Love it! And found myself tense all over again watching that scene from No Country for Old Men. OT, the video just below of Hillary Clinton intercut with footage from the movie Election was hilarious...

Thanks for the link!

Editing is in fact a lost art and a very thankless one at that. The notion of a story being told 3 times during the process of #1 - Writing, #2- Directing and #3 - Editing is exactly the case however if a movie tanks, joe consumer won't blame it on the editorial. They'll say the story sucked, which in their mind normally goes back to the screenwriter. So in a case, the editor can hide in the shadows if needs be ;)

It's still nice to see as in No Country.. and There Will be Blood, examples of storytelling through shots and edits in the which the story is told by the performance and not now the more accepted MTV style of shooting and editing that seems to be the crazy trend of late. Of course Ulimatum deserves it's nomination as well. I couldn't imagine cutting an entire film of shots less than 2 seconds long.

cheno

Great find.
As I've mentioned several times over the years it's curious how we don't talk about editing here. Zillions of posts about how to grade the footage, fix some badly recorded audio etc, never once has anyone asked how to cut a couple of scenes together.

Bob.

Great camera work, sound and editing are the foundations for any decent video or film. Too many times we get caught up with the fx side of things (titler effects, transitions, etc), that we neglect the really important aspects.

An enjoyable clip but I do not think it has much educational value to us here because it was dealing with very specific subjects. It was some examples of good editing but not an editing lesson so it does not answer the question "What's behind good editing".

The essence of editing for me is first to know what effect you want to create. How do you want the audience to feel or react. Then you must view every clip you have in that context until the ideas take shape. And just like cooking you are always restricted by the ingredients, but being imaginative so that you can see a potential use in a clip that advances your goal that others would have discarded goes a long way to answer the question. Then it's a matter of being honest and self-critical. Don't sit back and feel you did a good job but always know your edit could be a lot better and keep looking for better ways tell your tale as long as you have time.

great vision - that of the director, the camera operator, and of course, the editor. in the right hands, you can make a silk purse out of a pigs ear. but it takes vision (and a decent budget!)...

leslie

btw, probably within this coterie there's many of us who assume all 3 rolls (not to mention writer, producer and distributor).

An enjoyable clip but I do not think it has much educational value to us here because it was dealing with very specific subjects. It was some examples of good editing but not an editing lesson so it does not answer the question "What's behind good editing".

With all due respect, I must disagree with the above statement.

Like so many art forms (and editing is an art form), "it" can't be "taught." You can't teach someone how to paint. You can't teach someone how to write. You can't teach someone how to compose. Likewise, you can't teach someone how to edit. You may teach the theory in each discipline, but if the student doesn't have the talent to apply the theory in an creative, imaginative, artistic manner, it's all for naught.

Talent is innate, it isn't learned. On the other hand, the craft _______ (fill in the blank) can be learned. When I was teaching I always used the example of the difference between a brick layer and an architect. The former is craft; the latter is art.

Those who have the innate talent of editing will be able to look at this video and learning something from it that they can apply to their art.

You mean you can't teach someone how to pain like in Leonardo de Vinci didn't go to school?

You can't make someone a genius if they do not have it in them but you can teach the mechanics of the artistic process. All art forms have great schools whose purpose is to teach.

Lest we forget... the name of the game is STORY TELLING. Do it in a straightforward, economical manner and they'll sing your praises. How often do we see unnecessary footage clogging up the narrative? A director so enamored of a shot that he just can't let go of it? Or a shot that was really difficult or expensive to achieve, but that really doesn't advance the story. One sure test, but one that few directors use is "does the audience need to know this?" Michael Douglas once remarked to my film class that the best advice he ever had in that respect was from his father. Kirk told him that to succeed he had to learn to "kill his babies," and that wisdom stood him well in his career as filmmaker.

