Observations on the editorial art from some of the most talented film editors at work today.
A Critical Symposium featuring commentary by Richard Chew, Anne V. Coates, Alan Heim, Joe Hutshing, Walter
Murch, Pietro Scalia, Arthur Schmidt, Thelma Schoonmaker, Tim Squyres, Christopher Tellefesen and Dylan
Tichenor
A Critical Symposium has been an essential component of most of the special supplements Cineaste has published over
the years. We believe that no matter what subject or issue we're examining, it's vitally important to complement the feature
articles by critics and scholars with commentary from practitioners, people actually working in that field. When our
supplements focused on film criticism--such as those on "American Film Criticism Today," "International Film Criticism
Today," or, more recently, "Film Criticism in the Age of the Internet"--those Critical Symposia, of course, exclusively
featured film critics.
But the majority of our other supplements--on issues as diverse as Sound and Music in the Movies, Shakespeare in the
Cinema, Film and History, or on contemporary national cinemas (including Irish, British, and Spanish)--have always
included commentary from working filmmakers. It's interesting to note, in this regard, that the only time we failed, despite
our best efforts, to organize such a colloquium, was for our supplement on "Acting in the Cinema." Performers, for
whatever reason, seemed particularly unwilling to discuss the nature of their art and craft, the specifics of what they do
and how they do it.
When we decided to publish this supplement on film editing, we knew we would invite film editors to discuss the nature of
their work. Since our primary readership--unlike that, for example, of more production-oriented magazines such as
Filmmaker and MovieMaker--is not filmmakers, we knew we didn't want to get embroiled in overly technical discussions of
the tools of their trade, about either the hardware (e.g, Moviolas or Kem or Steenbeck flatbed editing tables) or computer
software for digital editing (e.g., Avid, Light Works, or Final Cut Pro). The questions we finally decided to pose are
designed to illuminate the artistry rather than the craft of the film editors' role in the film-production process.
The biggest challenge in organizing this Critical Symposium, in fact, was in deciding which editors to invite, since we knew
that, for space reasons, we would be able to include comments from only a select few. As you might imagine, several of
those we invited were too busy editing new films or in the final, hectic days of postproduction, so that, despite their interest
in participating, they were finally unable to meet our deadline. Even so, several of the contributors below took time out
from busy work schedules to send us their replies. We think the mix of veteran editors, with decades of experience, and
newer, up-and-coming talents, proved especially fruitful. To all of them we extend our thanks for what we hope our
readers will agree are unusually thoughtful and informative comments, which help us better understand the mysterious
and often magical art of the film editor.
--The Editors
Do you believe that film editing should be "invisible" or "visible" to the viewer? Why? In other words, do you believe that
your primary task is to create a visually seamless flow to support the narrative or do you believe there are other functions
of editing?
Richard Chew
Both. By whatever means necessary to tell the story. Like the cameraman, the editor is obliged to employ varying
techniques at different places to serve the film. In dramatic scenes, I might want to create an unbroken flow of dialog and
reactions. Here "invisible" editing would most effectively draw in the viewer. For action scenes, however, I might want cuts
to be "visible," to be felt viscerally, because they add to their impact.
As for transitions, you might want visible cuts to push the story forward. In Lawrence of Arabia, Peter O'Toole lights a
match and poof!, we cut to a scorching desert sun in Arabia, thereby crossing two continents and accelerating time. But
seamless transitions may be enlisted too. Early on in Risky Business we see Tom Cruise standing distraught in a
classroom, at the end of a bad dream. We make the transition out of the dream by going to a cloud of smoke, then
following it down to reveal him in the real world, playing poker with his cigar-smoking pals.
Like necktie width, techniques fall out of favor and others become fashionable. A character in Risky Business asks, "Do I
hear a preponderance of bass here, Joel?" I wonder, too, whether there isn't a preponderance of heavy, frantic pounding
in theaters today.
"Visible" editing has grabbed center stage. Initially stunningly original (Breathless) but now commonplace, this modern
impulse jars the senses with discontinuous jumps, hyped pacing, and image overload underscored by layers of sound,
which in concert distract the viewer from a lack of content, continuity, and character development. It's a cinema stimulating
the senses. Not everyone has taken this path. There are thoughtful filmmakers who apply editing in less conspicuous
ways. They practice a more subtle craft of seamless presentation to pull the viewer into the screen reality. Cuts are
motivated by dialog, reactions, and staging in order to invite believability. It's a cinema seducing the imagination.
Anne V. Coates
I think it should be both--it depends on the movie, on what subject you're doing. Certain movies call for editing to be very
smooth and kind of invisible, so that audiences think that it's all one piece of work, but there are other pictures where it's
really important to see the editing. So I approach every picture completely differently. You can also do both in the same
film, because you may want to hold off until the end, for example, to make a really strong statement with your editing. It's a
question of storytelling.
Alan Heim
I believe that editing is the most pragmatic of the many arts that go into the making of a film and that "seamless" or not
depends on the material shot and the nature of the script. As examples, All That Jazz used the very visible structure to tell
its story, while Network was incredibly simple and both were in service to the script and performances.
Joe Hutshing
I'm not sure editorial visibility or invisibility matters, it's a question of whether it gets in the way of the story or performance.
Or possibly enhances those qualities. What is invisible to one person may be visible to another. When I'm watching a
movie, I generally don't notice the editing. If I do, it's usually for one of two reasons: It's either very, very good, or very,
very bad. If it's good, I often marvel at it in a way only an editor can. How did the editor do that? Why did it have such an
impact on me? Why didn't I think of doing something like that myself? If it's really bad, I sometimes marvel at it as well…
but in a different way… as in how it could have made it like that… all the way to the theater? But of course, it's all
subjective.
The function of a film editor is to construct the footage… picture, sound and music in a way that tells a story and is
entertaining. There is no right or wrong way. It's a puzzle, for sure, but not a jigsaw puzzle. A jigsaw puzzle has only one
way to solve it, and that's the right way. A movie has an infinite number of ways of being edited. Ten different editors are
going to fashion a movie in their own, distinct way. It's like writing. What story do you want to tell? Who is involved? What's
the tone? Editing is the same, but we have the advantage of big blocks of picture and story and sound and music that
have already been partially constructed… the raw footage, sound effects, and whatever music you think is appropriate. So
we can put it all together, rather like a puzzle, but one that has no real right or wrong.
Artists and writers sometimes complain about the fear of approaching a blank canvas, an empty page. Editors never have
to fear that, because the paint and brush strokes of the finished canvas are already there for us in the footage we've
gotten. We read the script, take what pieces of footage we like, and put it together with sound and music.
When I was growing up I saw many, many movies, but I didn't think about the actual process of film editing. I just enjoyed
them as movies, and knew vaguely that it took various people to make them. I knew there was a director, actors, and a
cameraman, but that's about it. I never thought about production designers, gaffers, or rerecording sound mixers. I didn't
know they existed. It wasn't until I saw Midnight Cowboy that I actually focused on "film editing" as a separate part of the
craft. Yes, I "noticed" the editing, but it didn't take me out of the film. I knew that the film just didn't "happen" that way…
someone had thought about it and made decisions on what part of the story went where, what it should look like and how
it should sound. The editing stood out. It was very, very visible, even by today's standards. Was that good? Well, the
movie was very engaging and thought provoking, but more than that, it awakened a curiosity in me to find out what made
it tick. What are movies? Who is involved? What do they do? What exactly does a film editor do?
