View Full Version : Editors and Directors - Collaboration
"There can be no more interwoven relationship in filmmaking than that between a director and editor."
-Directors Guild of America Magazine - May 2004
An excellent article for more go to...
http://dga.org/news/v29_1/craft_dir-eds_504.php3
Matthew
22-06-2004, 04:18 PM
GREAT article Bill, well spotted - I've saved it for posterity - one day it'll disappear from the internet and we'll still have a copy here!
You hear this comment a lot but in my experience it HAS been "working toward that one definitive cut". All previous versions are just back ups.
This is the freedom that Avid and other non-linear systems give you. Only the lazy or brick short of a load would think eenie meenie minie moe is the best way.
On the other hand I wonder how many cuts remained at a certain stage because to change it meant you had to destroy what you had and to reconstruct you had to rely memory.
These are great times for editors!
Spike's a great filmmaker but I think we have evidence here that he is a "Lazier" quote maker.
Matthew
24-06-2004, 08:41 AM
Dunno, the "lets do x number of choices" resonates for me. I guess that statement was made a long time ago when Digital Nonlinear was new (and of course it's no reflection at all on Avid as a system).
When you compare nonlinear with the older tools for editing, there WAS I think a greater analytical thought process involved, simply because you had to do the big paper edit first and your film/tape options both had disadvantages when it came to re-cutting versions.
Its the old typewriter vs wordprocessor debate, and I don't think anyone has proven yet that better books are being written because of wordprocessors. Has grammar, eloquence, style improved? Its evolved certainly, but improved? I doubt it. Booke being written faster? Probably, sometimes, but these won't be the better ones.
You see the same in cinematography. In the days when film stock cost dollars, every shot would be counted, planned. With DV tapes a dime a dozen everything is shot, nothing is deleted. Hours and hours of stuff to traw through. Choices for the editor? How generous. If only we had time to look at it all ...
I think it amusing to see the new generation of nonlinear cameras being advertised with the ability for a cameraman to delete bad takes.
As if!
miss claire
26-06-2004, 02:06 PM
Its interesting to me how editing style has changed over time as technology has evolved.
For example cuts seem to be getting faster and faster, the MTV film clip generation seem to prefer a pacey and digestible style, often jump cuts are favoured over continuity.
Have you watched the deer hunter lately? such a great film, the slow pace of it lets you marinate in the feeling of the film. Stylistically - people wouldn't be brave enough to make a film paced so slowly these days. As i learn more about editing, i am trying to be brave enough to let moments BREATHE, rather than just chop things to pieces- as i would have done 4 or 5 years ago.
I only started editing 6 years ago, hence i was born into the non linear generation. . .using Media100 to cut my student films.
About a year ago i was working on my own project- and using a tape to tape suite- the experience was PURE BLISS. I mean i loved just concentrating on getting each cut right: the pleasure of executing each cut as perfectly as i could while having to plan ahead as to where the film was going, how it would climax-how i would end it. I loved having less options and using fore-sight and imagination rather than trial and error. (having said that i think most experienced avid editors still depend mostly on imagination and a sense of story).
just my 2 cents.
claire.
Extract from a review of the new film "Nobody Knows" written, directed AND edited by Hirokazu Koreedain from this weeks SMH. A link to the full review (will die after one week) follows the extract....
"Editing is a vastly under-recognised link in the film food chain, partly because, if the job is done well, the audience isn't supposed to notice it. Unless the film calls for arty jump cuts, the join between two shots should be smooth, and the story should appear to unfold organically.
What a scriptwriter puts on paper can change markedly in the filming, so an astute editor serves as a story doctor, circumnavigating dramatic problems using just the right amount of footage.
A capable film editor also has a keen visual sense, breathes performance, and provides fresh perspective for a director too immersed in a work to see what's ineffective.
Which is why I look askance when I find a film is written, directed and edited by the same person. (Naturally, there are exceptions, such as John Sayles and Robert Rodriguez.)
The Japanese drama Nobody Knows is written, directed and edited by Hirokazu Koreeda, and therein lies its problem. There's a masterpiece lurking inside this 141-minute work, except there was no editor to suggest, in the unassuming manner many editors cultivate, that the gem be excavated."
Full article at....
