![](/images/new-backgrounds/1193969/19396939x1.webp)
guess, in working |
|
|
| movies, | ||
with this kind of direc- |
|
| it works, | |||
tor only once. Most of the |
|
| and it’s not | |||
time I get few, if any, notes, and the |
|
| likely to get you | |||
directors seem to trust me to use my |
|
| into any trouble. | |||
abilities to select the takes and structure the sequence of |
|
| But it doesn’t necessari- | |||
shots. (On at least two projects I had put the films into first |
|
| ly make for terribly exciting | |||
cut before I ever met the directors in person.) This makes the |
|
| or dynamic moviemaking, | |||
job more difficult because more challenging, but also more |
|
| nor does it allow you to avail | |||
rewarding because more creative. |
|
|
|
| yourself of anything like the full | |
Different editors also work differently. Perhaps because | expressive use of the filmic language at your disposal. One of | |||||
when I first started editing in 1982, the editors I worked with | the most valuable lessons I learned from studying Peckinpah, | |||||
– Roger Spottiswoode and John Bloome – cut on a movieola, | for example, is how dropping back to the master shot or even | |||||
I continued to use one right up until I switched to the Avid | an establishing shot in the middle of scene can let it breathe, | |||||
computer in 1995, the way most films are cut these days. I like | or alternately can give it a beat that will then invest your | |||||
the Avid for the same reason I liked the movieola, as opposed | ||||||
to the KEM or flatbed: the quick access to all the footage.1 I’ve | Some editors and directors don’t like what are called | |||||
never been one of these editors who watch the dailies and | ||||||
take notes on the | er without an angle change or a cutaway. Yet this is one of my | |||||
or have their assistants build a “selects” reel and cut from | favorite procedures. These are, admittedly, difficult cuts to | |||||
that. For one thing, typically you watch dailies at the end of | make work, but when they do work, you gain an expressive- | |||||
what has been a long day of editing (if you’re the editor) or | ness that you don’t otherwise have. In the movie I’m current- | |||||
shooting (if you’re the director). Hardly the best conditions | ly doing, for example, Ron Shelton’s Play It to the Bone, Loli- | |||||
under which to be making editing selections. For another, I’m | ta Davidovich has a scene in which her character is talking | |||||
never really certain where I want something to be played until | about the things she enjoys. Ron covered the passage pretty | |||||
I reach that point in the scene. It’s all very well to feel that a | thoroughly, as he usually does. But there were two takes in | |||||
reading of this or that line was much better in the medium | particular, a loose | |||||
shot than in either the | Woody Harrelson and an isolating | |||||
the medium shot is emotionally or psychologically the wrong | same angle, that contained readings that are especially effec- | |||||
place to be at that point in the scene? Perhaps the isolation of | tive. Lolita sustained the speech through both readings and | |||||
a | either take could have been dropped in with hardly a second | |||||
shoulder or the distance of the master. Then you’ve got to | thought. If I had to choose one or the other, I would have | |||||
search through the other takes and find a reading that works | selected the looser angle because she is responding to some- | |||||
or alter the cut accordingly. I like to have the fastest possible | thing Woody’s character has asked her and it felt wrong to me | |||||
access to all the footage at whatever point I am in the scene. | to play the whole speech in the isolation of the | |||||
As important as individual moments are – in my opinion, they | also felt that the end of the speech is slightly more effective in | |||||
are the very lifeblood of truly vital | the tighter angle and I wanted to play the whole speech on | |||||
more important, and you usually have to sacrifice the inci- | her, without cutting to a reaction and back again. So I simply | |||||
dental to the overall. |
|
| cut from the looser to the tighter angle at an unobtrusive spot. | |||
Editing is a curious process of the intuitive and the intel- | The performance plays as seamlessly as if in one, but the shift | |||||
lectual, the instinctive and the ratiocinative. For every deci- | to the | |||||
sion you make has both immediate and | subtle emphasis, drawing us closer to the character and her | |||||
tions. There’s an old saw – one that, dull though it has | dreams, than would have been the case had I been doctrinaire | |||||
become, is alas still in too much use – that goes, once you go | about | |||||
in, stay in. This refers to the classic way of editing a scene, | which would have forced me to choose one or the other take | |||||
where you begin with the masters, then move to the medium | before the cutting part of process began. | |||||
shots, the | Do editors have styles of their own? I suppose they | |||||
tighter until you conclude with the | must, but I don’t imagine they can be very well | |||||
when you get close in, stay close in. You see a |
| The | defined ones, otherwise they’d be terribly | |||
lot of cutting like this, especially in older | edit or | shoot s no | limited. As I think about my own, I can | |||
certainly a serviceable way to edit |
|
| call them, as they’re nothing so hard | |||
movies and quite a bit of television. It’s |
|
| state a few – preferences I’d rather | |||
1 Takes are stored individually for a | new f oot age; w hat ev- | and fast as principles. I prefer my | ||||
cuts to be as seamless, even as | ||||||
movieola (i.e., an upright viewing |
|
|
|
| ||
they are stored in |
|
|
|
| invisible as possible. I generally | |
flatbed viewing. The former obviously allows | er | he does w as in t he | like to knit the scenes internally, | |||
film. | ||||||
which means that I prefer to have | ||||||
for much faster access to a given piece of |
|
|
|
|
|