People have told me many times that they never thought about film editing until they saw JFK. They said that it really
stood out, but that it never got in the way, and that it looked "modern" and "cutting edge." For the topic of a presidential
assassination and the attendant coverup, the in-your-face editorial style seemed to fit. Undercranked, overcranked, jump
cuts, twoframe cuts, time cuts, color/black and white, 35mm, 16mm, 8mm, surveillance-camera footage, news clips, still
photographs, all mixed in with re-created footage… it was all about chaos and conflict.
For JFK, visible editing worked very effectively. On a romantic comedy, that style would be all wrong. Can you imagine?
Well, maybe someday somebody can make it work. It's a matter of choice.
Walter Murch
Generally speaking, invisible with a dash of visibility. But of course it all depends on the film, and the narrative style of the
director. And what you mean by "invisible."
I guess a close comparison would be: when reading a book, how aware are you of the book's layout and design?--the
typestyle, chapter headings, page margins, and so on. The analogy only goes so far because film editing determines
content as well as presentation, but good layout and design can make reading a pleasure, even if you are not exactly
conscious of where that pleasure is coming from. And the most successful layouts seem to operate right at the threshold
of visibility, occasionally crossing the line and nudging the reader into awareness.
Actually, it's amazing that we can even talk about "invisible" film editing when you think about what is actually going on: at
the moment of the cut, one moving visual field is instantaneously replaced by another. The violence of this seems to
contradict our daily experience of reality, which appears to be one long Steadicam shot from the moment we wake in the
morning until we slip on the lens cap of sleep at night. In fact, if audiences had become violently seasick watching the first
edited films, we might not have been surprised.
Instead, of course, filmmakers quickly discovered that sudden cuts could be made--not only from shot to shot within the
same space, but also scene to scene, linking different locations and times. And that it was not only possible, but could be
enjoyable, even glorious: think of the cut in Lawrence of Arabia from the close-up of the extinguished match to the huge
sun rising over the desert horizon. Even more: filmmakers discovered that the cut was often accompanied by a mysterious
extra meaning not present in either of the shots themselves, as if each played the adjective to the other's noun.
Why is this? Well, that's a whole other topic, but let's just say that there do appear to be cuts that "work"--where the
conceptual, graphic and rhythmic gears of each shot mesh perfectly and "invisibly;" and other cuts which don't--where
those gears jam up against each other and disorient the audience. Sometimes that disorientation is mild--a momentary
flutter--but other times it can be violent enough to actually create that seasickness mentioned earlier.
During the last hundred years we have discovered that the frontier between invisibility and visibility shifts over time. Cuts
that would have been disorienting in the early years of film are commonplace now--certain kinds of "Godardian" jump cuts,
for instance. Filmmakers are always looking for new ways to expand the grammar of film, but the only way to do that is to
try editing styles that haven't been seen before and therefore appear "visible"--at least until audiences become
accustomed to the new style.
Galileo liked music where "softness is modified with sprightliness, giving at the same moment the impression of gentle kiss
and of a bite" and I guess I would agree with him. In film editing you want to kiss the audience (invisible) but also nip them
(visible) occasionally as well.
Pietro Scalia
Editing is storytelling. The notion of invisible or visible editing is an antiquated view about what editing really is. The art of
editing is more then a technical craft about seamless building of the raw materials. The dailies footage and recorded
sounds are the interpretation of the written text, distilled through the eyes of the director and every other creative
contributor during production. They do not constitute a predetermined film narrative. For me the art of editing is being able
to crystallize the dramatic ideas into a coherent and entertaining series of images and sounds, that most fully emerge the
viewer into the suspension of disbelief and bring the experience of the film to its fullest. Editing makes the artificial feel real.
When a film works, then all the elements of technique become invisible and in turn leave a visible imprint on the mind and
heart of the viewer.
Arthur Schmidt
I think editing should be invisible to the viewer. All I'm interested in is telling the story contained in each scene without the
viewer seeing the technique. And most average viewers don't see what we do. They think we just make the movie shorter
and the rest happens in the camera. Whatever style is there should simply arise out of the material. Every scene is
different and has different demands. Sometimes you want to have the editing, depending on the nature of the scene, to
have a really strong, emotional, dramatic impact and you want the viewer to feel that, but I don't want him to see how I'm
doing that. I just want it to be right without any sense on the viewer's part of being manipulated, which is a word I dislike to
describe editing. The minute I sense that I am "manipulating" the material, I back off. I just want it to be honest, simple,
and motivated.
When I'm finished I want the film to look as if it cut itself. The editing should evolve out of the material without any sense of
the editor superimposing his or her "style" on the material. There are many times when the material, due to performance,
continuity, or other problems, doesn't let you do what you want to do and you have to solve those problems while at the
same time making the scene feel "right." In the end, just like in good writing, I want the film to look like it edited itself. The
minute I feel a writer showing me how clever he is with words and his style, I get turned off and taken out of the book. The
same with editing. The book should feel as if it has written itself and the film should feel as if it has edited itself.
Thelma Schoonmaker
Both "invisible" and "visible" editing are important, and I have never felt this question should be a battleground for editors.
Our job is to take raw footage and give it drama, shape, pace, and rhythm, and to draw out the director's vision for the film
and the best performances from the actors. Sometimes a scene should flow imperceptibly, but many times edits should be
visible in order to shock, or titillate, or to prolong artificially a moment in order to create tension.
Tim Squyres
What one should or should not do in editing depends on the project. Most often, editing is best when it's unobtrusive.
Every edit is, technically, just as visible as every other edit, but some feel less visible because they're motivated by
something in the footage--the action, the story, the dialog, anything. A cut that gives you new information, or that shows
you something you want to see, doesn't call attention to itself within the film grammar that we're all used to. Scene
transitions are almost impossible to hide in this sense, because they necessarily involve a cut to something that doesn't
follow directly from what comes before. In these cases, you often try to make the cut interesting or exciting, which may be
great for the film, but is hardly invisible. Modern audiences are very sophisticated about editing, and can very quickly get
accustomed to even very aggressive editing styles, rendering them "invisible" if the style is implemented consistently, and,
most important, well. Always, the most visible edit is a bad edit.
Christopher Tellefsen
The whole invisible/visible question stems from a general misunderstanding of the integral nature of editing in the
filmmaking process. When editing a film I try to construct a version of the original intent of the screenplay (as opposed to
the literal screenplay), filtering and weaving the story--the directed, photographed, designed, costumed and performed
character interpretations of actors--into a final whole. How visible the hand is that constructs the raw filmed material
always differs depending on the needs of the film. No one truly understands an individual editor's final involvement except
those who have followed a project from script to completion. The primary task of an editor is always the responsibility of
seeing a project through to its best end. Circumstances vary with every situation, so navigating the arc of a story and its
myriad characters is the goal, as opposed to imposing a specific, "visible" editorial style, then again depending on the
need. Also, each and every film requires varying degrees of restructuring and balance. Sometimes imposing a style is
necessary. The task at hand is to arrive at the core intention of the film as originally conceived, filtered through the
transformation of a new physical reality. Performance dynamics, improvisation, and the many surprises of spontaneous
circumstances during the shooting combine to make a new reality, which the editor needs to translate and shape. If I have
a working style, I believe, it is trying to find this natural, core rhythm in a film.
