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EDITOR'S BLOG

We are used to Hollywood actors and directors becoming household names. People like Robert Downey Jr and Christopher Nolan have firmly put their stamps on Hollywood. But what about the people who puts the films together? What about the editors? Where is their recognition?

Editors are like the tour guides of a film in a sense. They help direct the audience's gaze and help them understand the narrative, using various different shots and audio. They are helping bring the director’s vision to life and allowing the audience to connect to the characters and the story. The relationship between an editor and director is crucial on film sets and can become strained easily. The relationship becomes delicate as the footage is what the directors wants to use in the film. A film editor will work closely to the director to check the production is going as expected and that the scenes that are being filmed make sense and run smoothly. A director can become obsessive with their footage. They may favour one of the scenes that were shot but the shot may have no purpose in terms of the film’s narrative. Therefore, the editor may take out of the film. An editor’s job may not be full time. Usually, editors are working on a freelance basis. This means that the editor may be self-employed and working from home, but they are hired by a production team due to their professionalism and their experience within the industry. Along with this, editors will need to be flexible in terms of time. As they are editing a feature film, it can be time consuming, so they have to be dedicated to meeting the editing deadlines.

Editors are the people behind fusing scenes together, so the end result of the film (or the final cut) makes sense to those watching it. Their role is to essentially engage the audience through the editing. It’s fine being able to direct it and film it but without the editor, the film remains stationary and cannot move from the production stage. They are one of the most important people across all forms of production on a film set, especially in post-production. They combine two scenes, so they smoothly run into each other, crafting a story using the material provided to them. Editor's must be aware of what the narrative of the film is and find ways to translate the plot on screen, using the shots filmed in the production stage. An editor must be aware of different software and editing facilities to allow easy editing and for the scenes to fit easily together. A vital aspect to editing is being able to communicate and give opinions and ideas on how the film's narrative should run and work towards the final cut of the film. Transitions, grading and continuity are important things to acknowledge whilst editing a film together. Referring to Star Wars, when a scene was cutting to a new scene, instead of fading in and out or just using a simple cut, George Lucas, the director, chose to use the screen wipe. In simple terms, a scene would be pushed to one side and completely off screen whilst a new scene took over the screen. For any other film, these transitions wouldn't work but the Star Wars franchise have made them part of the franchise's iconography. Although the wipe does look weird and out of place, Star Wars solidified the transition and now it is recognisable across the film industry.

An editor’s roles and responsibilities can vary with different film sets but the personal attributes are the same. They must be good at time keeping and must be organised at all times, which is relevant in any industry. An editor must also pay attention to the little details of the films. For example, if a movie is targeted for a younger audience, then the editing will be a lot more subtle so children will be able to follow the plot without a problem. However, if a movie is for an older target audience, the audience is going to be more perceptive and notice the small details which may foreshadow a future event in the movie. The editing will be slightly more complex as older audiences will be able to follow the plot. Genres themselves carry their own conventions and editors have to be able to show these conventions through their editing. Before starting on a new film project, it is important to understand the genre of the film and pick out which conventions are the most recognisable within that genre. The lines can blur, and genres can be pushed and merged together to make a hybrid genre. In the past few years we have seen superhero films mixed with western films (Logan) and horror (New Mutants, who’s release date is still to be determined). Horror comedies are also popular within the film industry. Films like 'Shaun of the Dead' and 'Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse' are both equally funny as they are scary. Horror is normally associated with dark themes, ghost and a lack of humour or optimism. The characters within these films are credulous, which adds another layer of comedy onto the films. In horror we are so used to seeing the serious main characters who are trying to defeat evil that we forget what the situation could be like if a comedic main character was the main character. In terms of editing, the editor must understand both of the genres and come up with a way to merge them together.

Techniques in Editing

Genre can impact how a film is edited. The editor needs a full understanding of the genre of the film and how to adapt the footage captured into a film.

Drama

Whilst editing drama, it is most likely the editor will have to the script by their side to refer to. They may also have the storyboard for reference. Drama is about the characters and also the narrative. In other genres, one of these things is considered more important than the other. If they audience do not care for a character, they may not care for the drama that follows. All scenes will have a purpose and will serve the narrative. With the genre, it is easier to shoot more than needed as this gives the editor more freedom when telling the final story for the final cut.

Action

Actions films are edited in a certain way. The shots are smooth but faster. Films like John Wick and Fast and Furious have stylised action shots to get the audience entertained. The nature of the editing relies on the energy and adrenaline that is coming off the screen. Audiences want to know who is going to come out better in a fight and it is down to the editor to edit the shots and reflect the energy from the screen. Editing action is a harder skill as there is a lot of things going on. In John Wick there are scenes with strong violence, whilst Fast and Furious has more action involving car sequences. The editor has to edit the shots and keep the continuity within these sequences.

