How Does an Editor Think and Feel?

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

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

So I started talking about organizing
footage and doing selects

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

And I couldn't
describe it at all!

Like a lot of editors,
I cut based on instinct

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

It's the process of your thinking.

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

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

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

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

How does an editor
think and feel?

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

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

And the great actors
understand that they

Convey more through
their eyes than through dialogue

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

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

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

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

"Elliot, sweetheart!"
"Mhm?"

"Have you tried these?
These are wonderful!"

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

That's what you're doing!'"

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

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

Like when he's
making a decision

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

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

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

The next concept was
really hard for me to learn:

Emotions take time

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

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

(Speaking Chinese)

(Door shuts)

And time to watch
them afterwards

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

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

What do you feel
while watching this?

Now let's try it again

What do you feel
while watching this?

Was it a different emotion?

Editing is full of
decisions like these,

Where four seconds
makes a big difference

And these choices are difficult.
There are no right answers

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

(Speaking Chinese)

But other emotions play
better over multiple shots,

So you can build up
and come down

Consider this scene, where
Luke Skywalker tests his skill

(Breathes out)

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

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

(Inspirational music playing)

(R2 beeps)

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

(Yoda sighs softly, sadly)

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

than they were
the first time

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

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

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

But what happens if
you shorten this timing?

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

See if you can feel
the difference

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

(Ant laughs)

(Scott) They're not
listening to me!

Did you believe
that emotion?

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

By comparison,
Luke Skywalker's failure

Took 30 seconds

People aren't machines,

We need time to
feel the emotion,

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

We don't believe it.

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

A lot of things
I don't believe.

I think people are
sticking stuff out there

And asking you
to believe it,

But they're not making
you believe it."

And making it believable
is really hard.

(Man) "Let Red go."

Because timing is not
a conscious process,

You're just responding
to the fact

That every shot has
a natural rhythm

(Three gunshots)

(Wood breaking)

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

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

And editing is...

70% about rhythm."

(Man yelling at woman)

Sometimes the rhythm
is obvious,

Like when the actor is doing
something really physical

(Music intensifying)

But other times
it's quite subtle

For instance, the rhythm of
people walking back and forth

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

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

And, I actually think
they're harder to edit

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

When the shot
wants you to cut

Classical Hollywood editing is
all about cutting with the rhythm

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

The cut happens
so naturally

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

That you don't
notice it.

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

But you don't always
have to be invisible

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

Like if someone
is agitated

(Heels clicking on floor)

And other moments
play better

If you actually cut to make
the audience uncomfortable.

(Water sizzling)

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

Sometimes hold just
a little bit too long...

(Water sizzling)

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

What really matters is, what
reaction you want from people

(Two gunshots)

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

And that brings me
to my last point:

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

I only know
one way:

Practice.

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

You can explain the
rudiments of dance,

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

You have to cut.

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

That's unique to you.

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

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

(Khan) "The beautiful
thing about editing is,

I guess maybe
writers feel that way,

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

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

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

So take it one shot
at a time,

Because if you watch
any image,

(Man) "You really care?"

You'll see it has an
emotion and a rhythm

(Woman sniffing
and breathing heavy)

And you have
to feel...

When...

To...