Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

On my other blog, I've posted a seven part series on Narration and Titling.

I know, I know: you can hardly control yourself and want to start to read that immediately.

Wait one second, though. Why have I posted it? That's because I'm editing a piece where narration and titling is central to the documentary. For a lot of people, partially because of the "virtuous" influence of Cinema Verite, voiceover and titling are sins. I can understand that view. But this just isn't that type of Doc.

So the question became: if I'm going to use these out-of-favor elements, what's the right way to use them? I went back and re-read a paper I wrote on the subject as a way of refreshing my ideas. That paper then became seven idea posts on the subject.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

Part Seven

The Film Editing Room Handbook

One of the bigger trends in filmmaking this decade has been the increasing importance of the Assistant Editor. As the lead person on project organization and -- increasingly -- visual effects, it's a role that combines great editing skills with many other talents.

I often encourage my students to aim for that role first, as it can be a more direct route into television or film (if that's the goal) than simply cutting. You won't find any want ads looking for "Editor, $200 million feature film, at least six weeks experience." You will, however, have a reasonable chance of getting a foot in the door if you are strongly prepared and able to provide both editing skills and the type of support a project will need.

Just in time for a new term for film students, a new edition of Norman Hollyn's book has arrived. It's focused exactly on the skills an Assistant Editor needs.


There's also a Kindle version, ready for instant download. I'll be adding it to my iPhone in a few weeks, when I start commuting again by train. Perfect subway reading, don't you think?

Nothing To See There

My students are cutting a scene from a cancelled TV show. It's straightforward: a character walks into an office, talks to two other characters, is introduced to a guest, delivers a few key lines. It's shot in "single-camera" style, meaning the camera is generally on one character in one framing while all the characters run the scene. Next framing, repeat.

So the idea is fairly clear: assemble meaning from shots that are generally ready to cut together, but watch out for the inevitable small problems. Then find ways to keep the scene flowing nicely, to have it hit its key emotional points, and -- in this case -- to make the editing essentially invisible.

They seem to be enjoying it.

Above: my students are amused that I photograph banal details, like the floor.

In A World Something Something, One Man Stands Alone

Today I'm giving a lecture on editing structure in film trailers. There's more to it than the text below, with lots of examples and ideas and such, but here are the basic background notes. For what they're worth.

Editing Film Trailers

A film trailer combines storytelling with persuasion.

Editing a film is about story structure.

There's a beginning, that brings us into a new world. It usually starts with a hook -- a short, very interesting part, like a well-told joke, that sets the tone for the film and shows us it will be good. Then we meet the characters, and learn about this world and begin to care about it. The beginning usually ends by revealing a big problem.

The middle usually involves the characters trying to solve this problem. Usually their struggles pull us into greater complications -- and usually raise the stakes or lead to even more critical problems.

The end is usually a showdown: we move toward the moment when a character's struggle -- internal or external -- reaches a major test or confrontation or decision. Usually there's some resolution after this, as the world settles after all the upset.

A trailer, however, has a different goal and different rules. The goal is to get people to buy a ticket to a film (or buy the DVD, or order the film on-demand) so we can't use "pure" story structure -- that would give away the ending -- and we have to use persuasion techniques to “sell” the film to the audience.

Persuasion techniques go back thousands of years. Aristotle identified three basic persuasion techniques:

• Appeal based on authority.
• Appeal based on reason.
• Appeal based on emotion.

There are others that work -- and you've seen all types of them in commercials. These three are still the main persuasive appeals, though, and show up in film trailers.

When you see elements that tell us who the actors, director or producers are -- this is persuasion based on the authority of the filmmakers.

When you see lists of awards a film has won, or quotes from great reviews, that's an appeal to your reason.

When the trailer itself makes you feel a certain way, that's a persuasive appeal.

A typical trailer structure:

• A hook - gets our interest, reveals the style of the film.
• Reveal a new world. Now show us the big problem.
• Show us the characters -- and the problem gets deeper.
• 60 percent in, there’s a big reveal, often character motivation.
• Then we drive toward a big showdown.
• We end on a “final note.”

Little Eisenstein

As in past years, I'm having my editing class take the famous "Odessa Steps" sequence from Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin -- 7 minutes and 19 seconds long -- and work to cut 30 seconds out of it without ruining it. (Try it yourself: grab the Eisenstein film over at archive.org.)

