Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 363: Editing for Directors with Gael Chandler

Transcript

BPS 363: Editing for Directors with Gael Chandler · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

0:03
You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
0:08
podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast,
0:14
Episode number three sixty three. Cinema is a mirror by which we often
0:19
see ourselves, Alejandro Rutu broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood when
0:25
we really should be working on that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast,
0:30
showing you the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make
0:34
your screenplay bulletproof. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome
0:40
to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble host Alex
0:44
Ferrari. Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage. Now.
0:50
Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses on the kind of
0:57
project you are and the goals of the project you are, so we actually
1:00
break it down by three categories micro budget, indie film, market and studio
1:04
film. There's no reason to get coverage from a reader that's used to reading
1:07
tempole movies when your movie is going to be done for one hundred thousand dollars
1:11
and we wanted to focus on that. At Bulletproof Script Coverage, our readers
1:15
have worked with Marvel Studios, CIA, w MEE, NBC, HBO,
1:19
Disney, Scott Free, Warner Brothers, The Blacklist, and many many more.
1:25
So if you need your screenplay or TV script covered by professional readers,
1:30
head on over to covermiscreenplay dot com. Well, guys, today we are
1:36
going to be in the cutting room. We're going to be talking to editor
1:41
and author Gail Chandler, who is the writer of the book Editing for Directors.
1:46
Now, many of you know that I've been in the post production business
1:49
for most of my career past twenty five years, and I have a lot
1:53
of war stories about editing and working with clients and so on. But this
1:57
conversation is not only a little bit about app but mostly about how directors should
2:01
be working with editors, how to choose a good editor, how to make
2:07
sure that you guys are gelling together, and all things that you need to
2:12
understand about post production and what the editor's responsibilities are and so on. So
2:17
it was really a wonderful episode. So without any further ado, please enjoy
2:22
my conversation with Gail Chandler. I like to welcome the show, Gail Chandler.
2:27
How are you doing, Gail good good to be here. Thank you
2:30
so much for being on the show. Like we were talking about earlier,
2:32
anytime I get an editor on, it's like a couple of salty dogs,
2:38
like sailors, talking about the old and battle days the editor room, which
2:43
are always very very entertaining. I'm sure you have some amazing stories of what
2:47
happens when the door closes in the edit room, which is always and we'll
2:51
talk a little bit about that, about the conversations that happened in there and
2:53
with the producers and directors. But we really wanted to focus this episode on
2:57
your new book, Editing for Directors, and focusing on how directors you'll be
3:04
working with editors. And it's something I've been trying to teach every time every
3:07
time an editor walked into my suite. I tried to teach stuff how to
3:10
work with me. But before we jump in, how did you get into
3:14
the business. I was a projectionist in northern California and I got into the
3:23
IA and when they wouldn't let women in, and then I it was a
3:29
mixed local which meant you could work on movies. And since it was northern
3:35
California, a lot of LA films came up here. And so I started
3:39
doing location work as a grip and lighting. And again I was the only
3:46
female, and I was discouraged, but I did it. And I was
3:51
also then at Snowma State University taking communications courses, and I took a film
3:59
history course, thinking that was sort of frivolous, but the teacher was fabulous.
4:03
He ended up founding Tribeca and being the director there of the festival,
4:09
and and I just really got it. Sort of all came together. I
4:15
had been a box office cashier then projectionist, and so in seventy nine I
4:20
left for LA and and somebody said, you you probably editing would be the
4:28
right fit for you, and it was, yeah, editing is. I
4:32
fell into editing by not wanting to be a PA. I said, Hey,
4:36
that sucks. I don't want to wake up at three o'clock in the
4:39
morning. I'd rather sit in an air condition room all day and maybe get
4:42
carpal tunnel. Well, it was funny because one of the location guys said,
4:47
why do you want to go to LA and sit in a dark room?
4:50
Behind a movie all all day and it was a good it was it
4:54
was a big question, but it was obviously more than that. And did
4:58
you start You actually started setting on film, yes, sixteen and thirty five,
5:03
and then I was working at Alan Landsberg Productions as an assistant editor on
5:11
sixteen and what I had what we call the sinky pool. We just would
5:15
synk the dailies and then eventually you could be as assisting an editor and they
5:20
went video three quarter inch and we were onlining on two inch and at a
5:30
rate these technical terms, you know, there were two processes. Then it's
5:35
very interesting that online has gone away, and but you know what eventually,
5:40
of course happened was that it was the film people were doing features, the
5:45
video people were doing TV, which was what I was in, and they
5:48
all came together with the digital evolution in the early nineties and everybody finally was
5:57
on. We were on the same systems, and systems could talk to film
6:00
and video and that's what's evolved from there. But basically it was a huge
6:05
revolution, and I was lucky that I got in fairly early. When I
6:11
got in, I was I was taught the opposite way. I was taught,
6:14
not only ar editing first, then online editing, then film. So
6:17
by the time I got to film on a flatbed, I was like,
6:20
you mean to tell me? You want me to take a razor blade,
6:24
cut this and tape it? What are we the flintstones? What is this
6:29
barbaria? It was completely beyond me because they had already taught me a computer,
6:33
which was so much quicker and online even was online, you know,
6:38
working on a CMX thirty six hundred or a grass Valley or a Sony,
6:42
a Sony editing system, all those were so much faster. But I did
6:46
get to cut the what was it that episode of gun Smoke? Is it
6:51
is the episode of Gunsmoke that they everyone everyone cut on that? Right?
