David Mullen ASC said:
My only argument is against the notion that movies are made in the editing room. While of course this is true and editing is a powerful aspect of cinema, one of my beefs with modern movies is that they are directed indifferently, shot with lots of coverage sometimes with multiple cameras, and the scene is created in the editing room. Which is great, creatively, if you're an editor, but the directing and cinematography can seem weak, as if anyone could have done that. Of course, directors also direct the actors, which is great importance, but sometimes you feel these days that a computer could have figured out the coverage of the scene.
As an editor, and one that had a career re-editing (and in some cases directing additional scenes) movies that didn't work, I have to take issue with some cliches about editors. Believe me, we DON'T like coverage that is not thought out and covers everything but the kitchen sink. It makes our job harder, not more enjoyable. Especially when post schedules can be shorter than the actual shoot! (Funny, I don't remember the writers having less time when the word processor was introduced). The director you worked with on the set that shoots 40:1 is just as unclear about what he wants when he steps into the editing room. And because of computer editing, he/she is ALWAYS there (that wasn't so true when I edited on a couple of moviola's). Editors have turned from creative professionals into machine operators, hand holders, and sometimes editors. And the hazard is since the inexperienced director can sit there and "try" things, he loses all objectivity to his own picture. That's the true death knell. It’s a rare dream to have strong footage from a director that really knows what he wants and goes after it. I think most editors, at least ones that have been around a while or take their craft seriously, don’t even need to talk to the director when strong coverage comes through the door. It’s almost a completely intuitive process between the director and editor. A real thing of beauty. Unfortunately that’s rare. I think most directors, especially ones that come from commercials or MTV, never learned how to read a scene for coverage. Often at my composition seminar I hear some form of this: “I went to 4 years of film school and we didn’t learn any of this!” I’d say “Really, where did you go to film school?” The reply: “USC” or “UCLA” or “NYU” or any top film school in the world. I’m amazed by that.
The reason editors would tend to use tighter shots has nothing to do with the amount of coverage, (I’ve really thought that over, but can’t begin to figure how you came to that conclusion, Dave) but came out of the Avid world. When editing on computer first reared its ugly head, the digitized image was a nightmare. A lot of editors and directors tended to use more close ups because the actor's eyes--the emotion of a character-- was simply impossible to see in these lousy digitized wider images, and subconsciously went for the close-up. Once put back to film, one ends up with a claustrophobic mess. Now that directors have gotten used to computer editing and the image quality is much better, they still don't understand objectivity. If you make a bad cut, and look at it 5 times, it will magically smooth itself out. So when a director views a scene over and over, tries things without thinking them through, he gets so used to the footage, that he sees things in it that the audience will never see. And let me repeat: WITHOUT THINKING THE SCENE THROUGH. In the film editing world, we really thought a scene through before ever touching that shot hanging in the trim bin. Editors that grew up in NLE almost never do that. They just start slapping shots down on the time line. An editor needs to think more like a writer facing a blank page before he ever touches a shot! My real pet peeve are actions scenes nowadays that are shot close and edited so fast that the audience can't see what's going on. (In the Bourne Supremacy, we know that Jason Bourne will win the fight with the bad guy, but we want to see HOW he will win. This close up, shaky camera work and fast cutting fad seems to never going to end.) This isn't just in the fault of directors, but also in the younger editors that never worked in film. If you're in the low budget world, you will never get to see the movie on the big screen until the negative is cut. And pacing is severely effected by screen size (we’ve all had the experience of seeing a movie in the theatre, not caring for it much, then seeing it on video or TV later and thinking: it’s not so bad after all. Screen size, my friend). My personal system used to be: watch that days dailies on a flat bed, see them on the big screen that evening with the director and crew, and view them one more time before editing on the moviola. This gave me a real sense of the pacing. I feel for those editors that never get to see the footage 40 feet wide before they start cutting. It takes at least a couple features under your belt before you understand the pacing and the way an audience sees a large screen image before you can really understand and incorporate that into your editing. Unfortunately, trying to explain that to an young director can often fall on deaf ears because, after all, he’s looking right at the cut on the NLE system and you can’t convince him that his eyes are lying to him. We’ve all been trapped in an elevator with a guy with way too much cologne on. He didn’t start out that way. The first day he opened the bottle, he puts just a little on. After a few days, he can’t smell it any more so he puts a little more on, and so it goes. At the end of the month, everyone around him is choking, while he thinks he smells like day one. Why? Because our nose gets used to smells to the point that we can’t smell them any more. Now apply that to objectivity in editing. Our eyes get used to things in minutes, not days. The director that goes from the set to the editing room is doing his film a great disservice. Find an editor that you trust, and stay the hell out of the editing room for as long as you can. At least a couple of weeks. A month is even better. And let the editor really work with a first cut. (The word “assembly” makes an editor’s skin crawl. Directors need to let their film go for the first cut. If it sucks, you can always re-edit.)
It’s funny you mention Sandy’s editing exercise. It’s that exercise and his short film he directed for an editing exercise for the students that made me want to become an editor. Did you know that all of his hand-outs have been put into book form by Paul Cronin? I highly recommend all students of film pick up a copy of “On Filmmaking” by Alexander Mackendrick.
Yes, Dave, there are Editors who don’t “get it” (my friend Kerry Conran’s movie “Sky Captain and the world of Tomorrow” I think was ruined by cutting that was so tight that all emotion and heart of the film was cut out, and this was an ACE editor!) as there are DP’s who light not for the story, but for their reel or arm twist the director into shots that look pretty but don’t move the story. And I think there are films found, saved, or yes, even “made” in the editing room. But in the end 99% of the time, these films stink. I know, I made a career out of being an uncredited editor/director. Why did I quit? Because a film in trouble will always be in trouble, and you can only take terrible and make it slightly less terrible.
I could go on, but maybe I’ll just write another book instead.
Dan
