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editing is the process where the movie

or the television show is actually made

everything else is gathering the raw

materials as my friend George Lucas

likes to say um it's it's also the place

where you you execute your final rewrite

because there are so many creative

decisions still to be made during the

editing and so much that you learn about

the story it is that you want to

tell one of the most uh exciting but

daunting things about the editing

process it's the time in which you you

actually come to terms with the

possibilities of your story everything

else has been a a sort of a hope a

belief now in very tangible ways you're

looking at what your story actually has

to say what do it what does it convey

how effective can it be now if the

results of that are unsatisfactory for

you or your audience there's still a lot

you can do about it and that is what

it's important to understand is that

despite your plan despite you know

everything that went into all the

choices that you made from the script

through the casting through the

production design the budgeting the

scheduling the

shooting well it doesn't matter what you

thought you were were doing or what you

hoped you were going to get what matters

now is what you have to work

with so it's important to put all of

that behind you and have an open mind uh

I always uh like to turn to the editors

at a certain point when I see a scene

that's not working very well and I like

to say what idiot directed that scene uh

because it's it's just a way of kind of

formally just putting all of that behind

us it doesn't matter matter this is the

task at

hand a good editor is proficient is

professional um is is willing

hardworking um and um you know doesn't

have a lot of ego is is is is willing to

follow Direction um and uh um and you

know and and and has and has good solid

taste a great

editor is somebody who has all of those

qualities and

yet can look at a scene in a slightly

different way has superb taste and um a

creative imagination

that sort of inspires him or her to

re-edit the scenes in ways that the

director didn't

present uh that weren't necessarily

scripted in a in a particular way might

reorder some of the dialogue might U you

know structurally reshape things I I

wouldn't want that to be the primary

initial cut but I love it when an editor

has the confidence to take some some

sort of creative authorship over a scene

and have it as an alternate version

ultimately

however editors are not the people who

are supposed to Al to decide what the

Final Cut is um whether the director has

Final Cut in a contract or not uh you

know I believe that the best

films um benefit from you know this this

sort of

single um o over oversight and um and

and that's the director but I work very

closely with editors who are extremely

talented and very creative and it's

another one of those key collaborations

that yields um a set of options and um

and ultimately

um it's you know it's my job to to

choose the the the approach um same with

you know Director of Photography um and

uh and and all of these other categories

yes they have a tremendous amount of

autonomy and Authority but um they're

all they're all reporting to uh the CEO

of the movie and that's the director

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you and your editor assuming you are

working with somebody in that capacity

um need to have a conversation early on

and the conversation needs to go

something like this um Editor to the

director um do you want to let me know

which takes you liked the most or do you

want me to watch the footage and make my

own autonomous decisions the director's

answer could be a or b

a would be U no uh I'll tell you which

takes that I like and I'll even give you

a sense of how I think the scene should

be um edited together either either I'll

call you on the phone uh we'll watch the

dailies together or I'll send you um you

know a memo an email some

notes or it could be B which is well I

know how I think it should go together

um or the options for the ways could go

together um but why don't you creatively

see what the scene says to you and try

it because I I I've always got my plan

that's not going anywhere and yet you

may have a great new idea so that's that

initial

conversation um let's uh we'll assume

that they picked uh

um a you know follow the director's

notes as best you can uh the the

the it's a good idea for the editor and

the director to meet whenever possible

sometimes it's on the weekends sometimes

it's after shooting uh sometimes it's it

can be uh sent um you know uh over the

Internet um and uh you can you can just

download a scene or two and look at it

so

that the director learns a couple of

things the director first learns that

the scenes are coming together in a way

that may not be exactly refined and um

it may not uh include all the choices

that the director has in mind but

basically it looks good the actors you

know feel right in their characters the

approach is working it may reveal some

disappointments and that will give the

director a chance to analyze those come

to terms with them and either make some

adjustments or um you know or not but at

least that's an opportunity before the

whole movie is finished to to make some

decisions so it's very important and

helpful if the editor can be working

quickly um right behind the principal of

Photography and and sharing scenes uh

with the director as soon as

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possible the editing style is often born