Romantic- Comedies

Romantic comedies share elements with drama. The editing is a lot smoother compared to that of a horror or an action. Romantic comedies do not need to focus on anything in particular. There are no storylines or plot points to emphasise on. These types of films involve a lot of mid shots and mid two shots. A mid shot is when one person is on screen and the camera is the top half of their body. A mid two shot is the same, however two people are in the frame instead. Romantic comedies share the same themes and conventions as a comedy. Shots appear to be on screen for a longer amount of time so the audience can focus on the characters and the chemistry between them. These types of films have cheerful music, brighter colours and high key lighting and has an overall joyous feeling to it. The editor manipulates the film by editing in these conventions and iconography to manipulate the audience to go on the same emotional journey as the characters on the screen.

Scouts Guide to The Zombie Apocalypse

If we take a comedy-horror film, the editor can add sound effects or audio to highlight the comedy in a certain scene. For instance, in 'Scouts Guide to The Zombie Apocalypse', there is one scene where the main characters are walking across the bridge. It's late at night and all the characters are talking about escaping. Horror films thrive especially when the major scenes are shot in the dark, adding to the although tense atmosphere. People tend to feel their most vulnerable at night and to play on this idea, works well for horror. As the group walk towards a van, they are scared by a zombie who appears stood next to the van. This is a horror convention. It works as a jump scare and the audience aren't expecting it. The music that is edited over it also have the same impact, reflecting the action taking place on screen. The audio is high-pitched, a common audio used within horror films. Whilst the zombie starts to walk towards the group the characters start arguing about if they should murder the zombie. There is a shot reverse shot to show how slow the zombie is, playing on the stereotype of zombies walking slowly. Once the zombie gets close enough to the group, one of the characters glances at the Britney Spears t-shirt that the zombie is wearing the first few notes of 'Hit Me Baby One More Time' plays. The scene then becomes more hysterical as one of the characters starts to sing the song along with the zombie. The camera cuts the reactions of each of the characters who are all equally as confused, adding another layer of comedy.

The idea of cutting and editing these reactions whilst the zombie and other character are singing together plays upon the comedy-horror genre and this is a defining comedic moment in the film. As it gets to the chorus, the singing grows louder. This shot places the singing characters into the foreground and the confused ones into the background, creating a division between both sides. As the song reaches its climax, the camera focuses on the zombie only as seconds before the song is over, the zombie is shot, reminding the audience that there is a literal zombie apocalypse is happening whilst the Britney Spears singalong is happening. The scene alone shows that horror-comedies can be done if they are edited in the right way. By taking an event like a world destruction and the apocalypse, you can create humour, which separates the film from other existing horror films. Situations like that shouldn't be funny or light-hearted but by manipulating the footage by editing it a certain way, a hybrid film can be made. By using the raw footage, editors have to be able to manipulate the shots to create a story that follows the genre conventions. When editing footage, there are unique ways of illustrating and highlighting the genre of the film through the editing software. If we refer to horror films, we can see that the horror genre is made up with silence, quick-paced shots and lowkey lighting. With horror films, an editor has to be able to create a tension-filled atmosphere with the shots that are provided to them.

Captain America: Civil War

Linking into tension, action films also have a certain level of tension in the form of action scenes. Action film and superhero films share many qualities like fast-paced cutting and city shots to help the audience establish where in the world that particular scene is taking place. A film that does this well is Marvel's Captain America: Civil War (edited by Jeffery Ford). With every new location, the audience can see the established landscape as well as a title card informing the audience of where exactly the action is taking place. Especially in the superhero genre, super fans of the comic books will be able to associate a location with a superhero. For example, in Civil War, one of the title sequences in for Queens, New York. To a standard member of the audience, this would spark no emotional value and they would consider it as just a location that furthers the plot along. To a superhero fan, they would already be linking Queens with Peter Parker, who's superhero ego is Spider-Man, arguably the most famous Marvel character. Fans were eagerly waiting for Peter Parker to enter the MCU so creating the hype by just editing in an establishing shot into the film made audiences excited.

Techniques in Editing

Genre can impact how a film is edited. The editor needs a full understanding of the genre of the film and how to adapt the footage captured into a film.