Dylan Tichenor
I believe that editing, like most disciplines involved in filmmaking, should essentially be serving the characters and the
story and not involved in focusing attention on itself. If we make cuts and transitions that attract the audience to the editing
of a particular section, then that is a section where the audience will not be wholly attentive to the action on the screen.
That is almost the opposite of what editing in film should ideally do, which is to focus the audience's attention on the
salient elements of any given moment in order to elevate the story or elucidate aspects of character. That said, I think that
there is occasion to utilize the cut or other transition to draw particular attention to a contrast, such as a crowded room
juxtaposed with an empty one, a laughing baby cut with a crying baby, etc, etc. In these and similar cases the editing is
formally announcing itself as a way to tell the story, and these cuts will be more obvious to audiences, but that isn't
necessarily a bad thing as they are ultimately still in service of the film.
What do you believe are the most important personal characteristics and skills of a good film editor?
Richard Chew
To be a good editor, I think, requires maintaining an artistic curiosity about the world. I try to be tuned into the arts and
general culture. I listen to classical and popular music of all periods, read contemporary literature, and look at the visual
arts to comprehend esthetic values I could apply in editing. Also I try to keep pace with the evolving language of film:
especially nonlinear story structure; multilayered sound design; and contextual music, both score and source--for they all
inform my editing choices.
In my working relationships, I try to maintain the political acumen necessary to survive the process. Frequently an editor
faces the dilemma of serving an uncompromising esthetic (the director's vision) or surrendering to committee filmmaking
(the studio's notes). Additionally in the tug of war within the creative team, this acumen also helps balance my own
instincts with those of the director.
Anne V. Coates
Apart from a sense of drama and storytelling, I think patience is one of the most important characteristics, because you're
working on a film for a very long time, particularly nowadays when you have so many choices with digital editing--the
director and the producers can come in and have so many choices--so I think patience is very important. It's also
important to keep your perspective on the film--to maintain the dramatic tone, or to maintain a comedic perspective, which
is even more difficult--when you're working over several months and you do have the chance to look at several versions. I
think one of the reasons why so many women have been such good editors is because they're mothers, and directors are
like children!!
I think editors often have that kind of relationship with directors, and we have more tolerance with their sometimes erratic
behavior I think gender has not been a factor. People have often asked me whether in my career I had a lot of problems
being a woman, but I actually haven't. I never think of myself as a woman, I always think of myself as an editor. So I never
put fences up there. Occasionally I've been chosen for an editing job because I am a woman and the director likes working
with women. Sometimes I've been turned down because I'm a woman, but only in the way that you would be anyway
because somebody likes, or doesn't like, your editing.
Alan Heim
Filmmaking is storytelling by group and a good editor has to be a mediator, often between the director's vision and what's
really on the film, and sometimes between the studio, producers, and the director. An editor is often an ombudsman,
protecting the film from market research and reality. In addition, an editor must have a strong visual sense and a feeling
for telling the story in the most economical way possible, which sometimes pits him against the writers and actors. There is
a lot of politics in the job.
Joe Hutshing
I think it starts with the ability to be able to sit still in a chair for twelve hours a day… Storytelling is the most important
characteristic. You have to build an intriguing, coherent story that will keep someone in their seat and interested for two
hours or so. An editor should be able to draw from a wide range of experiences and knowledge. Film editing combines not
just storytelling, but the ability to recognize the best takes, and craft the best performance from an actor. The editor relies
on his or her knowledge of previous films they have seen or worked on, theater, literature, art, photography, music,
comedy, commercials, the Internet, current events, and, maybe more than anything--life experience. The more you know,
the better off you are.
A large part of editing is the communication process. Communicating with assistant editors, studio executives, other
department heads, but especially the director. Our business often demands long hours and, often, no days off. A good
editor should also be a good strategist, and good at logistics. Anticipating and solving problems before they happen is an
invaluable trait to have.
If someone had asked me years ago if I thought an editor was born or made, I probably would have said, "either one" or "I
don't know." If you asked me that now, though, I'd have to say that I definitely believe they are born. There's a certain kind
of person who can become an editor, and I think you either have it in you, or you don't. Some people can tell jokes, some
cannot. Some people can draw, others can't no matter how many classes they take. On the other hand, Steve Martin once
said, "Perseverance is a great substitute for talent." But really, anyone can learn how to use an Avid or Final Cut to some
degree of proficiency but that's the easy part. Simple mechanics. The machine itself is beautifully complex and fun to work
on, but it's still the mechanical side, the "tool" side. But to become a film editor, and to stay working for many years…
that's tough.
The best editors I know didn't struggle very much. It might have taken them a few years to get in the editor's chair, but
once they were there, they excelled at their craft. In fact, if they got into the chair in the first place, they were already
excelling. I suppose it's the same for any business. But in film editing, it's having an eye for detail… the arts in particular,
and being able to keep someone entertained for a couple of hours.
Walter Murch
A sense of story and musical rhythm, and the ability to translate that rhythm into a kind of visual music. Patience and the
ability to work long hours while somehow maintaining a fresh approach to the material. Diplomacy and a sensitivity to the
personal relations in the editing room as well as on the screen. An ability to withstand the sometimes financially rough
seas of the free-lance life.
Pietro Scalia
A good editor is a good listener and is visually sensitive. Curiosity, passion, and patience play an important part in helping
with the long workdays and the extensive postproduction phase. Good communications skills combined with good
leadership and one's personal commitment to serving the film with the highest standards of quality are essential, as is a
love of music and a sense of rhythm.
Arthur Schmidt
The most important personal characteristics and skills of a film editor are to have a sense of story, a willingness to serve
the material, i.e., understand what the story and scenes are all about and build from there, and an eagerness to climb
inside the director's head and try to discover in his material what exactly he had in mind when he shot a scene, to try and
realize his "creative vision" rather than superimposing mine. This is not to say that I haven't often surprised a director with
how I have edited a scene with ideas that he hadn't thought of, yet I thought I was doing the obvious. It shows how
malleable the material can be. I've never worked with a director who, after viewing dailies, told me how to edit a scene.
They have always given me free reign.
Once, as an assistant editor, I worked with an editor who was a frustrated, aspiring director who thought everything the
director shot on this particular film was terrible. So, from the very beginning, he tried to "redirect" the film his way in the
editing. In both good and bad ways, he was very "creative." But it made me think that perhaps he was too harsh with
material that he never allowed to "breathe" and find its own way instead of superimposing his "creative vision" immediately
by pushing it in a direction it wasn't necessarily designed for. Films are shot and edited out of continuity, so, quite often,
once the film is altogether, you discover that scenes need to be shortened, cut in half, dialog needs to be deleted,
performances adjusted, all because of what comes before and after, once you've seen the entire film with all the scenes in
context.
Another important skill of a film editor is the ability to listen and to try things. I've worked with a number of first-time
directors who, when they think a scene is not working or could be better, ask you to try a lot of things. This is not such a
big deal now in the days of digital editing. But, in the "old days" when you physically cut and spliced the film with scotch
tape, separate picture and track, it required a lot of physical time and effort to change things. Sometimes endless ideas
would flow from the first-timer. I would often say to myself, "That's never going to work," but bite my tongue and go ahead
and try it anyway. One idea would trigger another. It all required a lot of patience, but rather than say, as I'm told many old
timers did--"I'm the film editor. I know what's best"--I'd keep trying things. And, often I would find that all of this
experimentation would trigger a good idea from myself that helped realize what the director was after. The important thing
for an editor is to stay open, set his ego aside and realize that good ideas can come from anywhere, even from the
"cleaning lady" or the head of the studio.
