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Customer Reviews
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Movie editors come out of the closet
This documentary is a general overview of how film cutters evolved into film editors and took their place among the giants of the film industry.
We are introduced to methods and philosophies used down through the ages and the metamorphosis from celluloid to digital recordings.
As informative as this documentary is it suffers from sound-bite-itus instead of concentrating on one person or thought, we are leaped back and forth trough a collage of people, techniques, and time. This method of presentation can become quite boring after a time. Still the documentary (that only shows highlights and nothing practical) is worth viewing.
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Great Insights
A wonderfully informative introduction to the crucial art of movie editing which uses examples from film history to illustrate its points. An exemplary documentary which gets one under the glittering surface of movie magic and shows how great a contribution the film editor makes to the realisation of a director's dream. A must-have for anyone interested in movies and their apparent "magic".
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Easy to relate to this DVD
I highly recommend this DVD to all amateur film makers, movie buffs who want to learn about the magic of film editing, and film students.
I first started filming home movies using Super 8 film some thirty years ago! I remember loving editing my movies. At first, I used to cut portions of the film that were out of focus or were too jerky. Then I learnt to cut and mix film together, creating a more dramatic movie. Sometimes I would cut scenes from Hollywood movies into my home made movies. As I became older and more proficient in movie editing, I started adding sound and music. It was fun, and all techniques I used were self-learnt.
I have gone a long ways since those days of cutting film. I now shoot my home made movies in digital format and use my computer to edit and create my movies. Obviously, I now have more powerful editing tools, and the process has become so much easier.
Why do I relate the above story about myself? I really relate to this DVD and how film editing has evolved throughout the years. This DVD is a great history of film editors and their methods, and if like me you once worked with film, you will relate to and truly enjoy this DVD.
Film making was born the same year the Wright Brothers took to the sky. No one thought film making would survive. Scenes were shot until either the film maker got bored shooting the scene or the film ran out. For example, film makers would shoot a train passing by, or people walking or playing. Remember that in the beginning film was black and white and silent. Why would people watch a film when they can see the same events for real; in color and with all the natural sounds? Edison thought film making will be just an amusement, with a very limited life, and nothing more. However, his associate thought otherwise. He was the first to actually edit film, and thus produce a story. For example, the film would show firemen running out of their fire department, and then cut to a lady in distress in a burning house. The film would then cut again to the firemen racing to their cars, and then once again to the poor lady in distress. This would go on until the firemen finally reach the burning house and save the lady. Through editing, it was now possible to tell a story. Overnight, film making was viewed in a different light.
At first, all film editors were women. Editing, or cutting, was viewed as knitting. The Film house would decide on the editing of the movie, not the editors, producers, or directors. When sound was introduced to films, men, viewed as more technical, started taking jobs as editors.
Close-ups at first were shunned. Who would want to see a close-up of the actor's face? People paid money to see the whole actor from head to toe, not just his face. It took pioneering editors to introduce close-ups in movies. Close-ups enabled actors to show emotions. This was an instant hit in movies, and many editors followed suit.
At first, all editors worked in the background, never credited with their work and remaining unknown to the public. Yet it is the editors who make a movie into a movie. A movie can fail to relate the emotions of a character if the editing is lousy. For example, in Bonnie and Clyde, the scene where Clyde tells Bonnie that he is a bank robber is edited in a way to show the emotions and eroticism of the characters. The camera shows a close-up of the gun, then a close-up of the face of Bonnie looking down at the gun, then up at Clyde, then a close-up of Clyde. Imagine that same scene if it were one camera shooting the whole scene in one shot, with no close-ups, and in one angle. It would be hard for the characters in such a shot to show us their emotions. Editing therefore makes a big difference in bringing characters to life. It is no wonder that editing is viewed as the soul of the movie!
Film editing also allowed fascist states to use film for propaganda purposes. One such film was filmed for Hitler, using smart editing techniques to show Hitler as a god. Editing allowed the film to shift from Hitler giving a speech, to German parachutists jumping from a plane, to peasants supporting Hitler, and back to Hitler giving his speech. This editing technique gave strong emotions to viewers of the film. The US also used film to encourage its nation to war in its documentary, `Why we go to war'.