Some students just make shots shorter, and some completely remove elements you or I might say are essential to the story. Every time I do this exercise, at least one student misunderstands: "Here it is," they proudly say, "I cut it down to 30 seconds."

But First, Arm Wrestling And A Slap Fight

I really enjoyed this post by Maria Lokken. One of the reasons I have my students read books by both Walter Murch and Ralph Rosenblum is to give them a sense that often the relationship between director and editor is more important than just knowing how to edit. No matter which role you are playing -- or if you are both -- the process of moving from production phase to editing phase can make or break a film. If the wrong goal is set, or if the wrong parameters are drawn, the editing process will not lead to a great outcome.

So how can a director make that process work?

Working with an editor

"Once I hand everything over I walk away. Yes, walk away. Let him or her work with it like a sculptor with clay. Let them put their creative stamp on it, and see where it takes the piece. You can always pull back. But it takes longer to get something out of an editor if you’ve shut them down from the beginning by saying this is the way it has to be, no changes, no exceptions."

Ted's Ideas On Editing Chase Scenes

On Wednesday I'm giving a lecture in one of my classes on editing chase scenes. I've given it a few times before, and it's usually a pretty big hit -- it seems to really help students get a handle on some basic editing concepts.

They may never edit a chase scene, but the bigger point is that they learn to develop a rational plan to make an otherwise complicated and confusing set of shots seem completely coherent, comprehensible, and clear.

We look at clips from about a dozen films, and illustrate the ideas below.

BIG IDEAS OF CHASE EDITING -- AND HOW THEY APPLY TO ALL EDITING

1. IDENTIFICATION
How do we know which character is which? Does one wear a white cowboy hat and the other a black one? Does one have a red car and the other blue? Is the pickup basketball game shirts versus skins?

2. LANDMARKS
If we see the leader pass the big red building, then ten seconds later the other, we know how far apart the characters are. Often, a camera will stay at a landmark position, and pan from one character to another.

3. ADVANTAGE
If a car is chasing a moped, the car has a clear advantage. But when the moped goes into the subway and the car driver follows on foot, now the moped has the advantage.

4. STATUS AND STRENGTH
Is a character gaining or falling behind? A shot where the camera is pulling away, or where the character is catching up to the camera may tell us. A shot with both characters in it might reveal the relative status as well.

5. EMOTIONAL STATE AND ATTENTION
We want to know what the character is thinking, feeling and doing -- so a cut to a shot through the windshield might reveal the character's expression. Or a cut to the foot on the brake might tell us what's happening. Or a closeup on the gear shift. Make careful note of where the character looks -- the next shot might be their "point of view."

6. CAMERA POSITION
A camera can be low in the front of a car, can look out the rear window, can sit in the passenger seat, can look down at the brake pedal -- and all of these shots are useful. It can run alongside the moped as it plunges down the stairs. It can turn to watch the car streak by. It can shake, float, or fly.

7. SCREEN DIRECTION
If a car goes from screen left to screen right, we expect it to keep doing that unless we some change -- a shot where it turns, or where we "move" into the car before coming back out. And we expect the car chasing to also maintain consistent screen direction -- unless we see a change happen.

8. SOUND
If we cut from the big black car to the little red sports car -- should the sound change right on that cut? Or should it change in other ways? Do we want to hear the sound of the car coming toward us, then going away?

9. TAKE A PACING BREATHER
Even in a short chase, all go-go-go action wears thin. It's usually more exciting to have a lot of action, then a tiny pacing "deep breath" before the big finish.

10. CUT TO THE CONSEQUENCES
That tank chasing the laser-guided skateboard just knocked over every fruit stand in aisle 19. Maybe we could cut back to see what happened, and the angry manager shaking her fist at us? Or maybe our wheel can't take much more and is starting to wobble -- maybe a closeup to reveal that?

The Killers: Editing Made Hard

When I teach, my main goal is to take complex ideas and make them much more difficult.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I try to demystify, and I try to clarify, and I try to put things into a framework people can work with and understand. I want to deliver a comprehensible version of difficult material. I just don't think the idea of "making things simple" is very helpful, especially in editing.

Tomorrow I have to teach my editing class at Bronx Community College. I'm going to be looking into how the same scene can be shot and edited in completely different ways. I'm showing three scenes from films that use Ernest Hemingway's short story "The Killers" as basic source material:

The Killers (1946)
Ubiytsy (1958)
The Killers (1964)

It's a great opportunity to demonstrate that the mechanics of filmmaking -- shot selection, camera movement and editing -- are malleable in the hands of artists. The same scene, made into three very different experiences by the choices of the director and editor.