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Reviews/Nobody-Knows/2005/06/08/1118123897609.html
Quote from a director friend of mine who works mainly in the corporate and documentary areas about why he turns over his material to his editor to cut without sitting down and dictating the process. (No, the editor referred to is not me).
"I want an editor to look at the shot that I have sat in the cold at dawn for three days on a mountain top to get and say to me 'that doesn't work'"
I believe that the editorial process isn't all that obscure. It's basically decision making combined with story telling. There is seldom any "right" answer, usually a range of "less wrong" answers. If doing variant cuts allows you to refine the process then it's a useful tool.
Let's face it: editors cutting on flatbeds had limited options. This can focus the mind wonderfully, but it can also mean that you play for safety rather than go for the best possible outcome. NLEs allow the flexibility to overcome this second issue.
There is still a cost with increased flexibility. The difference is that instead of calling for new workprint, you spend more time in the edit room. You will still take the same amount of time to make your creative decision for any given cut. Your brain, which is after all the REAL editing tool, still works at the same speed.
It's the classic case: when you're near the end of your cutting time, you also reach the point where you're making cuts for time. Usually then, perfectly good scenes have to go, for no other reason than SOMETHING has to go. This is always a very painful process: "Oh, but I love that scene because...yada yada yada".
To soften the blow, I sometimes say to directors that by eliminating 'good' scenes, only 'great' scenes are left - and this is the moment when the film can be elevated from good to great.
They're not always convinced!
I read in one of Murch's books that perfectly ok scenes can sometimes block the flow of a film and must be cut out for the greater good. It's often hard to see this when you're working on a scene by scene basis. It can be even harder to convince a director of this, because those faults can usually only be revealed in a full viewing. This is where you need the time to view the whole film to get the correct overall impression - but then not view it so often that you become bored by it!
Quiet contemplation is key.
Sadly, that's a component that's missing from my current production: "Geldof in Africa." Bob is very committed to these programmes and comes in 3 or 4 days a week to view them, write, rewrite, recut, etc. Unfortunately with Live8 on the go, the phone is constantly ringing, people zip in and out of the room, meetings are held, people are shouted at (sometimes by me!), faxes fly by the flockload, radio interviews happen every hour on the hour - it's a circus! Very difficult to concentrate.
I guess I'll see them properly when they go to air!
That sounds like the way commercials get cut, only longer.
Daz said Murch said
" perfectly ok scenes can sometimes block the flow of a film and must be cut out for the greater good".
Ah yes so true. It's what I find myself saying over and over again to my students - "it's looking great just needs a bit of weeding". Even weeds can sometimes look indispensable, one man's weed is another man's flower BUT when you take them out the full glory of the garden is revealed.
Getting down to "length", fitting the time slot, is another great incentive to make every frame fight for it's life. EVERY frame has to justify it's reason to be there. This is one of the most exciting times for me, that last 10%, when it's really happening a new clarity emerges, the story seems to gain dimension.
A very important part of this process is the established hierarchy of the film making process. The "Fresh Eyes", first the editors, then the directors again for the editor, then the producer, hopefully a creative one with a good eye. When there is a good collaborative honest working relationship "that bits boring", "I don't understand why she did that", when all of that is working and the story is good and the performances are great, then there is nowhere I'd rather be.
And Bill, have you ever noticed when you sit down for your first test screening how suddenly you see things in the cut that you never knew were there? By this I mean BEFORE your audience talks to you?
Suddenly you notice that the sub-plot has become plot, that the neat and concise ending that you're so proud of doesn't actually explain anything at all, but that little eyebrow raise in closeup at the end of act I means that you don't really need two later scenes at all.
I never get over the kick that I get when I see something that I cut say a year or more ago and pick up on plot subtleties that I had totally forgotten about. And I particularly love when a dialogue-free sequence moves an audience to tears, because I think that is probably the nearest thing that you get to pure editing. The timing and choice of shots is all you have used to grip the audience by their emotions.
Whether you do it on a flatbed, punch-and-crunch, or NLE, when it comes off it's still magic.
Yes that's right, your first screening - all senses are on super sensitive, all those lies you told yourself become sooo transparent and yes you do feel them before your audience does.