6:56
That's that's the one thing everyone cut on. Yeah, And you know,
7:00
I know where my book is about is for directors, and there may be
7:04
some directors that all of this online and splicers and all of that, it's
7:11
like, it's before your time and why should you be interested? And really,
7:17
what I want to say the takeaway to people that are young that are
7:23
directing and editing from all this is that is the word change. Because I
7:29
personally trained hundreds of professionals and students on digital editing equipment. And the students,
7:39
you know, they kind of came of age with the computer, but
7:42
the editors and assistants did not. And change is going to happen in your
7:48
career. And it was very interesting witnessing how people reacted to it. Some
7:55
people were filmed forever and I can't cut unless I can feel it in my
8:01
hands. And that may sound crazy to somebody who's never been on film,
8:05
doesn't want to be on it, will never have to be on it.
8:09
But the point here is changed. You really edit and you direct. Well,
8:13
let's just stop editing. You edit with your heart and your head,
8:16
and whatever medium comes down the pipe next, you're going to jump to that.
8:24
Whatever new technology with cameras and all that. As Lucas said, you
8:28
know, art is fifty percent technology. And you know, oil painting,
8:35
change things, watercolors, you know, and the technical evolutions that Alex and
8:41
I have been talking about, you know, our stuff that we happen to
8:46
live through, you will be living through different ones. And just know you're
8:50
going to have to learn new software and new words and new terms. Well
8:56
yeah, I mean, right now we're talking about things like you know,
8:58
you know people editing on is Final Cut and Da Vinci and Premiere and those
9:03
kind of editing softwares, and we're still calling it, you know, we're
9:07
still looking at it from a screen perspective, meaning that it's a two dimensional
9:11
scene screen. In our lifetime, you know, there's very good possibility that
9:18
there could be an editing of a Holodeck scene, you know, and it's
9:22
all holograms and there's going to be editing systems to edit. That's it.
9:24
There's gonna be things that are beyond our comprehension. Now that this generation who's
9:31
young now like, oh, we came up with the Abbot or we came
9:33
up with Final Cut, and now they're like, well, now have you
9:35
used a Holodeck as system? That's insane. It's gonna change, it's gonna
9:39
change. Yeah, And the tools are something you want to learn and see
9:45
what they can do and see what you can do with them. But the
9:50
principles of how you tell a story and reached an audience or always there and
9:54
they're evolving too. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and
10:03
now back to the show. No without question, So, in your opinion,
10:09
what is the most misunderstood part of the editing process. From a director
10:13
and producer's point of view, I think people think editors just make cuts.
10:22
It's kind of like thinking a dressmaker just makes stitches. You know, you're
10:28
making a whole costume or you know, in the terms of editing, you
10:33
really are the person that is telling the story in the end, whatever you
10:37
conceived in the script or the documentary outline, or whatever you shot on location
10:43
for the documentary or the scripted piece. Even you know I work primary in
10:50
sitcoms, stuff would still change in the editing room. And that's where you
10:56
have to make performances work and locates work. And as you know, you're
11:01
a colorist, alex or you have been, and you have to balance the
11:05
color and make the looks work. And I think the tools today, you
11:13
know, allow you to do so much more. But anyway, to get
11:18
back to the question, I think the conception, I think the real takeaway
11:22
is that the editor is a storyteller as much as the person who wrote the
11:28
story and scripted it. Yeah, And it's funny because actors really should give
11:33
bonuses to the editor at the end of a film because it's them who cut
11:37
together their performance. I've been in the edit room where I've had to cut
11:41
a performance and you're cutting the best of the best, and like literally shaping
11:46
someone's performance and saving them. Sometimes, like when their performance is not that
11:50
good, maybe you cut away to something else and then come back or cut
11:54
to reaction, all in the in the service of the movie, but also
11:58
in the service of the performance. And without the editor, you know,
12:03
it's just a bunch of takes, and some takes a good some takes aren't.
12:07
So you got a bad editor involved, they could choose the wrong takes
12:11
and make that performance horrible. And I'm sure you know looking through all that
12:16
old looking through footage, there's a lot of stuff that you have to kind
12:18
of cut through to just find that that one second, that one frame that
12:22
makes that scene work. Yeah, and that's what why my book. The
12:30
publisher, actually Michael Wazey, came up with the idea to really help directors
12:35
because they may be you know, you've gone through as a director, You've
12:39
gone through maybe months, maybe years of pre production and planning, and then
12:48
you've finally gotten to film your baby, and now you're trusting it to this
12:52
person who you may know or may not know, and are they going to
12:58
get your film the way you want it and and make it work in areas
13:03
that you may have know are problematic. So as a director, you know
13:09
that where you're finishing is editing, and so you really want to think about
13:13
that from the beginning, and and and you know, I talk a lot
13:22
about how you know. I talk about how you pick an editor, how
13:24
you you know, how you want to develop trust and how do you how
13:28
do you pick an editor? How does it what's a what's some good points
13:31
for a director to pick an editor to collaborate with? I mean I think,
13:35
I think you talk to people you know. You obviously interview people you
13:41
you know, look at their resume, you look at what they've done,
13:43
and I mean, it's it's kind of it's a short term marriage or a
13:48
good affair. I always like to say, you know, you want somebody
13:52
that will get your intent as a director. You want to look for that
13:58
in a person, But you also want somebody that hopefully you will develop a
14:05
relationship where you can hear their feedback and hear from them this isn't working or
14:11
I I mean, directors love to be problem solvers. They love to fix
14:16
performances. I mean, I've been kissed in editing rooms because you know,
14:20
my directors, because they were like, oh my god, I was so
14:22
worried about the scene and we hadn't talked about it, and you know,
14:26
and you love it when you can make something work, and you you know.
