In the Blink of an Eye

In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch thoroughly explained  many different aspects of editing. The most fascinating of these were the six goals of the editor.  These goals were achieving the desire emotion, advancing the story, continuing a proper rhythm, acknowledging the "eye trace" from the audience's focus of interest as to location and movement, being able to have two-dimensional plurality and respecting three-dimensional continuity.  Of these aspects, I personally like to focus on the art of achieving the desired emotion.  Being able to make people feel a certain reaction to a scene or an attachment to a character is absolutely fascinating to me.  Delving deeper into the emotional effects that can be placed on a viewer, the people that watch videos can have different levels of connections to the movie or production.

As an editor, it is the job to have each person in the audience feel some sort of sadness when the lead character loses his love interest, or anger when the antagonist is gloating about his plan.  Through having the scenes cut faster would give the viewer a sense of urgency or stress, whereas a slower cut scene would make a feeling of suspense or maybe even dread.  In addition to the cutting of the scenes, sometimes the editor can place a filter on the footage itself. In doing so, a scene that was originally more colorful could be tinted more towards a grey-scale for a hint of nostalgia or older times.

These things being said, I have always found it fascinating from a psychological standpoint.  For instance, my sister and I have always had different levels of reactions to certain moments in movies.  Where she would be crying over the death of a character, I would feel sorrow but not as much.  However, we both felt the same emotion without knowing how the other one was reacting.  In conclusion, the six goals of the editor are definitely something for production students to focus on as they work in future editing classes.