When I was working with Mike Nichols, he would sometimes invite friends to come and watch the film at various stages of
the director's cut. One day he asked his secretary to come and watch the film with us on the Avid. Afterwards, I asked
Mike why he put his secretary on the spot like that. Of course she's going to love it, I said, if she wants to keep her job.
How can she be objective? And Mike said that each time he had another pair of eyes looking at the film with him, he would
see it differently. And he was absolutely right. It made me think of the many times I've asked an assistant to look at a cut
of a scene with me and suddenly I've seen that something was not quite as good as I thought it was and then made
changes based both on their comments and seeing it through a fresh pair of eyes.
I think it's important for the editor to remember how malleable film is. It's like clay and can be pushed this way and that
way to get as perfect as it can be. And that's a process that continues through the dubbing process, when the film is
supposed to be "locked," but gets unlocked because one sees a new idea, whether it's just trimming a few frames here
and there, or a much more elaborate reedit. The creative process doesn't stop. Even watching a film of mine on TV, I can't
stop myself from seeing if there isn't something I could have done to make it "more perfect." So the creative process
doesn't stop even when you think it's all over.
Thelma Schoonmaker
A good dramatic sense, so important when sculpting a film, a sense of rhythm, a musical ear, a knowledge of acting, an
openness to what the footage may offer that wasn't intended, an ability to collaborate with the director, and endless
patience and discipline--because a lot of editing is banging away at a scene until you get it right.
Tim Squyres
I don't really have much of an answer to this. An editor has to be patient and must keep an open mind. Persistence is
good, stubbornness is bad. While editing is fairly technical, the best way to approach most material is through its
emotional content, so it's important to be able to experience the film emotionally.
Christopher Tellefsen
Obviously, patience; an understanding and sensitivity to performance; the ability to mine the dynamics between
performances in order to create new connections between the portrayed characters; a sense of rhythm and connection;
the ability to maintain a strong context of story and character development; a lack of fear to plumb depths you don't
understand yet, or might not fully relate to, in order to find the truth in a character. It follows then that an editor needs an
instinct for what is true; an ability to not let things get stale or overworked, retaining a fresh perspective under stress; and
the responsibility, discretion, and strength to protect your project through difficulties.
Dylan Tichenor
Film editors need to be extremely sensitive. They need to be sensitive to nuance and moment, to small indicators in an
actor's face, to minute camera adjustments, to tone of voice, to the immense impact one frame more or less can have on
the rhythm of a sequence. The editor's job is to be the surrogate audience, to sit in place of the audiences to be and
imagine he or she has never before seen the pieces of film on the screen. An editor struggles to maintain this perspective
throughout the process; there are tricks to be employed and sheer force of will to bear, but nothing is more difficult than
retaining the fresh and open vision so involuntary at the beginning.
And a film editor must be brave, unafraid to throw out what he thinks he knows about how human beings communicate
and how story can be told, to experiment and to do and undo ceaselessly to find the magic combination of pieces. Indeed,
too, an editor needs patience. Patience with directors who have no idea how to do what an editor does, or how long it
might take, or how long it might have taken; patience to go over the same ground with others so they can see for
themselves what the editor himself already knows; patience with assistants who may not understand exactly how he
wants it done, or indeed how to do it at all; patience with the material, knowing that it may not reveal all its depth and
possibilities at the outset. And an editor must have patience with himself, for sometimes he is not perfect and the best idea
for a scene may not be the first idea, or, after many, many iterations it could become painfully clear that the best idea may
have indeed been the first.
In terms of your own editorial work, what would you say is the ratio between "intellectual" vs. "intuitive" choices you make?
Is your decision making in the edit driven by the footage you receive or by the screenplay? What is more important to you
in the edit--narrative clarity or dramatic emphasis?
Richard Chew
It's difficult to separate the two, but roughly one-third intellectual and two-thirds intuitive. In playing with story structure, I'm
making intellectual choices. I consciously weigh the pros and cons of moving a scene to a different place to clarify
narrative or develop character. And in designing transitions, it is an intellectual choice to make them either seamless or
jarring.
But in shaping actors' performances, emotional moments, or comedic scenes, I rely on my intuition. I ask, do I feel this to
be believable, moving, or funny? Since the script indicates what's intended, and the dailies modify those intentions, I try to
integrate these modifications. I adjust my cut for unexpected nuance, surprising performance, or new staging if necessary.
In editing, I'm doing the rewrite of the rewrite of the original shooting draft.
Depending on the genre, narrative clarity may be more desirable in one case and dramatic emphasis in another--e.g., Star
Wars (narrative clarity) vs. I Am Sam (dramatic emphasis). But for me, even though there's a new leg on the movie stool-the sensationalistic experience joining narrative and dramatic--I lean toward narrative clarity.
Anne V. Coates
I would say I'm much more intuitive. When I sit down to make an editorial choice, it's a gut feeling, a storytelling feeling,
not an intellectual choice. But I approach each film differently. I try not to have a style--although I know that in film schools
they study my "style," as they do that of other editors--but I try instead to bring something new to each picture. Overall I
would say that as an editor I'm much more pragmatic.
Both of these qualities are terribly important, however, so I can't say one is more important than the other. It depends a lot
on the material you get, particularly the acting performances. I like to think I'm very much an actor's editor. I can
intellectually, as you might say, think about a scene when I read the script, and think about the ways I might cut it. But
when I get material and I see the actors, I can change my thinking completely because of the performances, especially if
you've got somebody who's really weak in a scene that you have to cover up, and you have to change your approach to
encompass that. You should always be flexible, and prepared to change things and not be rigid in your ideas.
Alan Heim
I try to work on an intuitive level, first following the script, but often very alert about footage and performance. Much of an
editor's work is made up of piecing together fragments of performance to make up a seamless whole. Narrative clarity is
very important but only if it can be done unobtrusively. I strongly feel that overexposition kills the delicate communion
between a story and its audience.
Joe Hutshing
Before I cut a scene, when I'm just watching dailies, the choices are almost entirely intuitive, or visceral. I'm just an
audience member watching the actors. I try to approach it as a blank slate. I wait for convincing performances and
moments that I like for one reason or another. I'm always waiting for the part where I forget I'm watching an actor, and
believe I'm seeing real life. It can be a long soliloquy, or maybe just one line.
Other times it might be a tiny moment that stands out, that has a spark of some sort, something I want to see in the
finished scene. I take lots of notes, both on paper as well as making "locators" on the Avid so I can locate any line reading
at any time, or those little moments that stand out. Again, these are all "gut" things.
Once I start cutting the scene, the "intellectual" side of the equation has to kick in, so that what I'm editing all makes sense,
has a balance, and is entertaining. Still, I would say that most of what I do to put together a first cut, at least for me, is still
"gut instinct."
When I first edit a scene, I try to keep it as tight as I can. But after you've been over the entire movie several times, you
see how loose your initial edits were. This never ceases to amaze me.
The decisions I make in the editing room are always driven by a combination of the screenplay and the footage. If the
script is good, I try to stay true to it. Sometimes though, the footage might dictate taking another direction, which in many
cases, can be good. You don't really know until you start piecing it together.
