Blog 1 Closing Thoughts

Thank you all for your posts. This is a great start. Please feel free to comment on each other's posts, as well. This is a great way to keep a productive and intellectually stimulating dialogue going outside of class.

Due to the campus closure this past Thursday, please have your "WTB Money" cuts ready to screen for the class on Tuesday.

"The Editor"

“The Editor,” By: Breanna Scott

What do editors do?

They do not just cut film; they bring the story to life.

During the beginning of the film industry there were no editors. People filmed until they were bored or ran out of film. The Lumieres thought the world of cinema had no future. But guess who was wrong…  The invention of editing allowed films to take off and give birth to a new art and language. Editing can slow down and speed up time, evoke emotions, and sometimes startle or amuse us. Editing can also make or break a film, so each frame is important. Even if you miss an edit by one frame, you can screw up the entire scene. You want to make sure the scene flows seamlessly in order to create the perfect edit. In order to help the story flow perfectly, you need to do an invisible cut. Griffith understood the significance of editing, and he popularized techniques which defined proper editing.

In editing, it’s all about the rhythm. When you have the right rhythm down, you can start to focus on the musical score. The musical score can also make or break a film. Sometimes music is placed in a certain scene, which helps evoke a certain emotion, and makes it Oscar worthy. Or music can be placed somewhere and it does not make any sense at all. Sometimes you do not need music in a shot. Sometimes the natural sounds are a better fit for the cut. As an editor, you have to ask yourself; when not to cut, when to have silence, when to drag out the scene.

 For years, editors were the best kept secret of the movies. The editor and director spend the most time together. Basically they are the Batman and Robin in the film industry. Together they create the stars we know today. The editor helps enhance a great actor’s performance and the director helps capture it. Great directors and editors such as Michael Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Michael Kahn, George Lucas, Dede Allen, just to name a few, have done just that.  

Editing can shape hearts and minds of an audience. Sure minute details are important in film editing, but you also have to look at the big picture as well.

Throughout “The Cutting Edge: The Making of Movie Magic,” they referenced some of my favorite films of all time, such as Star Wars, Jaws, and Titanic. Films, such as these, made me want to go in the film industry to begin with. At first I wanted to be a director or an actress, but now I know where the real story develops from. The Editor.  

The Cutting Edge Film

The film “Cutting Edge” was a very interesting piece on editing. I found it very informative and it hit very important parts on editing. I liked how it described cropping scenes and flowing the together. I further enjoyed when the different editors talked about their styles and how they edit clips based on how they think it will best fit because it provides incite and shows us how many different views there are when it comes to editing a movie or television show. I found it interesting when the different editors talked about how they do transitions from outside in one scene to inside in another scene if it takes place in the same building. For example the clip of the man walking up to the building and walking into the building and matching up the door opening on the inside to get a clear cut and a good transition.  The technique of jump cuts was also something I found interesting. It was interesting to see that an editor could jump from on cut to the next all in the same scene if there was nothing major or nothing happening with in the scene. I thought that maybe it would look off and the scene would not look right and just look like a bunch of cuts however it looks nice and actually brings the piece together and helps it move the scene along with out creating any gaps with in the scene. An editor is a very pivotal person in creating a film because they cut and put the film together. They decide for the most part which scenes make the storyline progress and flow at a pace that will not lose the audiences interest and drag out the storyline.  With out editors films would just be random scenes put together that did not make sense. This film showed the importance of that and the importance of different editing tools and styles.

Thoughts about The Cutting Edge

When I first heard of the title of this movie, all I thought it was about some new piece of technology that was so cutting edge it could help the film industry. Soon after I began watching the movie, I quickly found out that it was more than that. It’s about the editors behind the movie that make the story of the movie come together.  Cutting and trimming the film that was directed and shot is what made movies what they are today.

What I liked about this movie is that it shows how important editors are to movies. I will never look at another movie the same way.  Why won’t I you ask? Because now when I watch a scene of a movie I will think about how many different views the scene was shot at and how it could have looked different if the editor wanted it to be changed. Not only does the editor trim and cut films, they create how the story is seen. This is very important because for example, in the movie terminator 2 the editor wanted everyone to see that not only was the kid on the dirt bike being chased by someone that wanted to kill him, you saw how violent he was to try and catch up to him. The editor showed different views of the truck taking so much damage so that the bad guy could catch up to him. If the editor just showed the kid getting chased it wouldn't be as exciting as seeing the truck getting destroyed along the way. 

Imagine a world without editors, how would movies be watched without all the correct angles of the film pieced together? Would the story still be as effective if it wasn't trimmed and cut the correct way? We would never know because there will always be editors around to make a story understandable and exciting to watch. 

The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing

            The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing was an interesting look at one of the most important components of creating a film, which is the editor. In a sense, without the editor there would be no movie; or at least it wouldn't make sense. The editor is in a way, god. He controls time, and space in a way that shapes the viewers response to what they see on the big screen. Editing can slow down time, or speed it up which by itself is very fascinating. I think editors are almost more important than the director, because without the editor there is no film in a way.

