I’ve been mad for film books lately - books about the craft, art and science of filmmaking, in particular about editing. I rode on down to my local library branch and didn’t expect much - the Gresham branch is smallish - but found a wealth of great books on the subject. Enough micro-reading! Time for some macro-reading.
The first one I found, Editing & Post-Production Screencraft by McGrath Declan was a large, gorgeous full-color book that delves into the unseen craft of film editors. It shows frame-by-frame storyboards from the movies, shown together with original notes (scribblings and all) about the sequence. There’s running commentary from the editors about their thought processes and frame of mind while editing these sequences. This is fascinating and insightful, yielding revealing behind-the-scenes details about famous films that would never have been exposed any other way (short of a documentary, I suppose).
Another sleek and glossy soft-cover book I found was The Essential DV Handbook by Pete May. It delves into real-world examples of practical digital video production, and is replete with large screen grabs of video frames and software applications. The format is fresh and inviting, and the content was pretty up-to-date.
Scott Billups’ Digital Moviemaking (Second Edition) seemed the dull cousin of May’s book at first glance (recall my micro-reading), but on further examination is truly a jewel of nuts-and-bolts, everyday filmmaking knowledge. Want to know why camera calibration is important? What format should I shoot in? How are new digital tools and distribution networks changing the game for video content (and what’s not changing)? There’s a lot of hard-won experience imparted here as well from a tough, weathered film professional with a colorful personality.
One must be careful when reading print literature about current film and video techniques—these techniques and the tools are constantly being supplanted by new ones, in “internet time”. Most of these books are written with an awareness of this constant motion; the best ones transcend it and move deeper into the soul of the medium.
Ever since reading an Apple.com/pro article about Walter Murch editing Cold Mountain on Final Cut Pro, I’ve been fascinated by his work. Most of us might remember the director’s names attached to famous films we’ve all seen; few would recall who edited movies such as The Godfather Part III, Apocalypse Now, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, or The English Patient. The answer, of course, is Walter Murch. He approaches the craft of editing with intensity, incredible craftsmanship, and even more importantly, expansive and deep theories on human perception and the nature of visual storytelling.
If I had to pick only one film book out of the basket that I found, it would be this one. Murch’s book, In the Blink of an Eye roams from the question “why to [jump] cuts work?” to touch on the mysteries of filmmaking, the relationship between dreams and film, and the act of blinking itself provides insight into how humans perceive narrative. He convincingly ties all of this into the physical act of editing.
Several passages in his book I found quite moving - a part of me that’s long been somewhat dormant. Actually, “connected at a deep level” is probably more accurate. When I was in college, I painted a lot, which gave me great pleasure. I experienced what psychologists like Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi might call a state of flow: a point when you lose yourself in what you’re doing, in which the act of creation sort of takes over. I’ve experienced this feeling rock climbing as well, and Kristi and I have been discussing this lately (how physically moving your body has to happen; it’s difficult to experience this state while using a mouse), but I digress.
Murch describes a state that I experienced painting several times: starting the painting begins a period of struggle, until - sometimes - a point is reached in which I need only continue to stand there and the painting “finishes itself”. Writers and musicians can probably easily relate to this experience, but I had never thought about it in the process of editing:
In the actual editing of a scene, I will keep on working until I can no longer “see myself” in the material. When I review my first assembly of a scene, more often than not I can still vividly (too vividly!) recall making the decisions that led to each of the cuts. But as the scene is reworked and refined, it reaches a point, hopefully, where the shots themselves seem to create each other: This shot “makes” the next shot, which “makes” the next shot, etc. In this way, the Walter Murch who decided things initially gradually recedes until, finally, there comes a point where he has become invisible and characters take over, the shots, the emotion, the story seem to take over. Sometimes - the best times - this process reaches the point where I can look at the scene and say, “I didn’t have anything to do with that - it just created itself”.
That elusive feeling is exactly what I felt painting and rock climbing. I can’t wait to search for that state again, weaving a story together. He prefers to edit standing up, which I may try sometime. There’s certainly a big difference when drawing, painting, printmaking, or singing when standing.
These books form the foundational steps of a new phase of learning for me about this medium. Up to this point, I’ve been a dabbler—a serious one, but still an amateur. I can’t afford the luxury of film school. This is the first part of my “formal” film education.
Posted in Film & Video, Reading & Listening
