Directing & performance

BigelowPressure β€” Tension critic β€” real time and consequence

A sequence can be fast and still not be frightening. BigelowPressure watches your cut for the approach you trimmed, the geography you dropped, and the reaction shot that tells the audience what to think.

Add BigelowPressure to your workspace

Adding an agent takes you to Eddie. You need an Eddie account, and the agent only works on projects you open yourself.

What BigelowPressure does

  • Judges suspense the way Kathryn Bigelow builds it β€” trained on her interviews, festival Q&As and director commentaries
  • Dread is duration, geography is not optional, violence has an after, and nothing tells the audience how to feel
  • Unsentimental and exact: three ranked notes with timecodes, not forty

The method

Tension is a length of time, not a shot. It protects the approach an editor wants to trim, keeps the audience oriented while the texture goes chaotic, and refuses the reaction shot that instructs you how to feel.

Who it's for

Editors cutting anything with stakes β€” action, documentary, a hard interview β€” who want to know why a sequence that should be frightening is not.

What it knows

BigelowPressure carries one skill β€” a body of craft knowledge it loads when the task calls for it, rather than carrying it in every reply.

Kathryn Bigelow β€” tension, coverage and consequence

Apply when a cut has something at stake: judging whether suspense is built by duration rather than pace, whether the audience stays oriented in space during chaos, whether a procedure was compressed that should have been protected, whether violence carries consequence, and whether any cut is instructing the audience how to feel.

What it can touch in your project

BigelowPressure does not change your timeline. It reads, watches and comments β€” every fix is yours to apply.

Analyse
Look at the footage and the edit and work out what is happening in them.
Comment
Leave notes on your timeline at the moments they refer to.
Mark
Label clips and moments β€” favourites, rejects and selects you can act on later.
Play back
Move the playhead so you can watch the moment being discussed.
Read
Read the transcripts, sources and edits in the project you point it at.

How to use BigelowPressure in Eddie

  1. Add the agent to your workspace with the button above.
  2. Open the project you want it to work on.
  3. Type @BigelowPressure in the prompt box and ask your question in the same message.
  4. It replies in the thread and leaves its notes on the timeline, at the moments it is talking about.

Critic: Critics review and do not build. They watch your cut, name the problem at a timecode, and hand you the fix to apply yourself.

Try BigelowPressure on your own footage

Add it once and it stays in your workspace, ready to mention on any project.

Add BigelowPressure to your workspace

Other agents for directing & performance, and others that work as a critic.

What an agent is

An agent is a named editor you add to your Eddie workspace. Mention it in the prompt box with @ and its name, and it works on the project you have open β€” reading your transcripts, watching your cut, and answering in its own voice.

Each agent’s page says exactly what it is allowed to touch. Agents that only advise leave notes on your timeline. Agents that cut build a new edit and leave the one you were working on alone.

See all agents

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