(These are all available on the Criterion Collection disk below.)

Update on Books on Editing

It turns out there's a new edition for "Grammar of the Edit" so I want to update my list of the editing books I'm teaching from. The change means my students have to read more. They were quite upset to hear that, but I think they'll be okay.

Ted's 10 Ideas on Editing

A new term has started, and while things are cut way back this year, it is again the time to think about the ideas behind editing. So here's a short list I use with my students to discuss the main concepts.

Ted's 10 Ideas on Editing

At each edit in a work, an editor should consider the following checklist. Not every edit can fulfill each "check," so part of the editor's job is to weigh the importance of each concern and decide what "works."

CONTINUITY CHECKS

1. New Information
The main concern at any single cut, if one is really going to use the language of moving images, is that the cut give the viewer new information. Otherwise, why cut?

2. 3-D Continuity (Matching)
To create a believable action, a cut must "match." That is, if one cuts from a wide shot of a baseball pitcher to a close up during a pitch, the position of the throwing arm at the cut must "match" between the two shots, even if the shots are filmed months apart.

3. 2-D Continuity (Eye Trace)
No one takes in a frame all at once; the eye moves around the screen. Take this attention into account when making a cut -- one may wish to cut so that the focus of attention is at the same place on the screen, or at a different place, moving the same direction or moving in opposition, depending on the effect desired.

4. Composition
It is generally less jarring to the eye and brain when a cut is made from a well-composed shot to a well-composed shot.

5. Camera Angle
It usually helps if one is cutting to a camera angle that is different enough from the current one so as to be easily understood as a new shot; also it is generally better to cut from a good camera angle to a good camera angle rather than when at a "messier" point in a shot.

6. Audio
Cut in such a way that visuals work with audio and vice versa. Also, maintain sensible audio continuity (e.g., if we cut from a shot inside a speeding car to a close up of a helicopter following it, the audio may need to change with the cut based on where we "are" in relation to the sources of sounds).

THE "R.E.S.T."

7. Rhythm
We can set up "expectations" in a viewers mind by setting up a rhythm; this can also mean making edits work with the beat of a piece of music or with a certain pace of action.

8. Emotion
If a character is in a certain state of mind, editing may reflect their perception, or if the viewer is expected to feel a certain way then editing may amplify that state of mind, sometimes purposefully breaking the "rules" of the six continuity checks. For example, it may make sense to cut a fight scene in a discontinous manner.

9. Story
Each edit ultimately serves the telling of a story; the idea here is that one may cut on a certain frame or to a certain shot to serve that story rather than the conventional continuity concerns.

10. Timing
Sometimes an edit is motivated by that intangible idea of timing -- the point where it just feels right.

Editing Books

I'm teaching an editing class this term and we're using three good books for editors. Which means I'll be rereading all three....

Last Book Read: Ralph Rosenblum

Sure, I've been away from the blog. It's true. I've been busy, sick, swamped and just plain away. And it's been quite a while. Now I'm back.

Usually, when I read, I try to do so in big chunks. I'd rather experience a book, live with it, rather than just chip away at it. That hasn't been possible, lately, though, so my reading has consisted of 10 minutes here, 5 minutes there, between and around tasks. Still, eventually you get to the end.

I've just finished Ralph Rosenblum's When The Shooting Stops ... The Cutting Begins: A Film Editor's Story.

I'm adding it to my fall curriculum -- I'll be teaching a basic editing class -- so I thought I'd re-read it. It's really a delight. As a person's life story, it's a sharply-told account that details Rosenblum's career as one of the most significant editors of his time. From the standpoint of editing, a few highlights not to miss:

• his invention of flashback techniques in "The Pawnbroker"
• his nightmares working with first-time directors -- and their egos
• his account of the changing conception of what an editor does
• his collaboration with Woody Allen, remaking the films in the edit

Best of all, at least from the viewpoint of my students: it's a theory-free glimpse over a feature editor's shoulder, letting you spend time in the cutting room of one of the pioneers of contemporary editing. A great read.

Ted's List of Five Annoying Editing "Ideas"

I see a lot of student edits. A lot. A whole lot.

