reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (02/13/86)
Recently a posted an article describing the parts played by the producer,
cinematographer, and director in making a film. I received a request to
do the same for the editor. Here goes.
The editor is responsible for cutting the film. He (or she) takes the
footage shot by the rest of the filmmakers and assembles it into the
final product. At first glance, this may sound rather dull and uncreative.
Dull, maybe, but the job of a film editor is highly creative.
Film editors were called cutters back in the early days of the film business,
and back then it wasn't very creative. The director shot a scene, start to
finish, in a single shot. All the cutter had to do was to assemble the
scenes in the order the scenario specified. Cutting was originally viewed
as grunt work, little different than developing the film. That quickly
changed. Starting with Porter and Melies, and especially Griffith,
techniques involving cuts within scenes and crosscuts between scenes began
to broaden the language of film. (Wake up, you in the back row. No sleeping
during lectures!) Cutting became editing, a specialized creative job in
filmmaking.
Interestingly, unlike most technical jobs in the industry (leaving aside
obvious and easily explanable exceptions like hairdressing, makeup, and
costume design), editing proved to be a field open to women. Many of the
great editors of Hollywood's golden age were female. I've never heard
an adequate explanation for why sexism didn't reign in this field, but
we definitely benefitted in terms of the quality of editing. Editing is
still a fairly equalitarian field in the film business. (The next few
dozen films you see, count the number of female directors, cinematographers,
or producers. Unless you see very special films, you probably won't
need more than two or three fingers.)
As stated earlier, the editor assembles the existing footage into a
finished film. Whenever you see a cut or dissolve in a film, that is
the editor at work. Determining precisely how long to hold a given shot
to get the optimal reaction is a difficult thing indeed. At a higher
level, the editor must insure that the film is paced well from scene to
scene, so that one scene doesn't speed by while another crawls. It is
a Hollywood legend that some films are "saved" by editors. I'm not sure if
I really believe that, in the sense that the editor took a piece of shit
and molded a thing of beauty, but I definitely believe that no really good
film was ever poorly edited. A film can withstand poor cinematography,
poor performances, even poor directing. Poor editing kills it every time.
The director of a film often works closely with the editor, but not always,
and there are degrees of closeness. Some few directors are sitting with
the editor, day in and day out, as the tedious process of splicing and
resplicing goes on. Others periodically look at the editor's work and
make decisions based on that. Some directors simple tell the editor
"cut it this way" and come back when he's done. A few simply throw the
footage at the editor and think no more. Interestingly, some very good
directors work somewhere in between the last two ways. They have a secret,
though. They have used the same editor for years, so the editor knows
instinctively what they want, and the director knows he can trust the
editor. Once in a great while, especially rarely nowadays, the director
edits his own film. The only recent films I recall where this happened
were "Passage to India" and Larry Cohn's films. (Lean knows how to
edit, Cohn, alas, doesn't.)
Consider an example of what kind of choices an editor faces. Let's say
that the director has shot a scene of a man defusing a bomb. We've got
shots of the bomb, closeups of the man's hands, medium shots of him
working, reaction shots of other people watching him, a shot of a drop of
sweat falling from his brow, and a lot of other shots. What is the editor
going to do with all this footage? She has any number of choices. Perhaps
she will work in quick cuts. Maybe she'll start with long cuts which
progressively shorten as the danger and tension increases, finally running
only a dozen frames or so towards the end of the sequence. She can vary this
technique by progressively speeding up and then, at an important moment,
holding a shot for several seconds, underlining its importance and adding
to the suspense. Or perhaps she can squeeze out maximum tension by showing
it all in a single long shot, maybe accentuated by using a shot in which
the camera moves progressively closer. In each case, she must determine
*precisely* how many frames to include in every single shot to get the
maximum effect.
Editing historically has been taxing, because it was necessary to physically
recut the film every time you wanted to change things. Legend speaks of
editors laboring for weeks on end over their Moviolas, winding and unwinding
film, working late into the night. (Especially because editors frequently
start work after all shooting is over, with a deadline and an impatient
producer on their backs.) Editing appears to be the single area of
filmmaking, however, that has most benefitted from the rise of the
computer. (And videotape.) There are now computerized systems which
take shots on videotape and play them back as requested, with no
physical cutting required. Theoretically, at least, one can now edit
a film without making a single splice. (Of course, eventually real
negative is spliced together to make prints with.)
For those interested in the subject, I recommend a book by (if memory
serves) Ralph Rosenbloom, called "When the Shooting Stops". It gives
a very good feel for the editing process and contains fascinating stories
about what an editor can and cannot do for a film. For those really
interested in the process, try watching a film once in a while with an
eye towards the editing. Notice when cuts occur, how the editor works
between different points of view, how pace is established, how the editor
uses his craft to suggest what you don't see. As an advanced exercise,
get a videotape of "The Battleship Potemkin" and watch its editing.
"Potemkin" is generally regarded as having the finest editing in the
history of film, courtesy of director Sergei Eisenstein, patron saint of
film editors.
--
Peter Reiher
reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiherccrrick@ucdavis.UUCP (Rick Heli) (02/15/86)
> All the cutter had to do was to assemble the > scenes in the order the scenario specified. Cutting was originally viewed > as grunt work, little different than developing the film. > > Interestingly, unlike most technical jobs in the industry (leaving aside > obvious and easily explanable exceptions like hairdressing, makeup, and > costume design), editing proved to be a field open to women. Many of the > great editors of Hollywood's golden age were female. I've never heard > an adequate explanation for why sexism didn't reign in this field, but > we definitely benefitted in terms of the quality of editing. Editing is > still a fairly equalitarian field in the film business. (The next few > dozen films you see, count the number of female directors, cinematographers, > or producers. Unless you see very special films, you probably won't > need more than two or three fingers.) I would say that you have the answer yourself. Because it was considered menial work, men probably didn't think anything of employing women in such roles. Later, when the role of the editor changed, a tradition of male and female editors was already in place and not likely to change. -- --rick heli ... {ucbvax,lll-crg}!ucdavis!ccrrick