Movie editing is something that is often taken for granted. The discussion of editing on the movie, 1917, has certainly brought it more to the forefront. An editor could sometimes be called the second director because the way they “cut” a movie can change it dramatically. The Cutting Edge shows how editing has changed from a technical standpoint but also from a creative perspective. A shot that lingered for more than a few seconds would be frowned upon now that we’ve been through the MTV generation. This is truly a documentary in the way it’s told and viewed from the viewpoint of editors of some of the biggest movies of all time. It’s slow in spots but interesting none the less. I think the thing that I took away more than anything is how much an editor can change the tone of a movie just by the way a few frames are added or removed from a scene. Multiple that by about 5,000 different edits in a movie and you begin to see the scope of what an editor really does. To be able to take 200 hours of filmed footage and reduce it to 2 hours is an amazing accomplishment. I would also say that when people talk about a Director’s Cut of a movie, a more accurate description would be an Editor’s Cut. Certainly the director has the final say but the editor is the one that shapes the film.
Follow-up…
As you can see from the past few movies I have been watching, I’m kinda on a documentary kick, specifically about movie-making. This movie was one that I really wanted to see because it seemed to go into detail about a very unknown part of the process. I tried to track it down and found that it was currently showing on Starz since it was produced by that network. The other option was DVD. Used copies ran from $155 to $12. A friend was also interested in seeing it so I thought I’d get the DVD, watch it and pass it along. Amazon said it would take a couple weeks before it shipped so I should receive it at the end of April. In the meantime, I saw that even though I’m not a subscriber with Starz, it would still allow me to set a recording for it during a middle of the night showing. I expected to get 90 minutes of a notice that you aren’t a subscriber on screen. To my surprise, it showed up on Wednesday, the 15th so after watching another great episode of Survivor, I launched into it. The next morning, I shipped it off to my friend so that he could check it out as well. On Thursday night I was going through my DVR listings and saw that it had recorded. I hit play and there it was in all its glory. It recorded just fine. Why? I have no idea but sure enough it was there. There was no need to buy it after all but this way I got to share it with my friend. I hope to post his review soon.
Movie editing is something that is often taken for granted. The discussion of editing on the movie, 1917, has certainly brought it more to the forefront. An editor could sometimes be called the second director because the way they “cut” a movie can change it dramatically. The Cutting Edge shows how editing has changed from a technical standpoint but also from a creative perspective. A shot that lingered for more than a few seconds would be frowned upon now that we’ve been through the MTV generation. This is truly a documentary in the way it’s told and viewed from the viewpoint of editors of some of the biggest movies of all time. It’s slow in spots but interesting none the less. I think the thing that I took away more than anything is how much an editor can change the tone of a movie just by the way a few frames are added or removed from a scene. Multiple that by about 5,000 different edits in a movie and you begin to see the scope of what an editor really does. To be able to take 200 hours of filmed footage and reduce it to 2 hours is an amazing accomplishment. I would also say that when people talk about a Director’s Cut of a movie, a more accurate description would be an Editor’s Cut. Certainly the director has the final say but the editor is the one that shapes the film.
Follow-up…
As you can see from the past few movies I have been watching, I’m kinda on a documentary kick, specifically about movie-making. This movie was one that I really wanted to see because it seemed to go into detail about a very unknown part of the process. I tried to track it down and found that it was currently showing on Starz since it was produced by that network. The other option was DVD. Used copies ran from $155 to $12. A friend was also interested in seeing it so I thought I’d get the DVD, watch it and pass it along. Amazon said it would take a couple weeks before it shipped so I should receive it at the end of April. In the meantime, I saw that even though I’m not a subscriber with Starz, it would still allow me to set a recording for it during a middle of the night showing. I expected to get 90 minutes of a notice that you aren’t a subscriber on screen. To my surprise, it showed up on Wednesday, the 15th so after watching another great episode of Survivor, I launched into it. The next morning, I shipped it off to my friend so that he could check it out as well. On Thursday night I was going through my DVR listings and saw that it had recorded. I hit play and there it was in all its glory. It recorded just fine. Why? I have no idea but sure enough it was there. There was no need to buy it after all but this way I got to share it with my friend. I hope to post his review soon.