WEBVTT

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Hi, my name is Tony, and this
is Every Frame A Painting

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The other day, someone asked me
to describe my editing process

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So I started talking about organizing
footage and doing selects

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And she said, "No, your actual process;
like, how do you know when to cut?"

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And I couldn't
describe it at all!

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Like a lot of editors,
I cut based on instinct

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(Kahn) "Nothing gets in
the way of the editing process...

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It's the process of your thinking.

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I don't cut from
what I call 'knowledge'.

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I have to come into it
and I have to feel it."

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It's the same way for me. I have
to think and feel my way through the edit

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So today, I'd like to talk
about that process:

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How does an editor
think and feel?

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The first thing you need to know is
that editing is all about the eyes

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More than any other factor, the eyes
tell you the emotion of the scene

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And the great actors
understand that they

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Convey more through
their eyes than through dialogue

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(Caine) "I said, 'Well, I
haven't got anything to say,'

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So he said, 'What do you mean
you haven't got anything to say?'

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He says 'Of course you've got things to
say! You've got wonderful things to say!

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But you sit there and listen, think of
these extraordinary things to say...

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"Elliot, sweetheart!"
"Mhm?"

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"Have you tried these?
These are wonderful!"

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...and then decide not to say them!
(Laughter)

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That's what you're doing!'"

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And when I'm watching footage,
this is what I'm looking for:

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Moments where I can see
a change in the actor's eyes

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Like when he's
making a decision

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Shots like these are powerful because
they work so well with other shots

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For instance, when we cut from
his eyes to what he's looking at

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It tells us, without words,
what he's thinking

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The next concept was
really hard for me to learn:

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Emotions take time

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When we watch people on screen,
we feel a connection to them

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And that's because we have time
to watch their faces before they speak

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(Speaking Chinese)

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(Door shuts)

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And time to watch
them afterwards

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Editors have to decide: "How
much time do I give this emotion?"

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So let's try an exercise:
look at this shot

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What do you feel
while watching this?

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Now let's try it again

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What do you feel
while watching this?

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Was it a different emotion?

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Editing is full of
decisions like these,

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Where four seconds
makes a big difference

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And these choices are difficult.
There are no right answers

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Some emotions play better if you
see them in a single, continuous shot

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(Speaking Chinese)

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But other emotions play
better over multiple shots,

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So you can build up
and come down

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Consider this scene, where
Luke Skywalker tests his skill

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(Breathes out)

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To make this simpler, let's just focus on
how long each shot is held for

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Notice that as we build, each shot gets
shorter and shorter towards the climax

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(Inspirational music playing)

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(R2 beeps)

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But after five shots, we hit
the peak and start coming down

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(Yoda sighs softly, sadly)

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Not only are the shots getting longer
again, they're actually held for longer

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than they were
the first time

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And this whole sequence spends about 15
seconds going up, but twice that amount

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coming down, so that we, the audience,
have time to feel Luke's failure

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(Breathing heavily)
"I can't, it's too big."

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But what happens if 
you shorten this timing?

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Let's take a look at a very similar
scene, done more recently

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See if you can feel
the difference

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(Hank) You can do
it Scott, come on!

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(Ant laughs)

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(Scott) They're not
listening to me!

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Did you believe
that emotion?

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Because in this scene, Scott's
failure took 30 frames

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By comparison,
Luke Skywalker's failure

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Took 30 seconds

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People aren't machines,

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We need time to
feel the emotion,

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And if the movie
doesn't give it to us...

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We don't believe it.

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(Schoonmaker) "And I'm finding
in movies, recently, that I've seen,

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A lot of things
I don't believe.

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I think people are
sticking stuff out there

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And asking you
to believe it,

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But they're not making
you believe it."

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And making it believable
is really hard.

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(Man) "Let Red go."

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Because timing is not
a conscious process,


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You're just responding
to the fact

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That every shot has
a natural rhythm

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(Three gunshots)

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(Wood breaking)

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(Murch) "There's an in-built relationship
between the story itself and

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How to tell a story, and the rhythm
with which you tell it,

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And editing is...

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70% about rhythm."

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(Man yelling at woman)

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Sometimes the rhythm
is obvious,

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Like when the actor is doing
something really physical

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(Music intensifying)

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But other times
it's quite subtle

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For instance, the rhythm of
people walking back and forth

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Or the rhythm of a restaurant,
with cooks, customers, waitresses...

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These rhythms are closer to
what we feel in everyday life,

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And, I actually think
they're harder to edit

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But if you watch anything over and over
again, you eventually feel the moment

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When the shot
wants you to cut

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Classical Hollywood editing is
all about cutting with the rhythm

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And this is what we mean when
we say that editing is invisible

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The cut happens
so naturally

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(Man) "Now is there anything else
you'd like to know about me?"

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That you don't
notice it.

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(Man) "Would you like
to go over to my room?"

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But you don't always
have to be invisible

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Some emotions play better
if you cut in a jarring way,

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Like if someone
is agitated

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(Heels clicking on floor)

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And other moments
play better

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If you actually cut to make
the audience uncomfortable.

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(Water sizzling)

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(Schoonmaker) "One of the things Marty's
always encouraged us to do is to

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Sometimes hold just
a little bit too long...

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(Water sizzling)

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And then make a cut,
if it's justified."

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What really matters is, what
reaction you want from people

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(Two gunshots)

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Because sometimes, you can
only get that with an unusual cut

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And that brings me
to my last point:

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If editing is so instinctive,
how do you learn it?

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I only know
one way:

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Practice.

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(Murch) "And editing is very
similar to dance in that way,

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You can explain the
rudiments of dance,

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But to really learn how to
dance, you have to dance."

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You have to cut.

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And as you cut, you'll develop
a sense of rhythm and emotion

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That's unique to you.

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I've been doing it for ten
years and I'm still not there

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But whenever I'm frustrated by an edit,
I think about something Michael Khan said

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(Khan) "The beautiful
thing about editing is,

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I guess maybe
writers feel that way,

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I see all that film up there, doesn't
matter, I'm doing one piece at a time

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One scene at a time,
one cut at a time.

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And there's a lot of film,
I just do one thing at a time."

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So take it one shot
at a time,

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Because if you watch
any image,

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(Man) "You really care?"

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You'll see it has an
emotion and a rhythm

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(Woman sniffing
and breathing heavy)

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And you have
to feel...

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When...

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To...