Film editing

Like director-cameraman or director-actor relationships, the director-editor relationship is of great importance. Once a good relationship is established between and editor and director, they tend to work together on numerous projects. Each will know what to expect from one another and will in turn create respectable work for one another. An editor is looking for flexibility; enough material to work with to create the best overall production possible. When there is plenty of coverage of scenes, it gives the editor much more to work with in order to accomplish this task.  Film editing is used to determine which shots are to be used where and when. Editing is also used to determine which shots should be preserved, which should be broken up and which should be cut out completely (called out-takes). Because many films are shot out of sequence, it is the job of the editor to put the film in the order in which it is intended and to create the final product. Films are often shot out of continuity. That is, all shots to be made at one location are recorded at the same time, regardless of when they occur in the script.  Film editing usually begins the same time as the production begins. The raw footage of that particular day’s shot will be given to the editor, which in turn is presented to the director (known as a daily or work print). The editor, director and producer view each day’s work print in order to evaluate how well things are going. After viewing and approving the footage, the editor catalogues it before beginning a rough-cut. The best editors are able to determine immediately which shots will work visually and which will not. They will try to integrate the best aspects of every shot, determining how to make it seem as though everything occurred in one single shot.  Once the picture has wrapped, it is now up to the editor to produce an initial cut of the overall production. The editor cuts together various pieces of film into a single visual track and an accompanying sound track. The sound editor is a specialist who constructs and organizes all the various sound elements so that they can be properly blended or mixed together into a final soundtrack. Typically an editor will try and make the film as close a relation to the shooting script as possible. Sometimes this is just not a possibility for some previously unseen circumstance, and the editor must decide the best version of the picture that they can possibly put together.

The film will take on many versions during the postproduction process. It will go through the editing room where the editor will make his cut and the director will make his cut, both leaving the scenes that they believe will create the best picture. Differing viewpoints are common, and when the studio gets involved it may even become quite hectic. The producer may work with the director on the editing and some of the composing of the final picture, but in general, the director, editor and composer work together on the final cut.  The best way to describe the director-composer relationship during the editing process is summed up perfectly by Abraham Polonsky. He states, “Although I don’t tell the composer what to do, because I’m not a composer, I tell him where the music should go, and I tell him what it should be like. And ten I treat him like an actor or a cameraman, even though music is an independent art. So is acting. So is editing. So is writing. So is photography. They’re all independent arts subject to the director or the script. So I treat music the same way. I try and get the musician to respond to my sense of what the picture means, and then hope his talent, which I don’t have, will invent something that will make my idea even better that it is.” The importance or unimportance of editing is all dependent on the particular director. Alfred Hitchcock left little room for editing. It was his concern that you spend millions of dollars creating a picture and then place it in the hands of someone who may be indifferent to the film and may leave you with a less than satisfying result. Brian De Palmaonce said, “When I shoot a film, I know exactly what’s going to end up on the screen. There are few surprises in the editing room”. There are those that do believe that editing is a crucial part of the filmmaking process, such as Franklin Schaffner, “Some of the most stunning moments occur when you are in the editing room”. Because the filmBorn on the Fourth of July took such a long time to develop (the initial talk for the film began in 1978 and was supposed to star Al Pacino), along with the story hitting so close to home, director Oliver Stonetook a very different approach to the editing process for this picture. Stone himself was an ex Vietnam war vet, and had been in close contact with Ron Kovic for a number of years before the picture was finally produced in 1989 (starring Tom Cruise). Most directors normally have their editors prepare what is known as a “rough cut”, the dropped sequences, or outtakes. Instead, for this film, Stone had his editors choose “selects”, which were camera takes that they put in sequential order (according to the script) for further consideration.  For example, for any particular scene, fourteen thousand feet of film might be printed, then five thousand feet of “selects” chosen, including two to five takes of that scene. When they had finally finished the first cut of the entire film, it was eleven hours long. The material was then discussed between the directors and the editors; what they felt were the more important scenes in the picture. Stone and the editors decided upon what they felt was the best of the takes and stored the others as “alternates”. The first version of the final cut suffered from technical mistakes and an excess of material, which made it tiring. Version two lacked emotional impact. The next version was done documentary style with no reaction shots. Finally after weeks of deliberation a version was settled upon, which is essentially what you will see today.