14:31
The other thing I wanted to say was the editor is really receiving your
14:37
raw material no matter it's really it's a blueprint until it gets turned into something
14:43
in the editing room, and it's what the audience is going to see.
14:48
They don't care if you spent ten days working in the snow, you know,
14:54
sludging through tunnels to get a shot, if the shot doesn't advance the
14:56
story or say what your film is about out or do something. It's not
15:01
just a gorgeous shot or you know, or a hard earned shot. The
15:07
editor is very objective. The editor is you know, detached from the set
15:11
most of the time. And a lot of editors like to go to the
15:16
set. A lot of us don't because we want to keep that objective eye.
15:20
And so I would say all of that is what you're looking for in
15:24
an editor. Now, how does a director shoot for the cut? How
15:31
an editor? I mean, yeah, how a director would shoot for the
15:37
cut is to first of all, well not first of all, A major
15:45
thing would be to think about sound. People don't think about sound, and
15:50
you know, poor sound can harm you more than poor picture. Really,
15:54
people can't understand stuff. You know, go and listen to locate. Think
16:00
about how you want your movie to sound. The other things are, you
16:04
know, work on screen direction, don't cross the line, or if you
16:08
do cross the line, understand what it is and why you're crossing it.
16:15
Maintain eyelines. If Alex is looking down while I'm talking or looking at the
16:22
ceiling, the audience might think he's bored with me, or doesn't like me,
16:26
or is disinterested. If we're looking right eye to eye, you know
16:33
we're connecting. We may be fighting, we may be whatever. But you
16:40
know, eyelines are very important to maintain. When you're doing drama. That's
16:44
another thing that you need to think about. Yeah, I mean, and
16:48
also just those I think the biggest piece of advice I always get young directors
16:52
is cutaways. To shoot cutaways, for God's sake, shoot cutaways. Just
17:00
shoot Like Robert Rodriguez with El Mariachi. He just shoot the dog and anytime
17:07
he got in trouble he just cut to the dog, or he cut to
17:08
a turtle, or he cut to a vase or you know, obviously if
17:11
you can shoot cutaways, that means something even better. But just safety,
17:18
shoot cut away a hand, hands moving, you know, reactions, hair
17:23
flipping. Those little things are what we love as editors because then you could
17:27
really sculpt a scene because if you've got to stay with that performance and you
17:32
have nowhere to go, I'm sure you've run into that wall. You're just
17:34
like, oh god, I need just something to cut away to thank you
17:38
for bringing that up. That's another major thing that you want to think about
17:45
as a director when you're shooting, you know, coverage. If you have
17:49
a scene that's not working and you don't have anywhere to go, then you're
17:53
stuck with the boring bit in a scene unless you can cut away to something.
18:00
And you know, cutaways can be really interesting. You know, a
18:03
treasure map. People want to see what everybody's talking about, a close of
18:08
that, you know, and I always say a close up of Meryl Streep's
18:11
pace is worth a thousand lines of dialogue, you know. You know,
18:17
film is a very you know, faces say a lot, but get those
18:22
close ups, get get those over the shoulders, get different angles and shots
18:26
because it gives you more options in the cutting room. Yeah. I was
18:30
in the cutting room once and we had the scene that the was just long
18:36
and it was like an emotional breakdown, but it was just so long,
18:38
and it was we like this cut like that. We wanted to cut two
18:41
takes together and we couldn't be She was like, oh my god, we
18:44
didn't shoot any cutaways. And the camera was in the room of the edit
18:48
room and the dog of the director was in the room. So we just
18:52
put the dog on the couch. I threw a light up, I lit
18:56
it. She shot it with the camera that was the same camera Shet the
19:00
movie with, and then we literally just took the card out inserted it,
19:03
like Okay, we're good now. Can you imagine that in the early days.
19:10
Well, I was on a show where a little boy goes to a
19:17
construction site with his friends and they're playing around and they somehow get one of
19:22
the big machines going and it's going downhill, and you know, it's very
19:26
exciting and upsetting and all that, and of course he lives and he's fine,
19:30
but what and they shot like fifteen angles and this was a half hour
19:34
sitcom, so this was a big scene and it was very unusual in a
19:38
single camera, so it was unusual to get that many angles. And what
19:44
they didn't shoot was the boy. We'll be right back after a word from
19:49
our sponsor and now back to the show. They didn't shoot a close up
19:57
of the boy. And the editor just said, we need this, We
20:04
got to have this. And I was very lucky to work with a very
20:07
famous editor who actually couldn't understand the system, so I ended up having to
20:11
operate it for him and anticipate where he was going to go in this scene
20:15
in many other scenes, so it really advanced my editing. But at any
20:21
rate, the director said, I can't do that. We're off the location.
20:25
We're back, you know, on the studio, and he's the director.
20:30
The editor said, put him in a chair. So they literally took
20:33
you know, a set chair and put the kid in and raised them up
20:37
and shot him and it made all the difference in the scene. Yeah,
20:41
it's it's it's it's pretty remarkable what you can get away with in today's work.
20:48
It is. Yeah, I mean, you know, queueing your your
20:51
characters and people's reactions is queueing your audience on how to feel it's really important.