I would have to say that narrative clarity is more important than dramatic emphasis because if the audience is confused,
dramatic emphasis doesn't mean anything. In the best-case scenario, they go hand in hand.
Walter Murch
A) 50-50. I take lots of detailed notes and keep them in a database where they can be easily retrieved. I also break the
script down into scene-cards of different colors and sizes and put these cards up on the wall of the editing room. And I
also capture three or four representative stills of each setup and print them out by scene so that I can instantly see the
visual landscape of the material. Once I have done these "intellectual" things, though, I switch over to a more intuitive
approach when I am doing the actual assembly of the film, kind of like playing music without a score once you have
rehearsed enough.
B) By the footage. I read the screenplay carefully, and have it with me, of course, but I pretend that the footage was shot
like a documentary. Consequently I give everything the benefit of the doubt, mining each shot for the smallest gesture or
look that may be useful--sometimes in a context other than the one for which it was shot.
C) What you might call emotional clarity. Emotion, story, and rhythm are each very strong and tightly linked, like the forces
inside an atom. But they can be pried apart for brief moments, if necessary. And in those cases, emotion is more
important than story, and story is more important than rhythm. But you shouldn't--you can't--keep them separate for very
long.
Pietro Scalia
It is hard to differentiate between the two, but I think that my decisions are mostly intuitive. The initial choices the editor
makes, choices about performance, about camera compositions and movement, about dialog, sound effects, and music
are based predominantly on personal tastes. The influence of the director will often determine those choices. However the
first impressions are significant, because the editor is also the first viewer. The analytical part comes later, when the
choices the editor has made reflect a pattern or design that conceptually encapsulates the dramatic essence of a
particular scene.
Arthur Schmidt
On first approaching a scene, I guess you would say that I approach it "intellectually" in that I do ask myself, "What the
scene is all about." And I study the material over and over trying to find the best bits before beginning. Then I start and,
getting down to the specifics of the scene, I begin running into obstacles, perhaps continuity, performance, or other
problems that I hadn't seen in the overview. So then I start trying to solve those problems, making compromises, and
unanticipated changes, all the time trying to make it look as perfect as I saw it in my mind's eye. Many times I've been
horrified at my first pass through a scene. And wonder how I could have done that. And say to myself that I'd better not let
anyone see this. What was I thinking! And that's when intuition and the "gut" takes over.
I think the same thing happens with a writer when he rereads his first draft of a scene or chapter. He will often throw it all
out and start again, or, at least, make changes until he gets it right, until the next time he looks at it and continues making
changes, sometimes turning the whole thing inside out, upside down, whatever, until he gets it "perfect." The same with
film editing. You don't really want to tell the director about all the pain and agony you went through to get to the "editor's
cut" of a scene or entire film. But there are also times when you get a scene right the first time through and the director
doesn't ask for changes. And of course, that's very satisfying.
When I worked on a TV movie, The Jericho Mile, a film that I inherited from another editor who was fired because he was
totally out of synch with the material, the director, Michael Mann, gave me total freedom with the material. Often, when I
was in the dark or perplexed about what to do with a scene because I wasn't quite "getting" what he had in mind and I'd
ask him what I should do, he would simply say, do whatever you want. Once I had that mandate, I was free to literally
"take off" and take what seemed to me totally unorthodox or "bold" approaches to scenes. When I finished, the scenes
somehow looked "right." Michael and the producers were happy with what I did, so I assumed that I had succeeded after
all in getting into the director's head and helped him realize his "vision." Michael was nominated for an Emmy for best
direction and writing of a TV movie and I won an Emmy and American Cinema Editor award for best editing. And that on a
film that I was afraid, once editors saw it, my first solo effort as an editor, they would ask me to turn in my union card
because I could never quite do what I "thought" should be done, make so many "bad" cuts and had to totally operate from
the "gut" to make it work.
In making any editorial decision, I am always driven by the footage. I hardly ever look at the script once I have the film.
Narrative clarity is of the utmost importance to me but so is dramatic emphasis. If the audience is confused by the film and
can't follow the narrative, then whatever dramatic emphasis you are aiming for in individual scenes, and the movie as a
whole, are going to be diminished because the audience, consciously or unconsciously, has been confused somewhere
along the way. I've walked out of several films this year because of a lack of clarity in the editing of scenes. Some of it
seems to be because of the ease with which we can edit digitally and some of it seems to be due to trying to impose an
editorial style, which worked on one film, on another film where it's inappropriate and muddled.
I'm much more interested in the material dictating the style than an editor superimposing his "style" on a film. Our socalled individual styles will still emerge and be unique to each editor if he or she just "listens" to the material. As has been
said over and over, no two editors will ever edit a scene the same way. I've worked many times with coeditors and seen
their interpretations of scenes and said to myself, "Well that's not the way I would have done it, but it's fine, it works."
Thelma Schoonmaker
Probably intellectual choices predominate in the first stages of editing a film. You usually follow the screenplay. But then
intuition becomes more important, as you screen the film and see how the direction, the performers, or lighting, or a
location, or a piece of music are affecting how a film plays. Surprising things can happen. In my case, Scorsese's concept
is what he and I strive to enhance when editing his films. Sometimes that means dropping a shot that at first seemed
essential, but is now interfering with his conception. Intuition is all important in our decisions--what our gut is telling us
about what we are seeing, more than what our head is telling us. Narrative is not as important. We would rather make the
audience feel something, than clarify a plot.
Tim Squyres
Some kinds of projects require more intuitive editing than others. Over the years my editing has become more intuitive.
There are hundreds of decisions to be made when assembling even a simple scene, and, since the editor is usually
working alone, no need to analyze or articulate the reasons for any of them, so the work tends to be highly intuitive. Later
in the project, when working with the director to solve problems, the decisions are more likely to become intellectual.
Things change during shooting, so when cutting it's usually best to forget whatever ideas you had from the screenplay,
and be driven by the footage.
There's no general answer to any question of what's most important in editing; the answer is always what's most important
in each specific situation. You never want to sacrifice emotional impact for narrative clarity, but it's very hard to engage
people emotionally if they're confused. If you lose narrative clarity to the extent that the audience doesn't know what's
going on, it's hard to accomplish anything dramatically or emotionally. Ideally there's no conflict between the two, but when
there is, you have to figure out what's best in this particular situation.
Christopher Tellefsen
For me all these aspects are exercised in each editorial decision. Intuitive choices are informed by a depth of
understanding of the nature of the film at hand. To illustrate I'll describe something of my process: In preparation I study
the script carefully (I read a script two or three times before an interview) and interact with the director to understand the
intention of a film before shooting. I enjoy and get a lot out of a staged reading before shooting. This gives me an overview
and makes me able to give the director some feedback about coverage, staging, and potential difficulties. This early
familiarity with the director, the players, and the material allows me to take an intuitive approach.
Most important I try to be reactive. During dailies I rely on my first response to the key moments of performance and
storytelling that stand out to me, trying to key into the ultimately defining moments that land. Also I examine problems as
they arise, and any concerns of the director about key performances and scenes that might require reshooting. I
immediately do what I call a knee-jerk cut of the scenes as I receive them. To see scenes in context of one another as
soon as possible being the goal. It's then that I discover the scenes that favor a spontaneous approach, and the ones
which will require tireless attention.
