Editor Chris Lebenzon got his start in motion pictures in the late 1970s, when he started fooling around on the KEM machine that his roommate, Michael Wadleigh, had used to cut Woodstock. Though he worked steadily on a number of small independent films at that time (most of which still have never been seen by audiences), Lebenzon's first big break came when editor Richard Chew brought him on board as an assistant editor on Wadleigh's Wolfen in 1981. For the past two decades, Lebenzon has been averaging about one feature per year, working alongside such directors as Tim Burton, Michael Bay and Tony Scott. Among his many credits are Ed Wood, Crimson Tide, Mars Attacks, Con Air, Armageddon, Enemy of the State, Sleepy Hollow and Pearl Harbor. This summer, Lebenzon's most recent collaboration with Burton can be seen in his "rethinking" of Planet of the Apes. In this interview with MM, Lebenzon talks about his early editing days, the changing face of the film industry and those 'damn dirty apes.'

Phillip Williams (MM): Could you talk a little bit about how you got into editing?

Chris Lebenzon (CL): When I was going to school, they didn't have film school really, and I didn't know what I wanted to do. My brother knew the guys who made Woodstock, and they were going to make a bicentennial movie on the American Revolution to come out in 1976. The movie never got made, but I lived at Michael Wadleigh's house and he had a KEM that he used on Woodstock in his garage. He had old film-16mm, basic documentary rough footage-and I learned cut it.

MM: So the first thing that you did was a documentary?

CL: Back then, in the late '70s, there were tons of independent films being made because the tax laws were different. So there was this whole flow of movies that never actually saw the light of day; they were made for tax write-offs. I ended up doing a couple of those-actually editing-before I was even a proper assistant.

MM: When you first started out, what were the main misconceptions you had about editing?

CL: I never realized the kind of time commitment that was required [laughs]!

MM: Is there anything about Planet of the Apes that really challenged you?

CL: The visual effects part of it stretched me because there are crowd scenes and other elements related to the environment of the planet that they're on that aren't evident, even now-and we're two months away from the release. So we're doing things with the images and the effects to create that, to help with the geography of where we are, and so forth.

MM: So as you're cutting scenes together, you have to be aware that a given shot is going to be filled out later with effects?

CL: That's right. You have to be aware of what is going to be added to a shot so that as you cut it all together there will be sense to it all. In some shots, apes get added later. They're digitally replicated; they add more than I might be looking at when I first cut the scene. Even with the ape's faces we're doing certain things [digitally] to make them scarier. So, I have to know that this moment-this shot-is going to effect me differently later than it does now because of how it will be altered.

MM: Has it been much of a challenge to match light from shot to shot?

CL: On this one it's been difficult, but there are so many improvements with color printing now-what you can do digitally to a shot-that it's much easier to make corrections. They even have software that can put things in focus. A lot of the challenge on this project has been the schedule, because as Tim [Burton] was shooting, I was cutting it and showing him tapes of what I'd done. He could modify the movie as we went along in order to meet the release schedule. So far it's worked very well.

MM: Is that typically how you work together?

CL: Mostly I'm there on set, in a trailer or wherever I have my cutting room set up, and he can come in between set-ups. But on this film, with all the varied locations and the schedule, I couldn't always be there with him. But I would bring him tapes or send them to him. He'd mull them over and make a few comments-that's how we worked.

MM: Did the story of Planet of the Apes change much from when you saw the first script?

CL: Tim took things out as he was shooting-rather than take it out in the cutting room-just based on his instincts, his feeling for the material as he was shooting. That helped a lot; otherwise we would have had to take a lot of it out later [in the cutting room].

MM: For you, is there such a thing as too much coverage?

CL: Coverage is great: it makes for a long first cut and it complicates the editing process, but in the end the movies are better. Of course it all depends on the director: Michael Bay gets unbelievable coverage, and all of us are only as good as the material we get. [Bay] shoots so much great stuff that it's hard in a way to figure out what you want to take out. It's hard for him, as well. Yet Tim Burton, for example, has a very clear idea of what the result is, so those movies come together a little easier, but there are fewer possibilities for making changes to the story.

MM: Does cutting something like Ed Wood require a different approach from you than a film like Con Air?

CL: No, because I'm always just responding to the material. It's great for me. For example, Pearl Harbor was fabulous because I could work with some incredible battle footage one day then the next day do some romantic love scene. Normally, you don't get that in one movie. [You might not] even get it in consecutive years.

MM: Do you ever go on the set?

CL: I do, but not very often. For one thing, it takes away from time dedicated to my job. It's fun to see something shot and then to see how it's translated onto film, but people ask me questions when I'm on the set that I don't really want to have to answer, like: 'What does this look like?' or 'How did such and such a shot turn out?'

MM: So it doesn't help your job to see how something was shot?

CL: No, I leave that to the directors. They use their memory and say, 'I remember a better take.' They make that translation. It's better for me to just hammer away at it in on the Avid.

MM: How do you keep track of the big picture when you're cutting?

CL: Well, that's the trick-it's hard. That comes in later, when it's all together, or sometimes halfway through when you start to see that maybe this character is about this, or you start to ask: 'Why is this one doing this?'

MM: Are you ever surprised by the results of your work?

CL: I never know how this stuff is going to be received. All I do is try to make things clear for the audience, because that's the way I am in life: I like things presented in a simple, direct way. And I think that's how audiences feel when they're sitting in their seats: they don't know where the film is taking them and they don't have to be told everything every step of the way, but they do need some guidance. We do that in [the editing room]-we help them along.