If I had to guess the exact number ... well, last year I taught at least 10 online courses that required at least two edited projects, and I taught two face-to-face courses that required at least five edited projects.... Figure twenty students per class, and that's in the range of 600 edited videos I graded by watching at full speed and then frame-by-frame. More, if you count rough drafts.

So I'm aware of the usual editing mistakes, and the traditional gimmicks. I'm somewhat forgiving of those, at least in student work. Lately, though, I'm seeing that some of the bad ideas expected of first-time editors are working their way into "professional" work.

Here's my list of five crap ideas that I'm noticing more and more, as if they've escaped from jail...

5. The Martial Arts Whoosh Sound Cut
Adding swooshy sounds to give a reason for a cut doesn't actually give a motivation to a cut -- it just adds swooshy sounds. Every time I see this -- and it's on the increase -- I think of someone doing fake martial arts moves and making woosh sounds with their mouth. Whoom! Fshhhh! Bam! Just add the sounds, then cut on them, as if there's a reason for it.

4. The Record Scratch Effect "Joke"
This is a dumb joke with no actual humor in it. Start a list of anything, throw in an item that doesn't belong, add a record scratch sound on it and cut back to it. Dumb, and ever-increasingly-popular.

3. The Overemphasized Freeze Frame
Used well, a freeze frame can make sense. It emphasizes a moment. Combined with a graphic, it can introduce a character. I think it can be thought of like punctuation, though, and if you need exclamation points in every sentence, something's wrong.

2. The Unnecessary Flashback
Sure, the character certainly is motivated by that thing that happened a while back. But we were there, watching it with you. Do you really need to show it to us again? I didn't hear any Teletubbies say "again, again" -- and I really did pay attention when you showed it to me before. Why torment me?

1. Flashy Flashy Syndrome
Every once in a while, I get the sense that an editor thinks I'm a baby and that they need to flash shiny stuff at me or my attention may wander. Or maybe they're afraid I'll notice that not much is really happening? In any case, tossing in tons of unnecessary flashy transitional stuff isn't style, but its opposite.

So, where does this stuff come from? Is it simply that everyone has a computer and teachers are no longer able to say that certain things are lame? Is it a combination of access and too much self-esteem?

Maybe. Maybe the roots of this are in a few key films, though, that have influenced a lot of young editors. Maybe we're just seeing the diluted, low-quality version of a genuine attempt to stretch the practice of editing.

I can think of at least one film that abuses all five of these rules and is still really watchable. Embedded above, find Beat the Devil.

Frugal Traveler, Hawaii

Editing this episode of Frugal Traveler: Hawaii was a strangely textbook process. I don't mean mechanical by any means. Not at all. Rather, it went through very specific phases, progressing from an impossibly long first draft, through an intractable second version, eventually reaching that moment I still don't quite understand: when the piece becomes watchable.

Here's what I mean: the first assembly was 45 minutes long. (The final piece is exactly 7 minutes long.) Once this was done, I cut away at the material, but found I couldn't make a coherent version with my normal way of working.

Then, after a lot of struggle, I found that this particular piece wanted to be edited backwards: work on the ending, then the material before that, and continue back to the beginning. Seems strange after the fact, but that's what worked....

Structure

On Monday, I had my video editing class interview each other. Our topic: bad dancers. We shot with 2 Canon GL2s, one on a tripod and one handheld. A shotgun mic was setup on a stand, running into a BeachTek and into a GL2.

Today I had the footage from those interviews ready for them, and they started the process of getting to know the material, trying to find a beginning and an ending and the best bits, and trying to make order out of chaos.

Great fun. We'll see how the pieces turn out....

Trailer Theory

I did a little unit with my video class on editing movie trailers. We looked at about 20 old horror film trailers, then some trailer mashups -- for example, one that makes "The Shining" look like a Romantic Comedy and one that makes "West Side Story" look like a zombie movie -- and finally a few contemporary trailers.

One of the big points: the old techniques of Persuasion still apply, not any that different from how Aristotle thought of them.

You appeal to the emotions, trying your best to show a viewer that they can identify with the characters in the film and that it will make them feel a certain way. You appeal to the viewer also based on the reputation of the filmmakers and the actors in the film and the reviews the film has received. And you make a case that the film is about something the viewer should care about and want to see.

Beyond this: the marketing folks insist: there must be five "movie moments" -- five images one would want to see, selling the experience of seeing the film.