out of of kind of nature of uh the

central characters um and you're you're

telling the story through these

characters uh and uh so often they set a

kind of a a feeling or a rhythm

Cinderella Man was an interesting

combination because on the one hand it's

the depression it's a very

humanistic

honorable but uh everyday kind of a

central hero Jim bradic and whenever we

were in his world there was something

about it that was modest it was it was

um um harsh it

reflected um you know his his lack of

resources as a as a father and and a

husband there and there was a and there

was a kind of a simp Simplicity to it

and a sense of pressure and um and and a

bit of Darkness you know around him um

usually with some warm light uh that

they were you know kind of hovering

around and the editing and the camera

work um followed that with

him in the ring he became a different

person with a different objective and

the intensity and the violence often

suggested and demanded tight Cuts

shortcuts

explosions and that was the Paradox of

Jim bradic is that he was a kind gentle

honorable man um and away from the ring

but when he was fighting for his family

he would do anything uh to win if it was

honorable he he was a uniquely um you

know remarkably great guy and and

principled

Guy Frost

Nixon has some similarities because

there there is a kind of combat that and

in fact Salvador Totino the

cinematographer

uh and Dan Hanley and Mike Hill the

editors uh worked on both projects we

were very open about the fact that some

of the inter interview scenes needed to

have that same kind of combative

intensity and we should use some of the

cutting patterns and some of the uh

stylistic choices that we had used in

Cinderella Man which we' made a couple

you know four or five years before and

uh so it was really fun and interesting

to see how we could uh take this verbal

combat and and um make it you know a

little more visceral and intense for the

for the uh for the audience and the

shooting mattered but so did the editing

and and so sometimes those scenes are

cut in a way that's a little bit similar

to some of the punch exchanges in

Cinderella Man um the but away from

those interview scenes Frost Nixon had a

very different editorial Rhythm

because David Frost was a complete

completely different kind of uh of a

protagonist um he was glamorous he was

fast he was bright he was a sexier uh

more

kinetic uh environment that that he that

he was in and so that suggested another

kind of pace and another kind of editing

Rhythm so I needed to have a sense of

that in staging the scenes more camera

movement shorter Cuts more variety

um not using the same shot repeatedly or

not staying in the same shot for a long

time but having lots of cover coverage

lots of angles and the editors saw that

saw the way I was approaching it and

understood the kind of pace that we were

going for which was much more

contemporary uh and uh um and and and

just and just you know um paer um

breathless almost in places

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Apollo

13 was the most challenging uh editorial

project that I've ever been involved

with I believe and I and I've and I've

been in some some very challenging ones

Rush was a huge challenge Cinderella Man

Big Challenge Backdraft very very

challenging in its own way Frost Nixon

very challenging uh

but the nature of telling the story of

Apollo 13 in an authentic way

um suggested to me that I needed to look

at the crisis from three different

perspectives and each step along the way

that the W that the

suspense there needed to be sort of

filtered through three different

perspectives um the astronauts

themselves the the mission control team

who was trying to rescue them and do

everything they could from thousands of

miles away and the family at home that

uh actually had communication with

mission control and um no way to talk

back but between what was on the

television and what they were hearing

over the NASA uh speaker was keeping

them on the edge of their seat and

emotionally um you know uh rought and so

I fully

shot every

crisis point from all three vantages and

it it was not until we reached the

editing room that we began to focus the

way in which we we were going to uh um

you know sort of develop each of these

crises and I wanted I I knew I wanted

them to unfold in different ways from

different perspectives so sometimes

you'd feel it more from the family

sometimes you'd feel it more from

mission control and of course many times

you know you you you'd want to be there

alongside the astronauts well these were

these were editorial decisions

ultimately and it required um months of

editing re-editing looking at scenes

looking at entire sequences looking at

entire movies and saying um taking notes

while watching it and then having these

long conversations and days and days of

going through the film stopping and

going and um um there were some scenes

that were without any re-shooting

were completely recut and re-engineered

to reflect some other Insight we would

literally do things like use one or two

lines on camera and then record new

dialogue to try to clarify some you know

moment of tension and crisis and let

that play over somebody's

head or off camera or over in a wide

shot where you you couldn't tell what

the people were saying and we were able

to invent scenes that ratcheted up the

tension and made it more emotional and

and um you know all of that is about

discovering the possibilities of the of

the footage you have of the material you

have in the editing room by the time you

see a scene back and forth a number of

times and try um beginning in a

different place or using a different

shot to start than the one you that

you'd initially planned uh ending at a

different point because U uh one of the

things that you're looking for of course

is not just refining the elements of

that scene to deliver its full potential

but you also have to think about the

scenes that precede it the scenes that

follow it uh it's it's its meaning to

the entire uh story when you when you

recognize that a scene could could uh

perhaps achieve more

or you know be clearer or be more

mysterious well that generally boils

down to some kind of a of a re-editing

to try to play with the shots and the

footage to to create a different Rhythm

and therefore a different feeling and a

sort of a um you know a sort of a set of

um of of of impulses or data that are

that that are coming to the uh to the

viewer