Director and producer Myrl Schreibman explains how to collaborate with your film editor and why an editor’s different perspective makes the film better.
“Our projects are our gardens to which the editor/director collaboration is the gardener”
… William Shakespeare (sort of!)
The spring always finds me very busy. It is the time of the year when gardens are in bloom, and I am debating with my studio executive friend, Maggie Murphy, as to whose garden is better: hers and her pool hillside or mine and my little backyard park as both of us have contributed to the blueprint of each other’s designs when we bought plants for our gardens. It is an ongoing debate for which I am constantly and jokingly hit in the chest for a one-upmanship comment or two.
But it is also the time of the year when I am working with my students in reviewing their thesis projects discussing their edits and the stories that they are trying to tell. Most of the time, they are “repairing” their projects because they missed shooting a close-up here, or the right coverage there. They spend hour upon hour trying to “make it work” only to see the mistakes they made in production by not following their instinct or letting the performances motivate what the camera should see about character and story.
The real problem is that often times in film schools, the student is the writer, producer, director and editor all rolled up into one, and they have a difficult time in their learning curve to make the distinction of one from the other. Each of those people think differently from one another and together make up the creative collaboration that we call movie making, which is why, in the industry, we generally have different people doing those jobs.
It is why Martin Scorsese always uses Thelma Schoonmaker as his editor, and Steven Spielberg, Michael Kahn as his. Directors in general should turn their work over to an editor who looks at the material from a different perspective than the director. Because often times the director’s perspective has been affected by the memory of his/her experiences in getting the shot on the set. Especially if they are editing themselves or work with an editor immediately after production.
Editors are only as good as the footage they receive from their directors. They know the project only from what they see in the coverage and will often have a different viewpoint than what the director may have originally conceived or discussed with them beforehand because the coverage does not support that original idea. Directors must realize that the magic of editorial storytelling is a different kind of magic than that which is pre-visualized, conceived or takes place on the set. The editor may see character and story moments that the director did not notice in the tilt of an actors head, the movement of the camera or in one of those moments at the end of a scene when the camera lingers on an actor before the director yells “cut”. Directors must respect this contribution since the editor’s artistic nuances may be just as valid if not more so than the director’s. This collaboration of the editor understanding the director’s vision and adding to it is what fundamentally makes up the relationship of the editor and the director.
Although the working experiences between director and editor are different with different editors and directors, there is a similarity in how they work together. First, your editor must be a good storyteller and have a great sense of editorial rhythm. Second they should be on the same wave length as you and where you are headed with the scene. Third, they should have an affinity towards your vision in terms of your taste. Fourth, they should have an objectivity to what they see in the footage, as your perception will be slanted by what happened during production.
Some directors want their editor to wait with all the dailies before beginning to assemble the picture as they want to construct the picture along with the editor. Fortunately, this is a practice that is happening less and less today because of competitive release dates of projects being sooner than later. It is also not a good practice since you need to have some mental distance between the production and editorial processes. Having an editor assemble the picture as the project is shooting is not only creatively sound but fiscally prudent because working this way, your editor is able to let you know if you have missed a shot with your coverage in a scene, and you may be able to do the shot during the productions’ work schedule without having to do a pickup shot weeks if not months later: a practice that is frowned upon in the industry because of its increased cost.
The time to speak up in terms of what takes of your coverage you like, is when you are watching your dailies with your editor. This can be a time saver. However, one word of warning: do not be fooled in deciding as to which is the best take of each shot! During dailies you will always have an emotional reaction to the first take because you are seeing it for the first time. And you get numbed in viewing subsequent takes of the same shot. So you and your editor must look carefully at the performance of both the actor and the camera as the monitor for the best take when viewing your dailies. Although some directors choose to let the editor know what takes to use of each shot, others tend to not say anything at all giving the editor freedom in exercising their objectivity in selecting the performance for the story the way they see it.
If your editor is doing an assembly while you are shooting, you will be finished with the production before the assembly is completed. Now is when directors need to clear their heads and take time off from the project so they are able to approach working with the editor with a fresh eye when the assembly is completed. Then they should work with the editor scene by scene beginning with the first scene of the movie. That way they will see what the editor had in mind and work off of it, its rhythm and their own ideas. Editing at this level is collaborating; but now you are collaborating with an editorial virtuoso who is attuned more than you are to the editorial rhythms of the story.
It is best when working with your editor to approach the work from the story and character perspective. Your discussions should not be specific to how and where it is edited but in terms of … “It would be great if at this point we could accent the fact that she is deeply in love with him but is evading the moment of truth. How can we build that evasion into the scene?” Then let your editor try to shape it in that direction. Your editor will know how to do it much easier than you, and appealing to his/her creative ego as storytellers is a positive approach to the relationship of editor and director.
Once you have worked your way through to the end of the project, you and your editor should take a breather. The two of you will have a tendency to be tired of the project, so take a break and recharge your creative batteries. Then view the project just for yourself, but this time, on a large screen (as opposed to a computer monitor), as editorial rhythms change when it is seen on a large screen. Then, once you have made any new shifts with your editor, screen the project again on a large screen, but this time, with people who you trust to give you honest feedback before you screen your director’s cut for your producer.
Feedback is good. But evaluate and filter the feedback. It is important that you be true to your and your editor’s taste and feelings about the work. Your project is like mine and my friend’s gardens. We worked together to provide its shape and detail. But each one reflects our own tastes. Oh, by the way, hers is magnificent, and mine… Well… It is, too! “Ouch! Was that a slap in the chest?”
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