After the first cut, repeated screenings reveal the understructure, helping me find the strongest dramatic emphasis within
the narrative whole. Working with a director, I try to interpret the intention of the film, and the subtle subtexts that make it
unique. Seamless structure is important to me, tracking the underlying contexts that weave through out to inform the
viewer without leading them. So you can see, for me, the intuitive evolves into the intellectual, as in at the beginning of a
film the intellectual process evolves into the intuitive. It's a continual conversation between the two.
Dylan Tichenor
I believe I usually edit from a largely intuitive place to begin, using my reactions and feelings from dailies to drive the
assembly, to make the first attempt at building the characters from all the disparate possibilities in the footage. The
following passes tend to become more and more intellectually driven as we attempt to solve logic problems and highlight
essential elements of the story and the characters. Then there is an ebb and flow that seems to happen where I alternate
using my instinct about how a scene, moment, or sequence should move and analyzing the film on a more cerebral level
to make the same decisions. I think I usually end up needing and using both methods fairly equally overall, but in the end
perhaps my main performance shaping comes from my gut and my main story shaping comes from my head.
Some directors provide their editors with lots of coverage while others tend to cut in the camera, or use elaborate staging
and developing shots, which provide fewer editorial options. What are the respective challenges inherent in each of these
situations?
Richard Chew
Shooting coverage provides the choices necessary to shape a scene and by extension the entire movie. A savvy director
should want editorial options. A variety of coverage can allow one to capture spontaneity, naturalism, or randomness in
performance. For example, you don't want to cut in the camera when you've got Sean Penn in a scene because you'll be
limiting his exploration. In I Am Sam, he constantly changed his performance take to take.
However unless there is clear communication between director and editor, shooting excessive coverage could show the
absence of a point of view. Or the coverage could be misinterpreted and misapplied. It could also indicate a lack of
discipline. And worst of all, it enables others to hijack a director's work.
I've worked for directors who would cut in the camera for certain scenes. They were unaware of its unforeseen dangers.
Editing choices became limited. Poor performances, lengthiness, and discontinuity hindered usability. I remember where a
director shot only one angle, though with multiple takes of a scene. An actor was over the top in each take, but since there
was no coverage, I couldn't cut around that performance. We couldn't loop it because the body language would belie a
revised delivery. Eventually we had to drop the entire scene.
Some directors have orchestrated elaborate masters only to abandon them once we got to the editing room. They came to
realize that camera time plays more slowly on the screen. Action unfolding on the set before the camera plays so
differently once you view it displayed on the screen, especially juxtaposed to what precedes and follows.
Anne V. Coates
I prefer lots of coverage, lots of choices. I think that's a much more interesting way to go. I have worked with directors-such as Sidney Lumet, for instance--who direct in such a way that there's really only one way to cut it. You can always do
different things, of course, but basically he structures a scene the way he wants it cut.
David Lean shot thousands and thousands of feet. Now you'd think that, having been an editor, he wouldn't do that, but he
was aware that it was much better to have a lot of choices in the editing room, to give yourself the opportunity to change
things. He might cut in the camera a bit for dialog scenes, but for the action scenes he knew that the more material you
get, the better.
Of course, it's nicer when the director is giving you material that shows he knows where he's going. I don't think you can
have too much material, or too many choices, but you can have undisciplined work. I think if a director doesn't really know
what he's doing, and he's putting his camera every which way, and just hoping for the best, that is not particularly
constructive. But, generally speaking, to have a choice, especially the choice of performances, is crucial, because as
you're building the film up from the beginning, and because they shoot way out of sequence, you can't always know
exactly at what point the character in the film will be when they shoot that scene. So to have options with the actors'
performances is important.
Alan Heim
Lots of coverage is fun to work with and gives more options in forming a performance, while long, complex masters are
easier to put together unless there are mistakes, which there often are. When I first began editing I was faced with a
situation where I had to shorten a scene at the director's request but had no footage to cut away from the master. The
ensuing cut turned the actress's head around but the director suggested "projectionist's error" as an excuse. This theory
was based on the idea that film often breaks in theaters and the audience will think that the bad cut was caused by a bad
repair by the projectionist. It only hurts for a moment and I've since used it many times.
Joe Hutshing
Obviously, they both have their upside and downside. In the extreme, too much footage can lead to exhaustion by
repetition. The job becomes more clerical than creative.
Conversely, having a dearth of footage forces the editor to be creative all the time, but you may be stuck with bad
performances and awkward transitions. If you've got this kind of problem, you must figure out a solution, which can be
difficult, but also very fun… turning a weak moment into a strong one, just with the tools at hand, which includes your own
ability to think outside the box.
Walter Murch
It's a balance between control and speed.
Master mise-en-scène shots take a long time to rehearse and shoot, but can be edited quickly: a whole scene is covered
in a single shot, so all the editor has to do is decide which take to use, where to start the shot, and where to end it. But the
price for that speed comes if you want to change something later on--pacing, performance, a line of dialog--and find that
you can't because there is only one option.
If there's lots of coverage, on the other hand, the editor has more control--there are so many options--but of course it takes
much longer to put everything together.
Orson Welles was a master at both approaches, which you can see brilliantly displayed in Touch of Evil.
Pietro Scalia
I think flexibility and variations while shooting are essential to a rich assortment of material for the editing stage. For an
editor having alternative choices in order to solve problems is key. Too little coverage becomes limiting when scenes need
to be condensed to keep the narrative pace going. Too much coverage, in other words too much footage, is only an
obstacle when a clear direction is absent.
Arthur Schmidt
I've never worked with a director who "cut in the camera." There have been times when, within a long scene, a director will
film the first part with a master shot and coverage, and then film part two of the scene with its respective coverage.
Somewhere in the material there is an overlapping cut that will take you from the first part of the scene coverage to part
two and its coverage. But I've quite often disagreed with the director on where that cut should be. It's not always perfectly
obvious. So even a so-called camera cut can call for different opinions. Mike Nichols shoots a reasonable amount of
coverage for each scene, but probably less than most directors I've worked with. What was unique for me on The
Birdcage was that the first printed take was usually the best, the freshest, most natural take and the one I would invariably
use. On other films, with other directors, the later takes were almost always the preferred takes.
I prefer to have a reasonable amount of options and takes to work with. My father, who edited Some Like It Hot, said that
in order to get a performance from Marilyn Monroe, Billy Wilder sometimes had to shoot as many as eighty takes. How
many were printed, I don't know. But that is an extreme example of what a director has to go through in order to finally get
a performance from an actor. I've worked on several films where actors, for whatever reasons, are having a bad day and
you the editor are grateful to have a lot of material to select from, on a line-by-line basis, sometimes a word-by-word basis.
On Coal Miner's Daughter, in the scene towards the end of the movie, where Loretta Lynn breaks down on stage, Sissy
Spacek's wonderful performance was all from take one because it was the freshest, most real and honest of all the takes.
All the other takes were good but the best was easily the first, which was filmed from the beginning of the scene to the end,
with cutaways to the audience and Doolittle Lynn for their dramatic reactions, but I always came back to Sissy's first take
for the continuation of the scene. I never cut away in order to get to a better take for the next part of the scene, which is
usually the case. Sissy's performance in that film was an editor's gift. You just couldn't go wrong. And deservedly she won
an Oscar for it.
Thelma Schoonmaker
Although I love editing documentaries, where the editor has to find a structure from the raw footage, and it is good training
for editing improvisation between actors, when it comes to feature films, I much prefer to work for a director like Scorsese,
who thinks like an editor through the whole process of conceiving, cowriting, and directing a film. It means that when an
audience sees the film they feel someone is at the helm, driving the ship and they can relax and react to the film.
