appreciation

Hello there,

I'm quite pleased with the way Scene 28 is shaping up. It's starting to cut together like a real conversation with a good pace.

We shot this scene (as I think I said?) from many angles. That is, we shot the first part of the scene (talk of specific relationships) from a few angles and then the second part of the scene (philosophical 'why attraction is healthy') from another set of angles. It really is a neat feeling to be able to put these takes together as if they were one flowing thing. The lines are, uhh, well, basically the same from take to take, but in one take, the lines are more on top of each other, and in another take, things take on a more carefree tone, etc. Cutting the different takes together lets an editor change the actors' rhythms, give them a switch in mood from one line to the next -- if it works/is believable.

It's a good reminder of how much power an editor has over the film as a whole. Javier Bardem (when he won one of those No Country for Old Men acting awards) thanked the editors for managing to piece together his best performance from all the different takes -- that's a kind of gracious we don't see too often.

My beloved John Sayles (writer/director) has said he always edits his own movies because to him it's like the final draft of the piece -- the script is the first draft, shooting is the revision, editing is the final draft. As a prose writer, he, this perspective makes a lot of sense and the more I edit (whenever I'm in an editing phase) the more I agree with him (I certainly experienced how shooting "revised" the script). To hire an outside editor is to grant someone a huge trust. Do they pick the take where the actor stutters a little and seems uncertain about what they're saying, or do they pick the take where the actor is brash, off the cuff. Such a difference in the way an audience will read the meaning of a moment. Not to mention where the close-ups come and where they decidedly do not: which moments are intimate ones.

It's hard to imagine discussion of "auteur theory" having any validity at all when a director's favorite editor or editing preferences are not discussed. Did Hitchcock often use the same editor? Ford? Scorcese? I seem to recall that Welles did -- though I might be thinking of the cinematographer... Tollefson? Something like that.

Anyway, I had some fun today. Yesterday was unfulfilling, but today was satisfying.

REA