Drama

Action

Romantic- Comedies

Scouts Guide to The Zombie Apocalypse

The sequence starts with an establishing shot of Queens, where Peter lives with his aunt after the death of his parents and the recent death of his uncle. The audience see Peter walking down the hallway. They only see his bottom half, which also symbolises that he, wants to hide his identity. As well as this, with a new actor playing Peter it introduces Tom Holland nicely to the Marvel universe. The camera carries on following Peter; with the camera, slowly tilting up the closer Peter gets to his apartment. The music that can be heard is the song that is playing through Peter's headphones which is diegetic music. The camera does not cut at any point, which leads to a continuous shot of Peter as he walks through the door. He is not expecting Tony Stark to be sat on his sofa. The audience see Tony before Peter does which adds to Peter's oblivious views. The camera still has not cut as Peter heads to the kitchen. The audience then see him turn around. The camera then zooms up into his face to reveal Peter's shocked expression he then takes his headphone out in disbelief. As Peter looked up to Tony this took him by surprise as his childhood hero is sat in his front room, besides his aunt.

The camera then cuts to Tony and Aunt May from Peter's view so the audience is able to see what Peter is so shocked at. Peter then starts to stutter as he has become overwhelmed with the idea of Tony sat on his sofa. The audience will be excited by the idea of Peter and Tony sharing a scene together as it has never happened before in any previous movies and has only ever happened in the Marvel comics. This increases drama Tony is willing to bring someone as inexperienced and as young as Peter into a war, which involves trained assassins and specially advanced humans. This also shows how desperate Tony has become. It also makes the audience question how long Tony has known about Peter and how he actually found out that Peter is actually Spider-Man.

The Impossible

The Impossible is based on the real-life events of the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004. The movie is based on a family that was torn apart by the tsunami. In this scene i am going to break down, the mother and her eldest son are trying to support each other as they alone and without the rest of the family. The father and the two youngest sons are all together, trying to find Lucas and his mother. The mother is rushed into hospital due to her injuries. She sends Lucas to help other people locate their family members, which leads onto him finding his family.

Throughout one of the most important scenes in the film, the audience feel many different emotions, which vary from relief to shock. The audience are unaware of if the family are going to be reunited. This scene will be emotional for anyone with a family as this event could happen to anyone and it shows what lengths people will go to protect and save their families. The camera mostly uses either eye-level angles or low angles and does not zoom into anything. This could be for the idea that the emotions and feelings of the characters are shown through the facial expressions and the angles rather thank the camera zooming in on their reactions.

Editing

To be an editor, there are no qualifications needed or any specialised education. There are, of course, editing courses where you can study the craft of editing films. There are software courses and degree level editing courses. Universities like London and Bournemouth offer editing degrees and bachelor’s degree. There are also online courses that can also educate about editing techniques, theories and skills. What is really needed is a passion for the art of storytelling and knowledge on editing software and how to use them. You would have to build yourself up, starting with being a Runner, which means running errands for other people. Runner is one the starting positions within the film industry. Although it may not be what you wanted to do, it will give you an idea of what it is like on film sets. Like directors, editors must be flexible and must be able to work any hours, including nights and anti-social hours. An editor must be able to work flexible hours as this will help with the production process. Editors must also be able to work long hours to assure the production is of the best quality. With working long days, there is also a lot of pressure on the editor as they must be able to remain professional throughout the process of editing. As stated, an editor is usually freelanced. This means that they aren't contracted and are hired in by studios. This could mean that editors have more than one film that they are editing. With this being the case, this also tests the editor's organisation and ability to meet deadlines.

The editor knows how to create that excitement within fans and drop subtle Easter eggs and references to create more of an emotional connection between the film and the audience. Moving onto rom coms, these types of films usually on camera angles and camera movements more. The shots tend to be longer as the film is much more about the characters than the plot. Editors then can create a chemistry between both love interests and develop a love story through the emotions and words of the characters. (Genre, 2019)

Bohemian Rhapsody

Editing has its own category at the Academy Awards for a reason. Past winners include 'Saving Private Ryan', 'Titanic' and 'Whiplash'. The 2018 biopic, 'Bohemian Rhapsody' came under fire when it won the Oscar for 'Best Editing' and was the source of controversy. Editing, without no doubt, is a hard craft but when a scene is badly edited it is hard to notice anything else. Of course, no film is perfect but the editing within Bohemian Rhapsody is noticeable. If we take one scene in particular, we can notice just how odd the editing of it is. In this scene, Queen are sat outside, waiting to talk to John Reid (Game of Thrones' Aidan Gillen). However, the camera keeps cutting between all four members of Queen for no apparent reason. These cuts serve no purpose to the plot and none of the characters are reacting to any news or conversations, so these cuts seem out of place. Cutting between characters can be used to set up a conversation or tension but this scene in Bohemian Rhapsody had neither of these things happening. The scene itself is 104 seconds but the scene contains 60 different cuts of characters, which is overwhelming. The audience has no idea who to focus on as they are not able to see a single shot for too long before it cuts to another person.