Scorsese's careful direction gives authority and weight to his films, I think, that you don't feel when a director has just
"covered" a scene with a lot of footage that may not have a point of view. Scorsese's shots don't "cut in the camera," and
his favorite part of filmmaking is manipulating those shots in the editing room, but his strong editing skills are invaluable
when he is shooting. He is always thinking about how his shots should cut together, which helps to give his films an
overall style.
Tim Squyres
A director can shoot a scene in such a way that there are few options available in the cutting room. These sorts of scenes
can be wonderful for the film, but there's very little challenge to cutting footage like this; often it's an opportunity to go
home early that day. The problem comes later, when, for whatever reason, the scene doesn't work as conceived. That's
when you appreciate a little coverage, so that you have more options to try to come up with a viable plan B. On the other
hand, sometimes you see mountains of coverage with no plan and no point of view, allowing the scene to be cut in many
different ways. This takes far more time, both during the assembly and later when working with the director.
Christopher Tellefsen
Definitely the decision to be restrictive in coverage will leave fewer options and can make the process more challenging.
Minimalism in shooting also defines the style of a film. An editor must discover the rhythm within the restrictions.
Elaborately staged shots with no coverage that work in the context of the rest of the film are great if they are functioning
well. They are tumors if they don't work. When one shot covers three pages of dialog and is unsuccessful, finding new ins
and outs of that shot are crucial in the context of the surrounding shots and scenes. Losing big chunks of the shot in order
to strengthen the whole film is then a constant goal. In such a case jump cuts may be the most satisfying and successful
option. I next must work and massage the new connections to find the right balance and feel. Small shifts in manipulating
an undercovered scene, which can send it from serviceable to sublime, can take me from ten minutes to a day. Strong
second unit work can also help you out of a lot of corners that you've been painted into. The challenge is to make second
unit feel intentional and integrated.
When it comes to coverage there is intelligent coverage, which is elaborately thought out and beautiful, allowing for the
ability to sculpt and shape a scene to achieve the best result, and clueless coverage that lacks a point of view. All the
coverage in the world will not make a dead scene great. It's always a challenge to work with a new perspective of framing
shots, and coverage choices to navigate. The skills of staging and pacing apply to both approaches.
Dylan Tichenor
Certainly when directors attempt to do things "in one," as when trying to accomplish a whole scene or part of a scene in
one setup with no opportunity to cut, the possibilities become dramatically reduced as far as pacing and performance are
concerned. It requires much more discipline in writing, rehearsing, and blocking to do things in one setup, but the payoff
can be exquisite if the shot turns out to be dramatic and riveting. On the other and much more frequently seen hand, doing
a setup in one, whether out of budgetary necessity or hubris, often leads to a problem in editorial where we are forced to
cut out whole sections that cannot be indulged for the sake of the pace or what have you, or worse yet, sometimes having
to retain a section that doesn't work so well but contains essential information that can't be lifted.
Other times when we are provided with lots of coverage and never-ending takes, the important points of a scene can be
lost in the volume of material, or the scene can be pulled off-track by being forced to go to a new shot for every little bit of
dialog, and other times there is the very real possibility that some excellent bits never make it into the cut, relegated
forever to being the unfound needle in the haystack. Also, an overabundance of shot choices usually indicates a lack of
perspective on the director's part and thus a quagmire of conflicting material in the editing room where it can be very
difficult to create a point of view for a scene.
Feel free to share a personal anecdote, an insight about film editing, or a brief discussion of another topic near and dear to
your heart. (Possible topics, for example, might include why you decided to become a film editor. Do you believe digital
technology for editing is a mixed blessing or wholly positive? Has your approach to editing changed over the years? How
and why? Do you believe the editor should cut both picture and sound or is the separation valuable?)
Richard Chew
Some observations about the evolution of film editing grammar: I started in news and documentaries, where cuts were
unavoidably visible because there was no camera coverage to enable matched cuts. Then when I started to work in
dramatic film, I had to learn how to make matched cuts to create a seamless film reality. To keep the viewer within the
proscenium arch, I made cuts with motivated, matching movement.
That was then. This is now. Forget match cuts. Making cuts impactful, jarring, and shocking is now the MO, in keeping
with a highpaced, dissonant world.
Among the old canons, an inviolable rule was "never cross the line," referring to the imaginary line you draw connecting
two characters you're filming. The camera shoots the close-ups of each by staying on the same side of that line. That way
you keep the eye-lines properly directional (e.g., character A is looking screen right at character B, who is looking screen
left at A.) Now it is common to see cuts jump across that line, so both characters are looking the same direction, a
technique that used to be considered sloppy and ungrammatical.
Another old rule was not to cut unless it's motivated. Don't cut unless the story or character would lead you there. In One
Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, when Jack Nicholson is talking we see cuts to other patients only when their reactions are
specific to his dialog.
Current cinema cuts for pacing, even if it's unmotivated. Don't linger on an angle too long, because pacing would lag and
audience attention would wander. Consequently even when two people are merely talking while sitting still on a bench, we
see arbitrary cuts back and forth between two raking angles on every few lines. They're rhythmic, though unmotivated.
Historically new camera technique (e.g., the use of the zoom lens in the late Sixties) becomes the style du jour but
eventually fades due to overuse and audience fatigue. Perhaps the discordant editing language used today will, because
of like reasons, eventually revert to a more disciplined style.
Anne V. Coates
I think my editing has changed in some ways over the years, but not hugely, because my editing is based in storytelling,
and therefore wouldn't change whether it was storytelling with film or with digital. I think your cutting changes a little bit
when you're working digitally, and not always for the better. I actually liked working things out on film in the old days. I do
like the flexibility with digital editing of being able to look at different versions, but I would never show directors different
versions to begin with. I always want to have a point of view, which I think is very important.
I have been cutting on an Avid for years. Congo was the first film I cut digitally, and I did that on Light Works. I did two or
three films on Light Works, and then, when I worked with Steven Soderbergh on Out of Sight, he had a sound editor that
had some kind of set up with Avid that couldn't work with Light Works, so I learned Avid and I've stayed on it ever since.
Alan Heim
I started editing film on a "moviola," a simple mechanical device that enabled the editor to sync picture and sound, a
technology that lasted almost seventy-five years. Editing tables like the "Kem" were variations, but not necessarily
improvements. The advent of digital editing allowed much greater flexibility in the process, quick decisions to be made or
rejected, opticals on the spot, the capability of adding sound effects and music with ease and, as we move into the hi-
definition era, the possibility of screening directly into theaters from our editing devices. All of the above will put a greater
time burden on the editor and I hope that doesn't affect the creativity of the process.
Joe Hutshing
A famous photographer once said, "I take pictures of things to see what they look like when I photograph them." I guess I
feel that way about editing. I want to work on movies to see what they would look like if I edit them. I love the process of
editing, and enjoy the role of being a creative contributor to a film. I really like the fact that films are finite, and that there's
a beginning, a middle and end… not only in the film itself, but to the entire process. It's not a job where you work in the
same place with the same people for years on end. On average, it takes about a year to cut a feature, give or take a few
months. If you're enjoying the process, it will go by quickly. If you're not enjoying the process, well, it's only going to be a
year.