20:56
Yeah, I mean, I mean something as simple as a glass being
21:00
put on the on the table. Things like that, those little things that
21:04
when you're in the heat of battle it's hard to think about. And that's
21:07
something as directors, we're in the middle of you know, a thousand things
21:11
are coming at us and we're like, okay, everyone stop, I need
21:15
a shot of the glass, and like, that's a hard like you got
21:18
to be as a director. You gotta be comfortable with yourself. Like we're
21:22
getting into ot or we're about to hit lunch. I'm like, guys,
21:26
I need the glass hitting the table and at the moment people are like this
21:30
this prima Donna like, but that one little move saves the scene. Well,
21:36
and you know that the b roll is just as important. David Watkins,
21:41
famous and photographer who got the Academy Award for Out of Africa in his
21:47
excep and I put this in the book actually because it always stuck with me
21:51
and it never fit in any other book that I wrote, but this one
21:52
it did because he was so complimented on Out of Africa because the shots of
21:59
the animals and you know, they did stuff literally from helicopters. They didn't
22:03
have drones and those and you know, they're gorgeous, and so people would
22:10
come up to and say, oh, you know, he did such a
22:12
great job, and he said that was second unit, that was b role.
22:15
And then they'd come oh, you know he shot the principles. He
22:18
shot Redford and Street, you know, and so you think about of Africa
22:25
without those shots, and it's a different movie. No. Absolutely, I
22:30
love that example that Hitchcock I saw. I saw a documentary with him once
22:37
about the editing process, and he's like, this is how powerful editing is.
22:41
He goes, let's say I shoot a shot of me. Then the
22:44
next shot we shoot the show is a baby plane, and then you see
22:48
cut back to me smiling. Now that motion that you the audience gets.
22:55
He's like, oh, isn't that cute. Now all you do is replace
22:57
the center shot instead of a baby a beautiful woman in a bikini, a
23:03
young woman in a bikini, same thing all of a sudden, Oh what
23:06
a creep. That is the power of editing. And that's something directors really
23:10
need to understand, if you really mean you should. Absolutely, if you're
23:14
a director, study Hitchcock. I mean, it's every one of his films.
23:17
There's a masterclass in editing. But it's so so powerful. A cut,
23:22
a shot, an angle can change the entire perception of the scene.
23:27
Do you agree? Yes? And have you heard of the coolest shop effect?
23:33
The which one? Oh? Yes? Yes? From uh oh god,
23:37
uh yeah, from the Russian from the one that's the famous picture of
23:42
the guy going crazy holding the frame. Yes, and the Hitchcock. Wo
23:45
didn't come up with it, it was him, actually, if I'm not
23:48
mistaken. Yeah. And you know, one of the things that I did
23:52
in this book is it's very practical, you know, from pre planning and
23:56
direct and editing. Is editors are being brought and more with pre planning,
24:00
especially pre pro with previs with animation editors. I really cover what a director
24:11
needs to think about from you know, pre production through archiving. You want
24:15
your film to last, you want to think about archiving and more. You
24:19
know, how can you reach future audiences, how can you create revenue streams?
24:26
Even though you know you're just lucky if you're doing a doc low budget
24:29
or anything low budget, you know, you're just thinking about getting the movie
24:32
made, not alone archiving, but I go through that, but at any
24:36
rate, one of the chapters that is one of the chapters I love the
24:40
most and the longest, is the others I broke up a little more is
24:47
on the history of editing, and I put that in there because I want
24:53
people to understand that editing really is the language of film, and editing you
24:59
really like no other art. You see how people think and how they feel
25:03
from second to second in a flash cut of three frames or a long dissolve.
25:08
You play with time. You play with people's emotions the way no other
25:11
medium, I think, really does. And so part of that chapter I
25:18
talk about the Russians and they had their revolution and so all the filmmakers were
25:23
tasked with, you know, teaching the proletariat what was what the rules of
25:29
communism of so uh, they started the first film school in Moscow, which
25:34
still goes on to today. And they did they had short ends, they
25:40
didn't have films, so they they didn't couldn't do long masters like Americans could.
