishing processes were done by Jon Fordham on an Avid Symphony Nitris system at New York's Teatown Communications Group. The seamless transfer of files between the Avid offline and online systems enabled the creative team to save time and stay focused on the creative aspects of refining the final edit.
"Even to the average eye, the color correct is vital," says Fassett. "Because our footage was shot on different cameras, we did a lot of A/B comparisons between the Panasonic and the Canon running at the same time, and with the color correction suddenly it became seamless. Jon also did all the compositing on the Symphony Nitris [system], which worked out great. There were 1,500 events on this 89-minute timeline, and it took 2 ½ days just to load everything, so it was a bigger job than I'd bargained for - but Jon and the staff at Teatown were fantastic."
Most of the audio elements on Crazy Sexy Cancer were created and edited right in the Avid Xpress Pro system without resorting to a dedicated digital audio workstation. However, in the same way as the finishing step on the Avid Symphony Nitris system brought the film home in terms of its look and visual continuity, the four-day audio mix using Digidesign Pro Tools systems at PostWorks NYC helped give the film a cohesive sonic flow.
"We couldn't afford a big mix, so our goal was to sweeten EQs and levels and deliver the project according to TLC's specifications," says Fassett. "The engineer at PostWorks NYC, Lou Teti, had to add one or two effects and ambiences, but other than that I built the sound mix as I wanted it right in the Avid Xpress Pro system and kept all my dissolves."
Fassett and Avid Find Each Other
Before he got swept up by Crazy Sexy Cancer, Fassett had carved out a specialty as a freelance television documentary editor with multiple credits for such entities as the Discovery Channel, National Geographic, PBS, Frontline, and New York Times TV.
Originally from Pittsburgh, Fassett moved to Los Angeles in the late 1980s to attend the University of Southern California's Film School. "Not to knock USC, but it just wasn't for me, so I started working for a producer on the weekends," says Fassett.
By the early '90s, Avid Technology was beginning to make waves with its groundbreaking Media Composer system, and the company was trying to recruit editors to try out the new system. "Avid said, 'We'll teach you for free,'" recalls Fassett. "I remember going to this building in Burbank and we were the only people in the room. We had one-on-one teaching, and then we went away and used an Avid [system] on the next project, which I think was a Hallmark Movie of the Week. Once I got the hang of the Avid interface I never looked back."
Now that he is near the end of a four-year odyssey to bring Crazy Sexy Cancer to the screen, Fassett says the only thing he might have changed about the way he approached the job would have been to digitize at 15:1s (single field) instead of at DV25 resolution. Otherwise, his choices were on the mark, and his decision to use an all Avid workflow was non-negotiable from the start.
Around the time of the TLC premiere of Crazy Sexy Cancer, the new Skirt! imprint of the Globe Pequot Press will publish Carr's book on the same subject, Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips. Carr and Fassett expect to tour the country promoting the film and book. "It's a real grass-roots movement," he says. "In November, the film will be screened at the annual meeting of the Young Adult Alliance, which is part of the Lance Armstrong Foundation."
Fassett adds that a portion of the proceeds from Crazy Sexy Cancer will also benefit Carr's own foundation for integrative medicine.
Fassett says Carr is "doing great" and "thriving," even though her cancer is still with her. "Kris's whole journey has been about self-empowerment," he says. "Western medicine said, 'There's nothing we can do for you,' so she embarked on a journey of what you can do for yourself."
* CREDIT: Images courtesy of Kris Carr
arlier stuff," explains Fassett.