The harder ones to deal with are of course those ones they mention that you reckon are ok. That's where that team of fresh eyes you trust become so important. They're the ones you KNOW you've got to listen to or it will become a camel.
Matthew
13-06-2005, 08:07 PM
I remember that during the first real "screening" I'd purposely sit or stand at the back and get the director to drive. That way I'd get an even more changed viewpoint, as well as "seeing through the clients' eyes" for the first time. Try it.
mattosborne
20-06-2005, 02:26 PM
I was interested just watching the directors commentary on American Beauty, Same Mendes has endless praise for the writer, this is a great piece of writing, i love what Alan did here with the writing, and the DOP, this is great lighting from Conrad Hall, look at the light there he's a great artist blah blah, then when he talks about the editing it's i cut this, i cut that, i used this editing technique here, i've only seen the first twenty minutes but it's quite amusing, he makes it sound like he cut the film himself except for one spot he mentions the editors name, but just in passing. I'll be interested to watch the rest and see if it changes.
Also a book called British Film Editors has great section on director-editor collaboration, i think Bill has mentioned this book before.
That is such a wind up when directors use that form of words: "I'm going to cut this, move that, pace up this other thing, make a montage." The a-hole I've been working with recently does that, I guess not realising how alienating he's being. I sit back and listen to this, then remark "Go on then!"
Sarcasm has no effect on the dull-witted.
mattosborne
21-06-2005, 02:56 AM
Finished watching commentary, not much changes except for one part mendes says the editor asked if he could cut that scene himself and mendes let him? Remembering there was quite a few quotes from "the editor", being Tariq Anwar in the book i mentioned before, British Film Editors, i went back to find this great passage about American Beauty and Mendes.
When an editor's creativity is restricted, the working atmosphere may be difficult, as Tariq Anwar discovered when taking over the editing of American Beauty from Christopher Greenburg. Director Sam Mendes had already developed a particular way of working: " He wanted to be present at every decision-making process, which i found inhibiting. In the end he reluctantly gave me time to myself to play, but his desire to exercise control of everything led to an oppressive atmosphere. I can't imagine what pleasure established editors get out of working for the likes of James Cameron and Oliver Stone, Academy Awards or not!"
I guess this explains everything.
Being a novice editor and having already experienced this first hand what do you do in that kind of situation, especially when the director wants to do ridiculous things that as editor you will have to wear as bad editing. Unfortunately American Beauty is an amazing film but i would be interested in hearing comments from others about how they handle an "oppressive" director.
Some years back there was a project described in American Cinematographer - I think it was "One From The Heart", but don't quote me.
The particular director had implemented a process where he was second guessing the editor using a "punch and crunch" process and tapes of the video split.
On the credits of that movie there were SIX editors listed! I guess you don't have to be Einstein to work out why that would be....
Wasn't "One from the Heart" directed by Coppola? From memory, I believe it was the film that pretty well sunk his career.
You're right Daz. I didn't mention him because when I wrote the above I wasn't certain whether it was in fact "One From the Heart." But it was. And it did.
Yeah, I got that from "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" another great book about Hollywood.
PhilippaR
14-08-2005, 11:38 PM
The memorable quote from that particular book for me was from the apparently fearless editor, Lou Lombardo. When asked by an earnest young reporter to compare working with directors Sam Peckinpah and Robert Altman, Lombardo is reputed to have sagely uttered, "Sam Peckinpah is a p*!@k and Robert Altman is a c*^t".
Bravo I say. I think it's important that we are fearless. Ok, perhaps not quite THAT fearless, but as both John & Bill pointed out earlier, we do have a duty to any project as the "fresh eyes"...Especially if the director is labouring under an illusion of him/herself as the "auteur".
And speaking of which, Matt, I totally agree with you about Sam Mendes and that "American Beauty" commentary. I found his discussion of "his edits" quite outrageous at the time, especially given that his previous background was theatre and it was his first venture into film. And it also bugged me that while everyone was banging on about it being Sam Mendes' "American Beauty", few bothered to acknowledge the brilliant screenplay by Alan Ball. In my humble opinion, Mendes was all too eager to take what strikes me as undue credit for many aspects of that film.
Hmmm. I can't help but fantasise about what Lou Lombardo might have had to say......
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