25:45
And they chopped up a citizen Kane, they chopped up a lot of
25:48
They looked at a lot and that says kin hadn't been shot in but they
25:51
looked at a lot of American films, and one of them, cool Shop,
25:56
I forget his first name. They had some left over footage from a
26:00
white Russian actor who was very well known, and he had left the country
26:06
with the revolution, and so they took a frame, a few some frames
26:11
of him and intercut them with a young girl picking a flower, and people
26:18
thought he was smiling. Then they cut to him again, and they well,
26:26
first they cut to the girl, then they cut to him. People
26:27
thought he was smiling. Then they cut to a woman in a coffin,
26:32
a young child in a coffin. They then they cut to him. People
26:34
thought he was sad. Then they cut to a woman on a shed's lounge,
26:38
and they thought he was amorous. And it was the same shot each
26:44
time, and so the whole this relates to what you said about Hitchcock and
26:49
the smiling and the creepiness it. You know, is that in the Russian
26:53
theory, but you can use whatever word you want. They juxtapose shots shot
27:00
affect each other, and people take meaning out of shots that were shot at
27:04
different times, different days, different places, et cetera. Humans just our
27:10
brains want to do that. And it's so funny because sometimes I'll see a
27:12
movie, because there's so much content being created today, I'll watch a movie
27:18
that's you know, off off brand. Let's say it's not a big movie,
27:21
you know, it's an independent or or something along those lines, and
27:25
or it has a star in it. And and I watched it and then
27:30
the director and the editor make a mistake and you see like, oh,
27:33
they cut to that, and like that's not the meaning, Like wait a
27:34
minute, that feels weird. That person shouldn't be feeling the way they are,
27:40
and it's and it's obviously a mistake. It's not like, you know,
27:42
the woman shouldn't be feeling, you know, jilted, she should be
27:47
feeling something else. And it was a look, it's a it was an
27:49
energy and because it was the way it was juxtapposed to what they were cutting,
27:53
it just feel it just you just get taken out of the of the
27:56
of the piece. It's pretty it's pretty powerful stuff, and Hitchcock again talked
28:02
about it so much where he wanted to like literally play the audience's emotions on
28:07
a piano eventually to get to that point, which he pretty closely did with
28:12
his editing. But it's pretty powerful and to go down to the Hitchcock rabbit
28:18
hole just for a minute. Arguably one of the greatest, most talked about
28:22
seeing edited scenes ever is the shower scene. They did a whole documentary just
28:26
on the shower scene. As an editor looking at that, can you kind
28:30
of talk a little bit about that so directors listening can understand that they've never
28:34
seen it, or they've heard about it, maybe they watched it. What
28:38
value it would be to go back to what he did and what the editor
28:42
did in that that? What is it? I forgot how many frames it
28:47
is, but how many seconds to forty eight seconds or fifty six seconds or
28:49
whatever it is? How powerful that was? Yeah, I've read a lot
28:56
of Hitchcock and I admire him in a lot of ways too. And I
28:59
highly recommend Truffaux on Yes, what a great book and movie. You know
29:06
as a director. You know, Trufau, the French loved Hitchcock and Truffau
29:12
interviewed him and they went through every movie and Trufau really ask him a lot
29:18
of questions and it's really you know, and I do quote from Hitchcock in
29:23
the book you know about the birds and and and and part of how he
29:29
conceived the birds musically and and their thoughts and now they're this, and now
29:34
they're that. But the shower scene, I I honestly forget now how many
29:40
cuts and how short it is, but you know, it was flash cuts
29:45
and you saw a woman being chopped up and attacked, and it was you
29:51
know, it's stuck with everybody who's ever seen it, and it still works.
29:56
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back
30:03
to the show. And the music's the music, the music and the air
30:10
cutting. And he always got Bernard Herman to compose his film. And I
30:17
mean Vertigo. I talk about Vitigo in the book. Actually I didn't get
30:19
into Psycho so much, but in Vertigo he has very he has like Carotsel
30:26
music. Everything's twirling. In the beginning of Vertico, I put in the
30:30
shots Dermandale is coming out of people's eyes, so everything is very circular and
30:36
it supports his, you know, the idea of Vertigo. But yeah,
30:41
the shower scene is we're seeing you know, Buster Keaton's train chase in Little
30:47
General is incredible, and you know, but there are a lot of fantastic
30:53
I mean, I mean the Fugitive, I remember with Harrison Ford, you
30:59
know, the editors give that we screened that that they had a screening in
31:03
the eighties, and and people just this was an Indian industry audience, and
31:07
people just stood up and clamp right. If you can break through the industry
31:11
audience, you know you've got something. Yo. I remember watching The Fugitive
31:14
as well. It's it's remarkable. Then you go by the way, just
31:18
to finish off on Hitchcock, that shower scene. What's so brilliant about it
31:22
for me is you never see the knife go in. You never see the
31:27
knife touch her skin ever, because it wasn't allowed at the time, I
31:33
think, or something Hitchcock always got around the sensors. But that's the brilliant
31:37
part. But your mind connected at all because of the cuts and the music
31:41
that you were like this woman is you just said this woman was getting chopped
31:44
up. She really was. There's no there's no there's no graphic hit of
31:48
it. Yes, there's blood, there's flashes, there's this and that,
31:52
the eyes and the motion, but there's no actual you know, skin knife
31:57
penetration in this, which is that's the brilliant part about one of the many
32:01
brilliant parts about that sequence. But the one thing you were saying about action
32:07
sequences is now, I think sometimes you go the other direction. Like there
32:12
was a scene and I think Taken two or Taken three one of those that
32:16
had Liam Neesen running and Liam is not twenty one and he's running, he's
32:23
jumping fence. They counted how many cuts just from him jumping a fence was
32:29
like fifteen cuts, And you're like, you're basically cutting making you're forcing the
32:35
action by the the edit is kind of keeping pace because to actually see a
32:39
sixty year old man jump a fence not that exciting, but with the music
32:45
and the cut, but it was just so much. It's just like you
32:49
don't let anything sit. And sometimes the most powerful cut is not cutting.
32:53
Is that fair? Yes? And sometimes the most powerful cut is silent,
33:00
Like after you've had a big action scene, it's like music, you can
33:04
have staccato and go cut, cut, cut, and then you know that's
33:07
just the obvious war is a very obvious example. After the battle, and
33:13
then you just need you know, the dead people on the battlefield or people
33:17
collecting themselves, the audience to collect themselves. It's editing is very rhythmic and
33:24
I think you know you and your editor. As a director, you want
33:29
to pick somebody that's going to go on the journey with you because you may
33:34
have directed a lot of pictures, or you may be new, but each
33:37
thing you do is you know is going to be new, even if it's
33:42
part of a series or it's a routine show. You're going to bring what
33:45
you bring to it, your eyes and your talent, and you just in
33:51
editing. That continues. The one thing I've always had a problem with with
33:57
younger directors or just in experienced directors, and they walk in the suite,
34:00
they really truly don't understand the responsibilities of an editor. And a lot of
34:05
times, you know, I always, I always I go there. There's
34:07
two camps of editors. There's creative editors who have I've dealt with, and
34:12
there's online editors and not online in the traditional sense, but the online is
34:16
in like putting in the final visual effects, cleaning things up, tightening up
34:22
technically, getting ready for the export that stuff. Because a lot of creative
34:25
directors I've worked with are clueless when it comes to any of that stuff.
