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