I think that the mechanics of it can be taught and some of the concepts can be taught. For example in painting, you can learn things like perspective. Perspective has particular rules and those rules can definitely be taught. They can also be broken, as in MC Escher's work. But it's something you can teach (and Escher couldn't have broken the rules if he didn't know about them).

But unlike some other fields, I would agree that the art of editing mostly comes down to things that can't be taught (one of which is effort/motivation/perspiration).

2- I think one of the problems with editing is that it's hard to know anything. Or, we don't know much about editing.

In sciences, you can run controlled experiments and learn how the world works. In physics you can run these experiments, and physics is a science where knowledge has advanced a lot more than other sciences where it's hard to run those experiments. If you look at sociology, you can't really run controlled experiments for macro-level stuff. When you can (and do) test your ideas, you can learn a lot. Where you can't test your ideas or where you don't test your ideas (some "science", including branches of physics, falls into the latter category), you can't learn much.

We don't really know all that much about what make a movie more enjoyable. But I think we can find out since:
A- There are some things that we do know. Comedy has a particular timing that works, context / ordering and the choice of shots affect interpretation/meaning, etc.
B- We can run controlled experiments and test our ideas.

One idea presented in the video was that Bourne Ultimatum took a lot of work to edit. It's possible to test that idea to figure out the relationship between effort spent editing and the quality of a movie (either commercial success, or critical success). Or extra time spent perfecting an edit versus quality. The answer would be useful, since movie studios could make or save money depending on the answer.

3- Right now, I don't believe we're really testing ideas about editing. But we should. If you look at medicine, there was a time where ideas weren't tested and that bloodletting was viewed as a cure. Once medicine started taking a more empirical approach, it has advanced a lot more.

Inspiration and genius usually only comes to those who have studied long and hard first. The reason is that the mechanics of your art must be so developed as to be automatic to allow all your mind to be involved with being creative.

Also be aware of the dangers of praising a "good edit" because good editing is transparent - only the story should be visible.

If you look at medicine, there was a time where ideas weren't tested and that bloodletting was viewed as a cure. Once medicine started taking a more empirical approach, it has advanced a lot more.

Umm, blood letting is used even today in rare cases. And leeches are available at many top U.S. hospitals, because they can do what no pills, injections, or surgical work can do at any price [think diabetes patient extremities...].

And cataract surgery is done exactly the same way today that it was done 5,000 years ago by ayurvedic surgeons with their standardized collection of 120 stainless surgical steel tools. They also did brain surgery, cosmetic surgery, orthopedic surgery, and invented the use of metal salts in prescription medicines (yes, metal salts are prescribed today in the U.S.), at a time when Hippocrates and his buddies were sniffing flowers like Ferdinand the bull. :O)

It's also easy to forget that Pfizer, Parker, and all of today's long established top pharmaceutical companies were selling only herbal extracts a hundred years ago. Then somebody pointed out that synthetic chemicals could be patented for enormous profits, the botanicals were dumped in the back, and thanks to modern progress a 5 cent leaf has been replaced with a 5 dollar pill. Half of current prescription meds were derived from herbal medicines... (and 25% still are, they just haven't figured out how to synthesize those cost effectively yet).

You can't make someone a genius if they do not have it in them but you can teach the mechanics of the artistic process. All art forms have great schools whose purpose is to teach.

No you can't "teach" someone how to be an "artist." Either they are or they aren't. You can teach an artist craft, but you can't teach a craftsman art, if it is not in him to begin with.

I think that the mechanics of it can be taught and some of the concepts can be taught. For example in painting, you can learn things like perspective. Perspective has particular rules and those rules can definitely be taught.

Yes, you can teach the mechanics (craft) but that does not equate to "art." Art and craft are two entirely different components. The true artist will have a command of both. The craftsman will not. That which seperates the two practitioners is "creativity" and "talent".

Just like I can teach the mechanics or craft of screenwriting, but that knowledge alone does not guarantee great, artistically written screenplays.

Any idea how the video in the link is encoded. That's some pretty good looking streaming video!