EDITOR
Director Megan Doneman decided to edit her own movie, because her background lay in editing, and that is how she felt she could find her way as the story-teller of YES MADAM, SIR. The script was written in the editing process. Megan started with 500 hours of footage, in three languages. After whittling the footage down to 160 hours, Megan hired New Zealand editor, Annie Collins, whom she met when she worked on the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. to edit with her side by side in two separate edit suites. Megan with Annie whittled 160 hours of footage down to a 4.5 hour assembly, breaking the monumental amount of footage into four key storylines. Megan edited solo to reach the final 95 minutes from the 4.5 hour assembly. She found holding test screenings a vauable tool in the story-telling process once she reached the 2.5 hour mark.
ADDITIONAL EDITOR
Award-winning New Zealand editor Annie Collins has been editing both feature films and documentaries for the last thirty years. Her last feature, the critically acclaimed “Out of the Blue”, the true story about the shooting massacre in a sleepy New Zealand town, premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival and has enjoyed worldwide theatrical distribution and critical acclaim. Annie spent the previous four years working with Peter Jackson on the “Lord of the Rings”, namely co-editing “Return of the King”, the third instalment in the trilogy which won for Best Editing at the 2005 Academy Awards. Annie used her significant editing and story telling skills to help reduce almost 500 hours of footage to a 4.5 hour assembly of YES MADAM, SIR.