All language subtitles for 18 - Editing Part 1

for me the editing room itself is something that is a

is a sacred spot as

as the set is you know

so here is where the film really comes alive I feel um

and when people talk about movies or cinema

they usually speak of images or the image you know

I think what they're really talking about

is sequences of images

so when we edit a picture

a movie we put one image next to another image

to create the impression of a continuous action

and then their variations

I mean you play with it

discontinuities ellipses

surprising cuts

that sort of take you

and reorient your sense of time and place you know

but creating the impression of continuous action

is how we tell stories in time

but there's something else for me um

it's what I think of as the heart of cinema

cause every time I get to the editing room

I'm struck by it all over again

and this is every time

one has to understand

sometimes you get into your very tired

and sometimes it's very wrote kind of work it's hard

physical work at times

and then something happens

and I'm struck by it all over again

see you take one image

and you put it together with another image

and there's a third

phantom event that happens in the mind's eye

you could call it an image

or maybe a thought or a sensation

something happens

it's actually unique to this particular combination

or collision of moving images

and if you take a frame away from one shot

or you add a couple of frames to the other shot

the image in the mind's eye changes

this will always be a wonder to me

and by the way

often in the old days

we used to see films and very bad prints

which involved

which had jump cuts in it

or scratches or pieces missing

and the scenes were different

by accident

they were different

so this addition

the subtraction of one or two frames

one frame everything depends on one frame

it is storytelling one frame

each frame is important

you know Einstein

Sergei Einstein talked about well

he talked about this on an extremely theoretical level

I would say that the power of his films

Isaac Size films

happens to me despite the theoretical ideas

and this is where

you know a good film comes alive

as something more than just a succession

a beautifully composed rendering of script pages

basically this is film making

you have to understand that

when I started making films in the early 60s

short films and Myu

which became a feature towards the end of sick

the late 60s

before Mean Streets etc

these things were

you made the film yourself

you know you were expected to as I said

not only write the film

um but know how to shoot it with a camera

but um I found that ultimately too

we were expected to edit the films ourselves

which is what what I did

I had a couple of friends who helped me

um and NYU we kind of switched jobs

I did photography on one of that one film

and he would come on and do editing on mine with me

without me somehow we made the films ourselves

and so ultimately

when I did Alice doesn't live here anymore

Taxi Driver in New York New York

I ultimately wanted someone that could work with me

who would allow me to direct them in the editing

and edit with them

and so I met George Lucas and Marsha Lucas and

she felt that she could

join me in the cutting of these films

and which is what we did

it wasn't a matter of

we were younger

and it wasn't a matter of

professional versus non professional

uh threatened uh

uh threatened creativity versus

versus uh uh

non threatening in any way uh

that sort of thing

we just made the film um

and they would listen to me

which is what I wanted

and we did have some other editors come in

from time to time to do certain scenes

and wonderful editors actually helped remarkably

for example

Taxi Driver

in two or three scenes are really brilliant um

but the style

their style of working

their way working just was not conducive to what I did

after a very difficult period

I decided I was gonna make Raging Bulb

I realized that um

I needed to work with an editor who would know who I am

accept me make the picture with me

and most important

if the studio came in or the finances came in and said

recut this film without him

they wouldn't do it

because again

it's about control and again

it only comes off experience

it's the nature

the game um

there are number of friends of mine in the 70s

whose films were taken away from them by the actors

by the studio

reedited um

and some cases

the editor stayed on

we're hired by the director

but the editor stayed on

it's a different way of looking at things yeah

you're a professional in one in one

in one realm

and that's your job and that's your work

and does friendship or loyalty

where is that beginning

and it's a complex

it's not as cut and dry

and it's complex

and it changes whatever

every situation of course

but ultimately

there was always a danger the film being taken away

and it was happening all the time

um whether right or wrong

it was happening

and I don't want that to happen

so the person I knew was Thelma Schoonmaker and um

so I saw if she was available in what she wanted to do

gave her a call and told her to come in and uh

there was an issue

I believe that Urban Winkler and Bob Charter

for Winkler got her in

the editors union finally

and I knew that

I knew that in those circumstances there was a trust

that ultimately

I wouldn't walk in the dining room one day

and see a scene that we worked on the week before

re edited without me

um and so this is very important

and so that began a long collaboration and editing

and we went on to do king of comedy

and there was another break

and then eventually decided to come together again

on after hours

and continued up over the years

um one of the other things about working with her

is the trust

there's no doubt it's the same mind

alike mindedness

um and also is not part of the industry that way

