Sony G90 It’s a funny thing about matching in editing. Most lay, Line of dialog over an outgoing

the emotion, the mood, the action, the transfor-	shots have to cut together.
mation lead the cut, rather than the other way	It’s a funny thing about matching in editing. Most lay
around. I don’t like to let picture cuts fall on	moviegoers who pay attention to editing admire the elegance
hard consonants, as that emphasizes a cut.	of the shot matching; most editors brag about the mismatch-
I enjoy prelaps to pull the narrative	es they manage to get away with. What experienced editors
along – that is, starting an incoming	care most about matching is the mood and emotion of the per-
line of dialog over an outgoing	formance from one shot to the next. (Even a volatile perfor-
scene – provided it doesn’t become	mance that swings between extremes must have the integrity
a mannerism. I generally detest	of its changes.) Neophytes usually worry about quite trivial
what I call the never-let-a-mod-	matters – how much of the cigarette was burned away in this
ulation-die-out-before-you-cut-	shot as opposed to the previous one. The second scene I ever
away school of editing, which	had to cut was in a movie called The Best of Times. Kurt Rus-
in our attention-deficit age
is becoming more and

	more common.
think	When		most		people			are		The scr eenplay has a
	of	elaborate			action
impressed by editing they usually
sequences, but the real art of editing									st r uct ur e. Each scene has a
lies in working with performances
and in concealment. What I care							st r uct ur e – a r ange of t empos.
cal sense of performance but
about most is achieving a theatri-
with filmic means. By the-						But t hese t hings have no r eal cin-
atrical,		I don’t		mean
	ostentatious		“acting”;
	rather, I am referring								emat ic exist ence unt il t hey
	to the continuity you
		get from		a	perfor-					leave t he edit or ’ s
		mance on stage, the
		building			up		and
			releasing			of	tension
			and		emotion in				an
				unbroken			arc		of
				time		and	space.			sell and Robin Williams are at a bar drinking beer out of bot-
				This		can			be	tles. The scene was covered from every conceivable angle and
				achieved on film,						size except that there were no singles – that is, a shot that con-
				but		it is		more		tains only one character. Every shot was some variety of a
				difficult because						two-shot, which means not only that both actors were plainly
				films are made in						visible, but so were their beer bottles. What a learning experi-
				pieces		and		over		ence! Every time I wanted to make a cut, one bottle or the
			time.		Usually				the	other got in the way. Soon enough I discovered what every
master shots are done first. In a long scene,										editor discovers – the hell with matching. You cut for mood,
allowing for camera setups, lighting, and rig-										emotion, for the feeling of the moment, and then later correct
ging, the director may not get around to										any mismatches you can’t live with.
	the close-ups until the end of the day									In the scene I just described, the only cut I don’t like is the
	or the next day. Yet the shots have to									one I absolutely had to make for the match alone: after one of
	cut	together. Sometimes							one	the actors delivered his line, I had to wait for him to raise the
	actor will have his close-ups									bottle to his lips because that is where it was in the incoming
	before lunch, the other after									take that was best for the next line. I’d have rather cut away
	lunch; and emotionally, psycholog-									sooner, but there was no other way without leaving a mis-
	ically,	even	physiologically				they’re			match so grotesque as to throw any moviegoer right out of the
in completely difference places. Yet										moment. When I ran this scene for Garth Craven, one of my
the shots have to cut together. When scenes										mentors, he remarked, “Never give an actor a prop.”
involve several characters, each actor has his or her dif-										Garth did not, I must add, say this to the detriment of the
ferent way of working; they reach emotional peaks or										actor; it was just commiseration between editors. The takes in
descend into emotional valleys at different times. Yet										question were made hours apart; no actor can be expected to
the shots have to cut together. More often than not,										turn in a good performance at the same time as he’s trying to
one actor will nail the scene in the first few										keep precise track of what are supposed to be casual swigs of
takes and setups (meaning the master),										beer during a long scene in a neighborhood bar. That’s one of
another will not hit his stride until the										the things editors are for.
medium shots and over-the-shoulders,										There was a time when studio previews served an
	and a third finally comes up to									admirable and necessary function, or complex of functions.
	speed in the close-ups. Yet still the									They let you observe how your movie played in front of an