The question of where a film is “written”—in the script, on the set or in the editing room—has forever been a favorite debate amongst cineastes. But one fact not in question is that no decent film can be completed without the dedication of a talented, insightful editor who understands that once the cameras are put away, the most challenging work often still lies ahead. Crafting a meaningful story out of thousands of feet of imperfect film or tape is a daunting task, even if you’ve won an Oscar for doing just that. Some of the industry’s foremost editors recently spoke with us about the hurdles they face in the cutting room, and how they overcome these struggles.
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The Editorial Challenge
Even with years of experience behind them, the changing rules of the editing room mean new challenges for today's top editors
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| Jesse Peretz’s The Château, starring Paul Rudd and edited by Steve Hamilton; Ron Howard’s The Missing, with Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones, edited by Dan Hanley; and Ridley Scott’s Matchstick Men, starring Nicolas Cage and Sam Rockwell, edited by Dody Dorn. | ||
What’s the biggest challenge i face in the editing room? Autonomy. I choose to look out for the director. Moviemaking is an expensive medium for creative types and you can be encumbered by studio executives, bean counters and committees watching over your shoulder. Sure, the bottom line is important. But an editor works better with a director who maintains his or her autonomy. Everyone who contributes to a filmmaker’s vision, from the casting director to the DP to the production designer and eventually the editor, can appreciate working in an atmosphere that’s open and relaxed. And that is why I like to encourage more independent films with budgets that don’t exceed the GNP of a small nation.
—Stephen Mack (Assassination Tango, The Apostle)
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| “Challenge every convention,” says editor Martin Walsh who, along with star Catherine Zeta-Jones, won an Oscar for his work on Chicago. |
I would say the biggest problem i face in the cutting room these days is finding assistants who are familiar with film. It will obviously become less of a problem as film is phased out. But right now, in this transitional period, I find myself feeling that the foundation of the cutting room is a little shaky and I can’t let myself stop worrying and concentrate on cutting as much as I used to. I’m very happy with the level of digital support I get from assistants and find that I’m totally comfortable knowing only how to cut (and not organize/set up/digitize) in a digital format. I’m really happy to leave the rest to the assistants and I have a tremendous amount of confidence in them.
I also find that, because digital culture gives everyone access to everything, there’s less respect or reverence for the filmed footage. That is a somewhat intangible difference between film and digital technology, but it makes for different attitudes about the material, the performances, the hegemony of the director and the privacy and sanctity of the cutting room. (Can you tell I was raised Catholic?)
—Mary Sweeney (Mulholland Drive, The Straight Story)
An editor I once stood behind told me that you should never cut into a panning shot and that you couldn’t cut together two panning shots traveling in opposite directions. I believed him for a while, which made my first couple of days in news editing quite difficult. So don’t accept that there are rules. In editing, the whole point is to challenge every convention.
—Martin Walsh (The Thunderbirds, Chicago)
It’s always a challenge to craft a subtle performance that feels real and dramatic and works to tell the story. There are narrative obligations and problems to solve that can be challenging, but getting the acting right and creating characters is always the most interesting part. So much of a performance is dependent on editing, and ultimately it’s that performance that tells the emotional story. One false step, one moment of bogus behavior or a bad line reading can sink a scene. It’s delicate work, very detailed work, but that’s the part I live for!
—Jeffrey Ford (Shattered Glass, One Hour Photo)
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| Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, starring Bill Murray and edited by Sarah Flack; Billy Ray’s Shattered Glass, with Rosario Dawson, Cas Anvar and Steve Zahn, edited by Jeffrey Ford. | |
To me, the biggest challenge is always the first assembly, which is important because it makes our lives easier and the director and producer’s lives easier in terms of just keeping their sanity and feeling secure. Because the first assembly is the foundation you work from. There’s always the need to look for things that you can lose, material you can do without, and to know why certain things are actually necessary.
—Dan Hanley (The Missing, A Beautiful Mind)
Every film has different challenges, but one that exists on every film is the need to see the footage objectively, despite having to watch it over and over. Sometimes one can choose the best takes, but after a couple of months the editor and director might get tired of that footage. Then there can be a tendency to start choosing alternate takes that are not necessarily better, but may appear to be simply because they’re new. I try to remember how I felt about the footage when I saw it for the first time in dailies. I always note any emotional reaction I have, as I’ll never have the experience of that first-time reaction again. It’s important, because it’s the same one that the viewer will have when watching the finished film. It’s so essential to preserve that fresh perspective for oneself as an editor. Seeing film dailies projected instead of on videotape really helps with this.
—Sarah Flack (Lost in Translation, The Limey)
Ultimately, editors are storytellers. In one way or another, the politics, the schedule, the budget and our lives at large can obscure the goal: telling the best story possible. Keep your eye on the ball—the story!
—Dody Dorn (Matchstick Men, Memento)
Nobody has any patience any more. We moved from mail speed to FedEx speed to fax speed to e-mail speed. There’s no respect for process. I make excuses for myself to watch all the footage in real time more than once. It’s not easy, given the deadlines people impose and the ease with which the computers allow you to scan past moments of seeming nothingness. But there are jewels in the moments of undisciplined dreck. In the past year I’ve included material filmed outside of the context of the so-called “take” in almost every project I’ve worked on.
—Steve Hamilton (No Such Thing, The
Château)
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This story was published in the Fall 2003 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
The Editorial Challenge / Even with years of experience behind them, the changing rules of the editing room mean new challenges for today's top editors
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