34:30
They're there just for the creative and if you go can you insert a via
34:34
effects, like I need an assistant for that. I can't. That's not
34:37
what I do. Can you talk a little bit about what the responsibility of
34:42
an editor is traditionally and what so many editors are nowadays, Like myself,
34:49
when someone would come in and I would edit a feature, I would edit
34:52
the future, I would put in the visual effects, I would tempt visual
34:54
effects, I would do a color grade, I would prep it for final,
34:59
I would prep it for sound. I became a post supervisor at that
35:01
point. Essentially I was doing everything. I was doing creative and I was
35:05
doing online. So there are those kind of hybrid versions. But traditionally,
35:08
what are the responsibilities of a creative editor? Let's say I think traditionally the
35:15
responsibility is, as I've mentioned, to tell the story and to see what
35:21
characters work, what characters possibly need to be dropped or cut down or shifted,
35:27
what scenes need to be shifted? How you know? How how does
35:31
the the conception hauled up in the editing room? And and a lot of
35:37
directors feel for the first cut that they need to represent you the director's vision.
35:43
They they you know, you need to see it the way you thought
35:46
it was going to work, And then the two of you can go together
35:50
and tinker with that or drastically change it, or do whatever you're going to
35:54
do. You know, when when editing started in modern times of to say
36:00
the fifties, you were editing on film and you had one or two tracks
36:05
and one picture. Now with the system, you know, Alex and other
36:10
people that editor work, that editors work on, there are an infinite amount
36:15
of tracks. You can have tracks within tracks within tracks, and not just
36:20
audio tracks but video tracks. So you can do you know, very simple
36:24
effects phades and dissolves, and you can do green screen. You can do
36:29
very complex video effects. Now those really complex ones you're probably not going to
36:34
do on the system because they're going to take up too many system resources and
36:37
you're going to drop them in. And you know, on a big video
36:42
effects show you're going to have a video effects editor and a whole department and
36:47
you know, probably a post house of some kind behind you. So you
36:52
know, in answer to your question, the editor can be simply the you
36:57
know, the storyteller making things work, or they can be you know,
37:01
they can be doing everything like you did, Alex. They can be doing
37:05
all the effects. They can be doing the video you know, all the
37:08
sound they can mix right on the system. You can put in scratch track
37:14
right on the system, which is really handy when you're working along and seeing
37:17
if things are working, and maybe you have to add a VEO that you
37:21
didn't anticipate, or you have one and you want to see how it lays
37:25
up against your picture. So there's no real answer to that anymore. Before
37:32
it would be just the one thing. It just depends on your budget,
37:36
and you know, is it a commercial, is it a feature, is
37:39
it a doc? Is it a But I do think that the directors should
37:45
be very clear with the editor on what their capabilities are because they might walk
37:49
in thinking that they can online the whole thing and they're like, I really
37:52
can't. And the editors should be honest too, like I'm a creative editor.
37:55
I maybe be able to get you a little bit closer to the to
37:59
the finish line, but I can't do everything that you need me to do,
38:01
So that both parties really need to be clear about that, which is
38:06
something early on that was justn't even a question. Is the editor just cut
38:09
and then someone else, the online editor would take over and take it.
38:14
There was more division of duties where now it's just all everybody, even the
38:20
director. Like myself, I direct and I edit, So I come in
38:22
and I'll do my own post, and I'll do my own color, and
38:25
I'll do my own everything. Yeah, I mean, you know where you're
38:30
starting, and that's why you know I wrote this book. You want to
38:34
know where you're finishing, who's doing what. And yes, now can you
38:40
talk a little bit about what the assemble cut is because the difference between the
38:45
assemble cut my definition at least maybe yours is different. But the assemble cut,
38:50
then there's the first draft, the first cut, basically the first draft
38:53
cut, then the final cut and then that's it. But the assemble cut,
38:59
my definition, assemble cut is always like you literally look at the script
39:01
and whatever scene is there, you just cut it together and you put it
39:06
all there, regardless if it works or not. Is that an assemble cutting
39:08
your definition as well not? You know, to me, a first cut
39:14
is where you're putting everything together as script as outlined. An assembly to me
39:21
is more you're sort of putting the shots together within a scene, and you
39:31
know, it all depends on whether you're fine cutting or rough cutting. I
39:37
mean a lot of people like to. Some editors work by you know,
39:44
they sort of get things going and get things in order, and then they
39:49
go back and fine tune it. We'll be right back after a word from
39:53
our sponsor, and now back to the show. And to me, that
40:01
would be more of an assembly. You sort of know the shots you're going
40:05
to use and you put them together others of us and uh, I find
40:10
cut from the beginning. I cannot tighten up. I want my timing from
40:16
the beginning, because you know you will. You will find, you know,
40:22
if you're a director and you're sitting with an editor cut and you're working
40:24
together, that you will. Your mind is always going five shots ahead and
40:30
and sort of a little behind, where did I come from? And where
40:34
am I going? And well if we go here, then this is going
40:37
to be we're going to have to do this, and if we you know,
40:40
you know, it's very intense, it's very you know, it really
40:44
uses you come out and you're kind of exhausted if you haven't been editing for
40:50
a while. It's a very intense, you know, seeing what works and
40:54
then and then it is like like music, you want to drop back,
41:00
you want to go away for an hour or a day or a night,
41:02
an evening, and then come back and see, you know, was that
41:06
thing we've got really high on yesterday? That really was that like the greatest
41:09
thing we ever did? Or does that pulled up overnight? It's a lot
41:15
you want you want it. In editing, you may there may be a
41:19
lot of trial and error and and and that's just the nature of the game.