             The editor and the director should work hand in hand at creating the film. Sometimes the director gets lucky and is on the same page as the editor. As Quentin Tarantino said, having a female editor is usually better because they don’t shove their agenda down your throat; they usually help nurture and create the film alongside you, not against you.

            D.W. Griffith was the first to understand the psychological part of editing. He was the first man to use the close up. People wanted to see the whole body of the actor or actress but slowly started to realize that the close up created emphasis on the scene, and further enhanced the viewers encapsulation of the film.

             The movie “Birth of a Nation” was the first movie to have many features of classical film editing. The goal was to mask the cut so that the audience barely notices that it was cut. I was really fascinated with the documentary especially seeing the parts of editing one doesn't normally get to see. Being an IT major and not a productions major I’m more interested in the technical process more than anything, but after watching the film it really made me interested in all of the other parts of editing.  It was also really interesting to see the many different styles of editing many different types of film. No matter what I’ll always be fascinated by how many people it takes to make a AAA film. I might not pursue a career in editing but I know that after this class I will have a much more appreciated view on film and the process it takes to create one, especially by the editor.

The Cutting Edge (Blog #1)

In lieu of tracing a sort of thematic thread, I’ve decided to simply comment on certain insights that I took note of while watching—given that the assignment, and blogs in general, are somewhat informal.

The first being an opening quote from Anthony Minghella: “film is the sum of editing.” Conceptually, I think this is a useful lense to view editing through—especially as the interviews progress, and individual frames are compared to the likes of puzzle pieces, and Walter Murch gives the visual of boxes within boxes. As a student having not only no prior editing experience, but also no prior knowledge of editing whatsoever (for it is invisible), it’s helpful to view frames as parts of a collective whole; and I think it’s important to conceptualize this well before critically thinking about the cuts themselves.

Secondly, I took note of the importance of a single frame—the discussion of Jaws, but more specifically, Quentin Tarantino: “one frame off, or two frames added, or two fames less, is the difference between a sour note and a sweet note […] between clunky, clumsy crap and orgasmic rhythm.” It seems this is a tenet of editing—a fraction of a second can influence the psychology of an entire film. Having said that, while I thoroughly enjoy his films, I’m making an honest attempt to avoid hearing Tarantino speak ever again; guy’s a lunatic—I’d much rather listen to Scorsese talk (or David Lynch—I wish they got him on here).

I don’t have anything necessarily insightful to say about the relationship between director and editor; I was simply previously unaware of this level of artistic interaction, and likening it to marriage is interesting (as was more lunacy from Tarantino).

Alexander Payne thinks of editors as “really sly politicians.” I loved this comparison; “the emotional, psychological effect from a certain type of cutting […] the manipulation” (Scorsese). Stalin is discussed here, as is Hitler in the later half of the film—but I fully intend on looking into the Why We Fight series from the US; film [and editing] as a manipulative agent is a truly remarkable phenomena. Examining editing as such allows for a case study not only on the power of film in itself, but on a reflection of the human psyche—on its fallibility and on its interpretation of film as sensory experience. In this sense, it seems editors do have the ability [without hyperbole] to create alternative, symbolic realities; and the simulacrum has the ability to affect rational order.

The segment on the same face being intercut with varying images does a great job in explicitly illustrating the power of juxtaposition; and the editor as controller of actors’ performances is worth noting.

I like the idea of Spielberg’s editor as the “most objective eye.” As he says, the editor hasn’t been “inundate[d]” by the film—in this sense, the editor is the first viewer, a watcher that is to experience the unmediated emotion of the picture.

I suppose, technically speaking, what I’ve taken away from the documentary echoes your own insights upon taking a look at my first cut—editing insofar as the manipulation of time—the ability to slow time and speed it up through cuts, developing pacing through breaths and pauses.

A few more final highlights: Murch’s description of editing as “a dance of eyes,” and ‘carrying attention,’ and getting your final cut by banging on the keyboard at random. 

The Cutting Edge

The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Editing: This documentary was very insight full and contained so much knowledge on the role of editors, and specifically where and when editing began.  It begins with how editing first came, about.  Early editing was very basic and was not seen as a creative process like we see it today.  This documentary explains how it is in the editing room where the movie actually becomes a “movie”. 

This documentary uses many famous movie as examples which I loved because it gives you some “behind the scene knowledge”. They interviewed one of my favorite directors Quinton Tarantino.  Who explains how important a good editor is.  Tarantino wanted a woman to be his editor for his first film because he believed she would be much more nurturing to his film and try to make his film as close to what he wants as much as possible. They also interview editors and directors who talk about how just simple editing like adding two frames, or subtracting two frames can drastically change the way the scene looks and feels.  An example of this is in Jaws, how by just having two extra frames made the shark look completely fake but without those two shots they were able to create a realistic, terrifying monster.  This documentary was very interesting to me as I would love to pursue editing as a future career.