Film editors had specific rules to work with when editing and those rules were never to be broken. For example, a shot would show an actor driving to his house, then getting out of his car, walking towards his front door, where he meets his wife on the porch. All those shots are filmed from head to toe so to speak. Then the actor will speak with his wife, and only then we would see a close up of the actors face, then a close up of the actor's wife, then a wide shot of both of them talking together. No editors deviated from this system...but not for long. Again, pioneering editors decided to tell a story in a different way, and broke all accepted and traditional editing methods. Slow motion was introduced in films like the `Terminator' with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Freezing a frame for a second or two was also a technique used in film to emphasize a moment, like in the movie `Out of sight' with George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. Such freezing frames heightened the sexual moment between two characters. Editing techniques were also used to make a scene erotic but not sexual, or sexy but not erotic. For example, is it sexier to see a full frontal nude scene of an actor or an implied nude scene? I would choose the latter.
Editors then started experimenting with chase scenes, a pretty difficult technique to master. `Bullitt's' dynamic editing, for example, with its action-packed chase sequence, earned a 1968 Best Film Editing Oscar. Similarly, `Matrix' with Keanu Reeves used dynamic editing in its chase sequence. These were methods unknown to earlier editors. Zach Staenberg, Academy Award-winning editor of the Matrix trilogy, says, "What makes a movie a movie is the editing." Tarantino only begins to make a movie when he enters the editor's room: A movie in not yet a movie before the editing process.
As technology progressed, newer editing techniques were used. For example, flashbacks, parallel action, juxtaposition of images etc... The use of a green background screen allowed film editors flexibility unseen in earlier movies. `Star Wars', for example, uses a green screen to add actors to animated backgrounds. Computer generated animation also allowed film editors to take a movie to new heights unseen before.
It took a while for editors to become appreciated, and when they did, the Oscars finally rewarded them with their little statues.
This is really a great DVD that will trace the history of film editing. There are interviews with such notables as Spielberg and Tarantino among a few. I really enjoyed watching it, and I'm sure you will too.
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Fun and Informational DVD
I taught Video Editing for the New York Film Academy this summer and used this video in my class. It is very informational and fun to watch. I especially enjoyed the portion on the history of film and editing.
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A decent introduction to the importance of the movie editor
"The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing" is a 2004 documentary celebrating the first century of film editing. Those expecting a fitting counterpart to "Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography" are going to be a bit disappointed because this documentary is not on that same level. What you will find is part history lesson on the development of movie editing and part introduction to the things film editors do. The emphasis at the beginning is all about cutting, but we will learn that film editors make a lot of other decisions and there are lots of film editors and directors appearing as talking heads to explain these things with accompanying examples from lots of classic (and not so classic) films. Quentin Tarantino speaks to the importance of a single frame and his reasons for deciding to work with a female film editor, and Steven Spielberg talks about the objectivity of the film editor. But you have to wish that this documentary could have let these points be made by the film editors themselves since one of the premises here is that film editors are often forgotten when people think about how a film is made.
The history lesson begins with not only the creation of movie editing when Edwin Porter, one of Thomas Edison's employees, first cut scenes together to create a story in 1903, first in "The Life of an American Fireman" and then the more famous "Great Train Robbery." A theoretical distinction between the polar approaches of D.W. Griffith's seamless editing, as in "The Birth of a Nation," versus the more manipulative approach of Russian documentary filmmaker Dziga Vertov and his team in "Man with a Movie Camera" and later Sergei Eisenstein in "Battleship Potemkin." The history of film editing seems to come down to certain individuals who were in the right place at the right time, but there is also the interesting observation that originally women were film editors because the task was seen as being akin to knitting, and it was not until sound was introduced and the process became so "technical" than men started doing the job instead. Ultimately the goal in this documentary is not just to be informative but to persuade viewers that after the director and the stars the film editor is the most important person involved in the production of a film and in creating "the final script."
Sections are devoted to the general idea of cutting action, suspense, or sex, as well as cutting for the studios or to make the actor a star. At one point "The Rules" are established, and then the documentary looks at how successful film editors have broken all of those rules. Specific examples of editing that look at the specific choices that were made are fairly rare in this documentary. There is a brief example from "Home for the Holiday" where we actually get to see some of the choices for cutting a scene where a turkey falls on Cynthia Stevenson, but usually all you get is the editor describing after the fact what they did, as with Walter Murch and the hotel sequence at the start of "Apocalypse Now." There are a couple of choice examples of how sound comes into play with Pietro Scalla in "Black Hawk Down" and Tina Hirsch in "Dante's Peak," that helps to expand our notion of film editing. Then you have the extreme case of Alan Heim convincing director Bob Fosse to cut 20 minutes following the climactic courtroom scene in "Lenny" to get to Bruce's death. The problem is every time you get one of these specific examples you want more and the documentary is more likely to get back to a general topic (I was waiting for a section on the concept of American montage exemplified by the baptism scene in "The Godfather," but that never came). Still, you do get a decent introduction to the topic.