41:24
I think that I wanted to kind of touch on something you just said,
41:27
is the because sometimes in the edit room you are in this delusion,
41:31
this twelve hour Oh my god, we just cut the greatest scene of all
41:37
time, and then you go home, you sleep on it, You come
41:38
in, you watch and like, yeah, that doesn't work. What happened?
41:43
You really need to give yourself that pace, And not only with a
41:45
scene or a cut, but with the film. You need to go away
41:50
from it for a while, because once you're in it for so long,
41:52
you lose perspective. And sometimes you do need to just put it, you
41:55
know, turn off the computer for a week, walk way, do something
42:00
else, then come back to It's kind of like writers. Writers who are
42:02
writing and writing and writing at a certain point, they just got to stop.
42:06
When they're done. Put it away for a few weeks, come back
42:08
and reread it to see if it's truly the genius that they thought it was
42:13
in the first place. Yeah. And you know, it's a great analogy
42:16
because you know when I've done a lot of script writing also, and you
42:22
know, when you write, you want to get the script the best that
42:25
you can. And then and the same as editing, you want to get
42:30
the cut as the best you can. And then at a certain point you
42:34
need feedback. I mean, you are creating this for an audience, and
42:37
so you need to get people, you know, a loyal, focused group
42:43
of some kind to come in and say I don't get this main character,
42:47
or I don't like that scene, or that's really hard, and then then
42:53
you decide what you're going to do from there. Fair enough, fair enough?
42:58
Now can we talk about the holy place that is the final cut or
43:02
locked cut? The I call it holy. It's sacred because as an editor,
43:09
when the cut is locked, many directors and producers think that's fluid.
43:15
No, it's locked. If it's locked, that means that audio is working
43:20
on it, visual effects are working on it, score is working on it.
43:24
If you change a frame, the whole thing comes crashing down. Can
43:29
you just talk a little bit about that. Yeah, I know, I
43:34
totally get your point. When you lock a cut, it means you're not
43:37
going to change another picture frame and so that it will not get shorter by
43:42
a frame, it will not get longer by a frame. It will stay
43:45
exactly the same length. And this is incredibly critical for the sound editors because
43:54
if you you know, on a feature, you're going to have you know,
44:00
folly, you're going to have effects, and then you're gonna have dialogue
44:04
editors and they are all dependent on this cut, and if you change it
44:07
by one frame, their timing and your sound is off. The music doesn't
44:13
start right that you know, and so in the same goes for music,
44:16
so they do what's called conform to the to the latest, the locked cut,
44:24
and that's what you mix to. You don't want to be having the
44:28
bombs fall and you've taken out half a scene and oops or frame or frame
44:34
one frame willknock the entire thing out of whack. So it's not efficient of
44:38
the studios time or money. And your job is going to be on the
44:44
line if you if you unlock the cut and you know past uh, you
44:51
know, past time when when people are really mixing. Having said that sound
44:57
editors call it becomes uh it, it becomes unlocked, or it slips a
45:01
little, and you kind of can get away with certain things and everyone knows
45:08
it. Like if there was a cut between Alex and me, and let's
45:12
say it was a dissol and it was ten frames long, but let's say
45:17
we want to wait it so we see more of Alex now instead of me.
45:22
There's still going to be ten frames, but we're gonna Yeah, you
45:27
can, you can slip a little. But again, you know, if
45:32
you've got something that has very precise timing and you've got all these people that
45:37
you're paying, you're going to be paying them more and it is going to
45:40
take longer if you are frame. I don't want to use the word no,
45:45
I know the words you're I knew exactly the words you're going to say
45:49
A frame frame effing my drift here to the to the last minute. And
45:58
you know, the truth is with today's digital editing systems, people change stuff
46:05
after they've been on air. Lucas went back and changed all of Star Wars
46:08
and recolored them and redid some of the effects, so nothing really is fixed
46:15
anymore. I mean I'm being honest here. I mean in terms of getting
46:20
your movie made and staying employed. You want to stick with the lock cut
46:22
and hit the deadline and all that, but the truth is stuff you know,
46:29
people do go back into shows, and if it's your movie, you
46:32
can do what you want till accounts come home, if you're paying the bills,
46:37
but just know that it's gonna It's going to cost you time and money,
46:42
and you may lose some people along the way because they get other jobs
46:45
or they get too frustrated. The frustration is a very good word to use.
46:50
And since you were up north in northern California, you must have heard
46:54
of the lore of Star Wars, the first Star Wars as you brought Georgia
46:58
up. That cut of Star Wars was an absolute dismal mess and it was
47:02
horrible, and because I think the studio stuck him with an editor that he
47:07
didn't want, and the first cut looked horrible, and then he had to
47:12
go in with his wife and I forgot who the Academy Award editor, Thank
47:19
you, went in and some of there was two wasn't there was two?
