What is editing?

[Matthew]

What are your favourite quotes about editors and editing?

put them up here ...

[Matthew]

“I’ve always regarded editing as somewhat of a sculptor’s medium; sculpting together light & sound to create an emotional &/or intellectual response in the viewer. Editing is truly one of the high arts of this medium born of the 20th Century.”

“I feel that drama is very much a director’s medium, in that the director has SO much control of the compilation of the material and its presentation — from script to casting to shooting. The template is pretty much firmly in place by the time it arrives at editing. Of course, excellent editing can further enhance the presentation of the material; highlighting characters, enabling the rhythms of the scene to bring its turning poin t or climax to greater focus (or not, as required). Nevertheless, the storyline is generally quite fixed by the time we get to play with it.”

“Documentary is quite another subject. The amount of manipulation of images and story that takes place in this genre makes the editing process a much bigger player in the storytelling process. There have been MANY docu’s I’ve worked on where the story is created in the post as the material that was gathered in production either didn’t capture the original intent or evolved to the point that a whole new storyline was required. And there are many ways of approaching a story, as I’m sure you are all aware. A lot of the approaches involve a good sense of drama to intrigue the audience, other times you need to demand a lot from your audience to stay with you.”

“Basic storytelling prevails, regardless of the approach one takes and I expect there are as many ways of telling a good story as there are films — each one unique to itself, although I’ll often fall back on some basic formula until such time as the true form of the story evolves from working with the material, if I have the time to approach it this way.”

(The above fragment of wisdom by Marke Slipp <PegasusProductions@compuserve.com> from a discussion on Editing-L a couple of years ago)

[Matthew]

"IN MANY WAYS, the film editor performs the same role for the director as the text editor does for the writer of a bookto encourage certain courses of action, to counsel against others, to discuss whether to include specific material in the fmished work or whether new material needs to be added. At the end of the day, though, it is the writer who then goes off and puts the words together.

But in film, the editor also has the responsibility for actually assembling the images (that is to say, the "words") in a certain order and in a certain rhythm. And here it becomes the director's role to offer advice and counsel much as he would to an actor interpreting a part. So it seems that the film editor/director relationship oscillates back and forth during the course of the project, the numerator becoming the denominator and vice versa.

In dream therapy there is a technique that pairs the patient-the dreamer, in this casewith someone who is there to listen to the dream. As soon as possible after waking, the dreamer gets together with his listener to review the dreams of the previous night.

Frequently there is nothing, orjust a single disappointing image, but this is usually enough to begin the process. Once the image is described, the listener's job is to propose an imaginary sequence of events based on that fragment. An airplane, for instance, is all that is remembered. The listener immediately proposes that it must have been an airliner flying over Tahiti filled with golf balls for a tournament in Indonesia. No sooner has this description been offered than the dreamer finds himself protesting:

"No, it was a biplane, flying over the battlefields of France, and Hannibal was shooting arrows at it from his legion of elephants."

In other words, the dream itself, hidden in the memory, rises to its own defence wnen it hears itself being challenged by an alternate version, and so reveals itself. This revelation about bi-planes and elephants can in turn prompt the listener to elaborate another improvisation, which will coax out another aspect of the hidden dream, and so on, until as much of the drewn is revealed as possible.

The relationship between director and editor is somewhat similar in that the director is generally the dreamer and the editor is the listener. But even for the most well-prepared of directors, there are limits to the imagination and memory, particularly at the level of fme detail, and so it is the editor's job to propose alternate scenarios as bait to encourage the sleeping dream to rise to its defence and thus reveal itselfmore fully. And these scenarios unfold themselves at the largest level (should such-and-such a scene be removed from the fihn for the good of the whole?) and at the most detailed (should this shot end on this frame or 1/24th of a second later on the next frame?). But sometimes it is the editor who is the dreamer anct tne director who is the listener, and it is he who now offers the bait to tempt the collective dream to reveal more of itself.

As any fisherman can tell you, it is the quality of the bait that determines the kind of fish you catch."

(The above extracted from Walter Murch's book "in the Blink of an Eye", Silman James Press 1995 reproduced in recommendation, with appreciation, but without permission ... MT)

[Bill]

The way films are conceived and shot assumes the function of editing.

This is especially true in the selection of what is to be shot, a process that leaves levels of decision making to be refined in the cutting.

Roger Crittenden
- from "The Thames and Hudson Manual of Film Editing" 1981. (A book worth seeking out)

[Bill]

An editor's job is no more limited to the joining of scenes than a poet's to the rhyming of words.

Both are essential functions, but both are merely mechanical stages in a creative process.

Kevin Brownlow

[Bill]

The humbling truth is that a film is made in the editing room. The most magnificent performances and the best intentions mean nothing if they don't cut.

The film goes by at twenty-four frames per second, and however lovely it is, however thoughtful it is, however deeply felt, all the audience cares about is what happens next.

The director, the actor, the designer, the writer can and do become sidetracked, confused, indeed e! ven inspired into serving two masters -- the story and themselves. The editor serves only the story. As such, they are the best friend of the audience, and time and again, the salvation of the filmmaker.

David Mamet

[Bill]

Editing is directing the film for a second time.
To gauge the psychological moment ? to know exactly where to cut - requires the same intuitive skill as that needed by a director.

Brownlow

[Bill]

An absolute MUST read is.....

"The Conversations, Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film"

Michael Ondaatje, author of The English Patient, conducted a series of interviews with Walter Murch following meeting each other during the making of the film of The English Patient.

Murch discusses many of the films he has worked on both as a picture and sound editor. He hands down many pearls of editing wisdom and just when you think his theoretical brain may be taking over completely he comes back with a firm belief that it all begins with intuition.

You want quotes on editing? This book is full of them.

published by Bloomsbury ISBN 0-7475-5774-8