Walter Murch
After previews of Julia in 1977, Fred Zinneman had decided to cut out a scene in the first reel. As I was undoing the
splices getting ready to remove it, he casually remarked that, "When I read this scene in the script I knew I had to make
this film." Of course I froze, wondering what to do next. Were we taking out a scene that was the secret heart of the film?
He smiled wanly at my predicament and then waved his hand as if to say, "Go ahead and take it out anyway" and I did.
There was nothing wrong with the scene itself, but it happened to be a flashback in the middle of a long series of
flashbacks when the audience was still trying to get their bearings, and it seemed to clutter up the beginning of the film.
But it made me wonder--how could we find ourselves cutting out something that had made such a profound connection
with Fred?
If the film was better for having it gone, it was not a "heart" scene--but then what was it? Fred, who was seventy at the
time and had been directing features for over forty years (High Noon, From Here to Eternity, A Man for All Seasons),
pointed out that some scenes are like umbilical cords: absolutely essential at a certain point in the evolution of the film-they make the initial connection between the filmmaker and the material. But once the connection is made and the
sensibility of the filmmaker begins to flow into all the other scenes, the essentiality of that "umbilical" scene starts to
decline and at a certain point it can--in fact must--be removed.
How many filmmakers, though, hold on to those scenes long past their "sell by" date?
Pietro Scalia
I fell in love while editing and discovered its power when I made my first cut, while splicing two pieces of B&W 16mm film
that I shot on a Bolex. I was making a silent short, my first film, and putting these two pieces of film together gave me a jolt.
The feelings of joy and surprise combined with a sense of accomplishment was so strong that it stayed with me to this day.
Now, thirty years later, when I edit the same feeling returns, because I still experience the mystery and magic of film
through the process of synthesis. I become witness to a little act of the creation, one of meaning and emotion that did not
exist before the cut was made. Film motion is experienced through the lines that separate each frame. Film emotion is
experienced by the rhythmic accumulation of the cuts that separate one shot, one image and one sound from the next.
Arthur Schmidt
I suppose I became a film editor in spite of myself. My father was an editor and he advised me to try and find another type
of work because working in the film industry was too difficult and full of insecurity. But I knew he loved what he did and,
when I was a kid, he'd take me to the studio and show me how what editing was all about. I went to the movies every
chance I got. Not knowing what I wanted to do when I went to college, I became an English Lit. major. Maybe I would
become the next Hemingway. I went to Spain and spent two years there teaching English in a Berlitz school and then at a
private school in Ronda in the south of Spain.
I came back home in 1965 when my father died suddenly of a heart attack. The next thing I knew, with the help of two of
his former assistants, I was working as an apprentice editor at Paramount. I spent the next ten years as an assistant editor,
working on some terrible films, walking away from jobs where I was personally or professionally not right for the film, the
editor, or the director. I have done the same thing as an editor. I have left films that I felt that I was unhappy on or out of
synch with the director. Often times, the producers or studio told me that I was making a bad move professionally, and that
I'd never work for this or that studio again. The "you'll never eat lunch in this town again" syndrome.
My response was that sometimes you had to do what was right for you personally rather than professionally. I never knew
or anticipated what the outcomes of those decisions would be. If I hadn't made those moves, I would never have worked
with Mike Nichols. I would never have worked with Dede Allen as an assistant on Little Big Man, been given my first
opportunity to coedit on Marathon Man with my friend and mentor, Jim Clark, who then led me to Michael Apted and Coal
Miner's Daughter (my first Oscar nomination), through whom, while working on First Born, I met Bob Zemeckis with whom
I've done nine films and won two Oscars. I never would have met Michael Mann if I hadn't left a film that wasn't right for
me for reasons personal and professional.
I would never have had the career that I've had if I hadn't taken some risky, unorthodox, unprofessional (negative in the
eyes of many) decisions along the way. But I did the right thing for me, never knowing what the effects on my career
would be. In the end, it is, after all, a risky business. Or as Forrest Gump would say, it's "like a box of chocolates. You
never know what you're gonna get."
Thelma Schoonmaker
I feel editing is one of the best occupations in the world. We are given footage created with a lot of hard work and genius
by many, many people. With hundreds of decisions every day, we fine tune that footage to make it hang together as a
movie that will be seen by many thousands of people. The responsibility is huge--the rewards enormous. There is nothing
like sitting in a movie theater and watching an audience react to a film you have helped to get up on the screen.
Tim Squyres
I started cutting features on an Avid in 1992, when no one was really doing it, after having cut on both film and tape. Film
editing and tape editing required two very different ways of conceptualizing and organizing what you were doing, and
initially I tended to think about each Avid edit with either my film brain or my tape brain. As time went on, these were
superseded by a digital editing way of conceptualizing the process, which in turn allowed me to think differently about
making edits. One valid criticism that some people had, especially early in the transition to digital, was that it was too easy
to just keep making changes without thinking about why you were doing what you were doing. Physically cutting film was
a commitment, and you thought about it before you brought the blade down. Cutting digitally, you could use more of a "two
frames this way, three frames that way" approach and not pay any price for it. Many people felt that this would lead to a
less disciplined sort of editing, and maybe it has, but I don't see this as necessarily bad. What I feel digital editing has
given me is the freedom to not think about what I'm doing, to not plan how I'm going to cut a scene before I do it. It's
allowed me to be more intuitive and spontaneous, and, I think, more sensitive and responsive to what I can find in the
footage. Discipline has to take over at some point, or you'd get lost in the footage and never be able to finish, but I enjoyed
being allowed to play and explore more than I could in the predigital era.
Christopher Tellefsen
I had an interesting contrasting situation overlapping two projects--The People vs. Larry Flynt and Gummo. The People vs.
Larry Flynt is a biopic directed by Milos Forman, whose approach is specifically about coverage, endless angles, multiple
cameras, and varying sizes of singles. There were courtroom scenes with many extras, who had more coverage than
most principals in an independent film. 750,000 feet of film were shot. The challenges were having a known life to present,
and the need to collapse and focus the setup to get to the core of the movie: the First Amendment rights of a
pornographer. Also having five long courtroom scenes to balance and keep alive and not feel repetitive. The task at hand
was mining that amount of footage and feeling that no stone was left unturned. It was wonderful to have the endless
options to shape a scene to its ultimate potential and to always have a good place to go whenever a difficulty was faced.
This, contrasted with Gummo, the dallies of which I was receiving even as I was still finishing Flynt. Its script was partially
abandoned in favor of spontaneous, improvised scenes combined with documentary footage shot in Hi-8 video and Super-
8 film by PAs and friends of the director. The story tracks, with humor and pathos, the demented lives of people in a rural
town after it had been devastated by a tornado. After the formality of Flynt, it was exhilarating to structure a nonlinear
narrative based on the fictional character of a place. This required constant invention, from creating the opening montage,
which had to set the tone of the whole, and balancing the improvised, documentary, and semiscripted scenes.
The sacrificial image of the cat, a helpless creature hunted and sold as meat by the main characters, became a narrative
spine to ground the experience. Editing Gummo was wholly experimental and opened up wonderful possibilities to
construct montages from odd bits of material. To unite all the different source materials with the first-unit 35mm film, we
shot all the edited Hi-8 and Super-8 footage off of a monitor onto 35mm, juicing up the color and contrast. The nearly
violent clash of these contrasting editorial experiences is the kind of thing that keeps me intrigued and inspired.