I mean particularly in those days

just not part of it

doesn't think that way

and so she's gone through these journeys with me

and in so doing

we kind of know each other's people

and when you look back 1963 64

it's a long time

there is no process

I mean I could yes

I could tell you that

you know we look at the rushes

uh these days

is getting harder and harder to look at rushes

because of locations

an hour and a half to go to location

hour to go to location

come back an hour

then you need to go to sleep

to get ready for the next day

so it's hard to see rushes

but when I can see the rushes

and we try to do it daily or every two days

we make selects

tell her what I want

tell her where I want it

um she pulls all those selects

as that you have

for scene 14 b

you may have five or six sections in a row

um this may

this may be

not very different from what other people do

but the first one is the first select preferred

second preferred

third preferred

in that order

as we were watching you know

then there are others and we say

I probably want to use them to pull down

pull it pull it

and ultimately

in recuting the picture

you wind up using some of the stuff

you thought you wouldn't use

but they're there already in that

on that roll of film

in the old days and now

in that I guess

folder or something

or pamphlet

or whatever they call these little folios

or whatever they have in a computer

I don't know

window or something

but many of that

it's there um

and it's easily retrieved

that's the thing

and also during that process

she memorized the stuff

as I try to memorize what we're shooting

so she knows the footage

and remembers different things

sometimes some takes away

decided not to use

where you need

a different look on the face of the actor

in relation to a certain line of dialogue

it's maybe too harsh too low

too much too high

I don't know

but in any event

is an awareness that I have

that I have

that she knows that footage

so from that period of doing the pulling

for the selects

we then get together and

direct the cutting of the scene

particularly if the scene

doesn't have an edited sequence to it

in other words

particularly if the scene doesn't have shots

that are designed to go from 1A to 1B to 1C

to 2A to 2B to 2C

that sort of

if it doesn't have a mathematical design

and it's more open

and you could feel it out

whether you start with a wide or tighter

I'm not quite sure

move in um we

we work on the scene

and then often

I'm able to go do something else

come back and she's

put the scene together

or we do two or three in a row

she takes a day or so

come back we stay

we work on it

very often it's late at night or something

and you know

we have done a great deal

and we get very excited about something

we come back and see the next day

and have to redo it completely

so that's really the process

and then ultimately

it's putting it all together

and seeing it

in the case of

certain films

less footage

is an advantage

and to disadvantage

disadvantage

because you may be missing things okay

but there's always ways around it

you know advantage

because it's less

footage to play

with less time

you have less choices to make

the case of mean streets

for example or um

Taxi Driver

you know um

even Raging Ball

to a certain extent

uh uh particularly the fight scenes

because they were all

fairly more laid out and drawn so um

except for the last fight

where he's given a uh uh

kind of a brutal beating at

by Sugar Ray

on the ropes

that was shot differently

and edited differently

but the majority is that

were they were

they were not easy to cut

but they were

they went together

more in a more fluid way

because of the designs

when I discuss

let's say David Lane

who was a film editor

when I discuss what he was able to do

what he what he um

perceived as rhythm and pacing for actors in his films

the films he directed

it comes out of editing

I think he would rehearse the same with the actors

now mind you

this is a very

this is a very specific way of working

a very specific kind of film

traditional narrative film

very often the text being extraordinarily important

written by Robert Boult or other such excellent writers

and so there's respect for that um

and it's a different way from thinking that I that I'm

that I'm aware of so uh

was fascinating what lean said

and that he would have the actors work on the scene

and then mount the scene on in the rehearsal hall

and time it

so if a scene from Briefing County say

was running two minutes and 30 seconds

get it to a point

where everybody understood what was happening

the interpretation of the lines by the actors

and guidance by the director was all there

and then he started kind of a process of

um cutting in a way editing

he would say

now if we did it in two minutes and 30 seconds

let's do it now in 2:20

and they would do that

and then he'd say

let's do it in two minutes

and they do that

and he was picking up the pace

and then finally to about a minute 40 or so

um and when you

when he shot it and when it's in the film

um the pace seems right

what he was pointing out is that on film often

um things appear to be longer

I have a feeling that the explanation is in

our perception of 24 frames a second

I think it's

a a

I think it has to do it

how the brain perceives the image

I think it's purely scientific

and I found it too

I feel the pace is right sometimes

and I'm shooting

and then in the editing room

I realize I maybe went

allowed it to be three or four seconds too slow

or not slow enough

the idea is to

I find myself

trying to pick up the pace as much as possible

may not be successful but

or at least

I get it to a point where I think it's right

but it's an interesting thing

because it's the medium itself

the moving image

so whether it's on film or on video

so something to keep in mind