Action films have considerably less cuts in scenes and providing this scene in Bohemian Rhapsody is just a group of men sitting at a table, the cuts seem pointless as there is no action or drama taking place. The characters are seen reacting to a line but a lot of the time, it is unclear who is delivering that line and who they are delivering the line to. Eye line is one of the most vital things to pay attention to whilst editing. Eye line helps the audience establish who is talking to who and who is looking at who. This helps guide the audience’s attention and the audience have no problem following the plot. There are no varying shots. What the audience sees on screen is repetitive mid-shots that provide no information. As John Reid greets the band, only three of the members can be seen on screen. A pan or a long shot could have been used to show all four characters but instead the edit chooses to cut out of one of the members. After cutting from Freddie, John and Roger, the scene then cuts to Brian in a mid-shot. This seems incredibly out of place as it feels like he isn't even a part of the band and is just there for the fun of it. As stated, editing is hard and when editing is bad, it is easier to notice. (EW.com, 2019)

You may have heard of Spielberg’s E.T but the person who edited it together was a woman called Carol Littleton. She edited one of the most iconic cinematic moments of Hollywood history; the scene of which Elliot flies on the bike with E.T. this scene alone is one of the most magical moments of the film. Littleton was then nominated for an academy award for “Best Editor” for E.T. She was also nominated for a BAFTA for that film as well. Taken from “An Interview with Carol Littleton, ACE”, Littleton says “As an editor I analyse the story, and figure out how to make it as rich as possible, to have the most emotional impact.” This means that editors have to review all the footage that has been given to them by the director and they have to find the best way to show the true depth of the film by making decisions on what should and should not be in the film. If we think about it in a similar context, editing is like getting the chapters of a book, but they are not in an order that is easy to read. The editor's baseline job is to put these chapters into an order that makes sense and allows the audience to follow the plot. Chapters are taken out and also added in (these are known as re-shoots in film terms) and they tell the story.

Jeffery FordJEFFREY FORD

EDITO

Jeffery Ford is an established film editor and an assistant producer. His work includes the likes of a handful of Marvel Studios film. His first major editing role was The Yards in 2000. Since 2011, Ford has worked on the Marvel films including The Avengers saga, the Captain America trilogy and Iron Man 3.

Starting off, Ford was a camera assistant on set. Although he enjoyed being on set, he longed to become a film editor. He was passionate about editing and the art surrounding editing. Ford's friend, James Gray hired Ford for his debut film and gave him an apprenticeship in editing. Gray's work includes 'The Lost City Of Z' (stars Marvel's Tom Holland) and 'Blood Ties". Ford's first real editing job came with the film 'The Yards', directed by James Gray. Ford had edited two of the biggest MCU films, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Both films are vital in the Marvel franchise and are both work together to create a conclusion for the Infinity Saga that Marvel Studios have been working on for eleven years. Providing both films are there to also end the character stories, Ford says "The fans know so much about these characters that sometimes you can just do something very subtle and the audience will laugh knowingly because they know so much about them." (Coalition, 2019)

Shooting the film is one job but editing the footage together in a way that makes sense and creates a story is another thing. Superhero films, by nature, have more action sequences than most action films. Superhero stories heavily revolve around the idea of a hero defeating the villain, a pattern that most superhero films follow. Continuity is a key in editing and can be proven difficult within the action scenes. As people are fighting, there is a lot of movement, creating issues within the editing process. Usually, fighting and action scenes will insist on using a lower shutter speed and a lower FSP. (Videomaker, 2019)

A Quiet Place – A Study in Audio Editing

How can you tell a story where there are few words spoken?

A Quiet Place is a 2018 horror film directed by John Krasinski, who is best known for his role as Jim on the American version of’ ‘The Office’. As well as directing the film, Krasinski also stars in the film alongside his real-life wife, Emily Blunt. The film is set in a dystopian future where humanity has nearly been destroyed by creatures that are blind and heavily rely on the hearing to find their prey.

References

Genre, R. (2019). Relationship to Genre. [online] Filmandvideoeditingbd.blogspot.com. Available at: [Accessed 17 Apr. 2019].

EW.com. (2019). [online] Available at: [Accessed 17 Apr. 2019].

Coalition, P. (2019). ART OF THE CUT with Avengers - Infinity War editor, Jeffrey Ford, ACE by Steve Hullfish - ProVideo Coalition. [online] ProVideo Coalition. Available at: [Accessed 17 Apr. 2019].

Videomaker. (2019). Filming a Fight Scene - Videomaker. [online] Available at: [Accessed 17 Apr. 2019].