Eisensteinian Diminution

So, in my video editing class today I gave a lesson I've taught before: we take the famous "Odessa Steps" sequence from Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin -- 7 minutes and 19 seconds long -- and work to cut 30 seconds out of it without ruining it.

It's a great process, and for those of you who enjoy editing I suggest you give it a shot. (You can grab the Eisenstein film over at archive.org.)

In any case, every student has their own ideas of what shots are crucial to the edit, and which can go away. Sometimes people are very conservative -- just making shots shorter, but keeping them -- and sometimes they go right for elements you or I might say are critical to the story ... and cut them right out.

It never fails, however: at least one student misunderstands: "Here it is," they proudly say, "I cut it down to 30 seconds."

Some Thoughts on Editing a Chase

Here are some ideas I went over with my editing class last week. The notion was that if we can understand the editing systems used in a well-made chase scene, it will help us understand editing in general.

1. IDENTIFICATION
How do we know which character is which? Does one wear a white cowboy hat and the other a black one? Does one have a red car and the other blue? Is the pickup basketball game shirts versus skins?

2. LANDMARKS
If we see the leader pass the big red building, then ten seconds later the chaser, we know how far apart the characters are. Often, a camera will stay at a landmark position, and pan from one character to another.

3. ADVANTAGE
If a car is chasing a moped, the car has a clear advantage. But when the moped goes into the subway and the car driver follows on foot, now the moped has the advantage.

4. STATUS AND STRENGTH
Is a character gaining or falling behind? A shot where the camera is pulling away, or where the character is catching up to the camera may tell us. A shot with both characters in it might reveal the relative status as well.

5. EMOTIONAL STATE AND ATTENTION
We want to know what the character is thinking, feeling and doing -- so a cut to a shot through the windshield might reveal the character's expression. Or a cut to the foot on the brake might tell us what's happening. Or a closeup on the gear shift. Make careful note of where the character looks -- the next shot might be their "point of view."

6. CAMERA POSITION
A camera can be low in the front of a car, can look out the rear window, can sit in the passenger seat, can look down at the brake pedal -- and all of these shots are useful. It can run alongside the moped as it plunges down the stairs. It can turn to watch the car streak by. It can shake, float, or fly.

7. SCREEN DIRECTION
If a car goes from screen left to screen right, we expect it to keep doing that unless we some change -- a shot where it turns, or where we "move" into the car before coming back out. And we expect the car chasing to also maintain consistent screen direction -- unless we see a change happen.

8. SOUND
If we cut from the big black car to the little red sports car -- should the sound change right on that cut? Or should it change in other ways? Do we want to hear the sound of the car coming toward us, then going away?

9. TAKE A PACING BREATHER
Even in a short chase, all go-go-go action wears thin. It's usually more exciting to have a lot of action, then a tiny pacing "deep breath" before the big finish.

10. CUT TO THE CONSEQUENCES
That tank chasing the laser-guided skateboard just knocked over every fruit stand in aisle 19. Maybe we could cut back to see what happened, and the angry manager shaking her fist at us? Or maybe our wheel can't take much more and is starting to wobble -- maybe a closeup to reveal that?

Rewatching and Rehearing

In general, if you make video work you get better at it over time. It's a slower improvement than in a field like photography -- where sometimes you go from little understanding to a high level of seeing in just a matter of weeks. Still, over time you get better at understanding why something works or doesn't work, and your ideas on how to cut become more refined.

Well, I recently had to watch a number of older pieces I made (I was assembling them for a portfolio) and went through the experience of re-thinking each cut as I watched them. It's not an easy process.

The biggest surprise was that I've learned a lot about audio continuity in the last year -- and that was the main thing I thought the older pieces lacked. The idea of how sound lets us orient ourselves in an imagined place and how each soundscape can flow into the next is something I had not always been thinking about. I think I still have a lot to learn about it, so I'm looking for ways to practice that set of skills....

The Best Books on Editing Theory

I've had a few conversations about editing theory lately, and always I point to the three books by or about Walter Murch as great background material. To me, these are the closest most of us will get to watching over the shoulder of someone like Murch -- an expert practioner and a brilliant theorist.

And all three books are entertaining, as well....

In the Blink of an Eye Revised 2nd Edition

The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film

Behind the Seen: How Walter Murch Edited Cold Mountain Using Apple's Final Cut Pro and What This Means for Cinema, First Edition