47:22
There was there was Marcia Lucas and Paul and I honestly forget the third in
47:28
it, but there was, but there was another one, and then everybody
47:30
went back in and and made it into what we are today. But it
47:34
was completely it was destroyed and then saved in the cut, same footage,
47:39
same footage, but just put together differently. And that's the power. And
47:44
look what look at the power of the editor did for that film and all
47:49
the things that have come afterwards. Yeah, I mean, Paul Hirsch actually
47:53
wrote a book about his career. Yeah, I saw. I saw that
47:57
one recently, Yeah, yeah, and I actually put it in the book.
48:00
So I do talk about the Star Wars and and how they introduced Luke
48:06
at it at a different point, and how they cut stuff down and and
48:10
and just how exactly how they crafted it and rearranged the scene with Obi wan
48:20
Kenobi and Princess Leiah and and Luke where Luke says, no, I can't
48:24
help you when leaves and he appeared callous in the first cut, and they
48:28
just rearranged things. And so that's in the book actually too, to analyze
48:34
a little, to analyze something like that, because that's a great learning tool
48:37
of like, you know, Luke. If you cut them at the wrong
48:40
time, he looks Kyle, it's the other time he looks Aro. It's
48:44
editing is powerful stuff, guys, It's extremely powerful stuff. Is a weapon,
48:49
uh in the creative battle that can be wielded, and you've got to
48:53
be very careful with it. And just you know, just know that the
48:59
great Lucas you know, made mistakes. I mean everybody, al all the
49:04
greats, and they've done all kinds of stuff and and and you're gonna learn
49:09
and do your great make your great imprint. And the faster you the faster
49:15
you make these mistakes, the faster you learn. So you have to make
49:16
as many mistakes as fast as possible and continue making them throughout your career,
49:21
because everyone does that. There's very few directors who have a perfect filmography,
49:25
very few, if any, that have an absolute perfect you know, some
49:30
art is art. It's hard to hit the home run. And what is
49:35
a home run? What's the definition of a home run? And in art?
49:37
You know. Now I want to ask a few questions I ask on
49:42
my guests. I normally ask what's three of your favorite films of all time?
49:45
But I'd love to ask you what are three of the best edited films
49:49
of all time, in your opinion that the editing really took a kind of
49:52
a front seat. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and
50:01
now back to the show. Well, Raging Bull is one that comes to
50:07
a lot of people's mind, and to be honest, before I wrote this
50:14
book, I never paid attention to sorry about the phone, just the violent
50:21
nature of the relationship and I and the woman being brutalized. When it came
50:25
out in the eighties, I wanted no part of the film, But in
50:30
writing the history chapter, I actually end up ended up reading and writing a
50:36
lot about and researching a lot about the film. And I think there is
50:44
an example of film schoonmaker and Marty Scarce Scorse is a you know, an
50:50
editor, director, payir that have you know, that are bonded for life
50:54
and that have done incredible stuff since Woodstock when he was an assistant director and
50:59
she on the Academy board for a documentary, which is really unusual for Best
51:05
Film anyway. So I would definitely say Raging Bull because it just takes things
51:12
to a different level, and it was planned a lot of those slow mo
51:15
shots and the sweat flying across. I mean it's and I would not only
51:21
look at it, I would read about it because that will help your directing
51:25
and your thinking about editing. So that's definitely one and any other couple that
51:32
you could think of, or just two of your other favorite films that you
51:36
just love watching. And you know, there was a movie that came out
51:44
in the seventies when I was a projection. It was it was called From
51:46
Noon Till Three, and it was Jill Ireland and Charles what was the action
51:53
star her husband, Charles Bronson. Yeah, Charles Bronson, and I would
52:00
like to see it again because you just don't know how things hold up.
52:06
It was basically the story and that that he's he's comes into town and they
52:15
have a noon to three, they have a romance, and then he's arrested
52:19
and goes to prison. And she's like a stereotypical like a school arm or
52:25
something. So this was like the greatest, you know, one of the
52:30
big thing that happened in her life. So the whole town becomes about this
52:34
robbery, and they recreate him and her and all of them, and you
52:38
know, they romanticize the romance. And then he comes back from prison and
52:45
he wasn't really a robber. He was a snake oil salesman. I think
52:47
that got caught up and she sees him and it's just like there's nothing there.
52:53
It's like she has gone into the fantasy. So I guess it wasn't
52:58
the editing in that one so much as just the story. And then the
53:04
other My other favorite film is Prime of Miss Gene Brody, Oh Nice,
53:08
the original, And I think that I've realized is it's because it's the whole
53:14
teacher student relationship and that we all have teachers in our lives that eventually we
53:22
outgrow. And and I've watched that film since I was in my twenties,
53:28
and my views of it have really changed. So I don't know those The
53:35
one really spoke more to editing and is famous for it, but the other
53:38
two are just some of my you know, films that meant something. Hey,
53:44
that's a good answer. And where can people find your books and the
53:47
work that you do. My books are all on Amazon. You can just
53:53
put my name in G. A. E. L. And Chandler and
53:59
there also available from my ever loving film publisher, Michael Weezyproductions dot com.
54:06
Very good, Gil, Thank you so much for being on the show.
54:07
It was fun talking shop with another editor, and I appreciate all the work
54:13
you're doing and helping educate directors and editors around the world. So I appreciate
54:19
you. Thank you so much, Thank you. I want to thank Gail
54:22
so much for coming on the show and dropping her knowledge bombs on the Tribe
54:27
today. Thank you so much, Gail. If you want to get links
54:29
to anything we spoke about in this episode, please head over to the show
54:30
notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv. Forward slash three sixty three. Thank you
54:36
so much for listening. Guys, As always, keep on writing no matter
54:38
what. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting
54:43
podcast at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.