In the Blink Of An Eye: Final Blog

After reading about and researching Walter Murch, I have found that he is a very intriguing and talented film editor.  In his book, “In The Blink Of An Eye”, Murch discusses many different theories and ideas of his, one of them being “The Rule of Six”.  To me, this was one of the most valuable pieces of information I have obtained through reading this book.  I found his argument very convincing that emotion (51%) and story (23%) overpowers the other 4 criteria’s of editing which include rhythym (10%), eye trace (7%), Two-dimensional plane of screen (5%) and three-dimensional space of action (4%).   Murch states that you should try to preserve emotion at all costs, even if it means sacrificing one of the other criteria’s on the list.  I completely agree with Murch on this, because a characters/cut’s emotion can really drive a movie forward and if you have a cut that gives the right emotion you need, then it should be used even if it doesn’t follow one of the other criteria’s listed.

            One of the chapter’s I found extremely interesting was Cuts and Shadow Cuts.  In this chapter, Murch talks about the amount of film he had to work for the movie Apocalypse Now. He said had a whopping 230 hours worth of film, which by the final cut of the film, was 95 unseen minutes of film for every 1 minute of film used in the final cut.  That is a tremendous amount of footage for a feature film, and I think that is one of the reason’s why Murch’s editing on this film was so successful.  He says that the more you have to work with the better, and he certainly proved that to be true in Apocalypse Now.

Another part of Murch’s editing analysis I found to be interesting was his comparison of an overactive editing to a tour guide who can’t stop pointing things out.  I found this to be hilariously true.  Murch says that when you’re on a tour, you want the guide to point things out, but you also want to be able to walk around and “see the things that you see”.  This is the same for editor who is trying to do too much.  Too much manipulation while editing is trying to have complete control.  This can be detrimental to a film as people watching will “feel constrained then resentful from the constant pressure of the editor’s hand on the back of their necks.”  This is awesome is advice for me becaus trying to make too many cuts has been a problem for me at times, and Murch’s advice that less can be more will really help me in the future.