My previous post talked about the history and the cons of the MTV effect on modern editing; today I’ll continue the history and look at the pros and where we are now.

Look what they done to my cuts, Ma

They’ve multiplied them and sped them up; they’re backed by green screen, racked with titillating effects and tracking multiple stories and all while pulsing to the beat, beat, beat. While a lot of MTV runs as mindless background visuals lacking story to be peered at when your companions or sports running on the TV above the bar fail to engage you, the effect of MTV filmmaking has changed the landscape on the silver screen and computer as well as TV screen. I deplore this Muzak-type use of video as much as electronic billboards and all annoying, anti-environment promotions.

Roots are showing

MTV didn’t spring out of nowhere in the 1980s. It germinated from 1950s French new Wave filmmaking style, 1960s music culture, movies like Help, Easy Rider, and Flashdance, the TV series Miami Vice, and the “break out from the clutter” world of commercials. As movies evolved from theatres to TV screens in bars and computers screens at home and everywhere, the modern style grew in cuts and effects.

Writer Debra Kaufman asks: “Video Spawned the Editing Star: What Hath MTV Wrought?” in her 2005 Editor’s Guild Magazine article.

Doug Ibold, A.C.E. responds that MTV has had “a huge impact on how people treat the storytelling process. If anyone doubts that, just look at how many episodic TV shows now end the episode with a dramatic song rather than the score. And observe how a very important part of a feature film release is to have a soundtrack to go with it. In most cases, it’ll include songs from the movie that are included, not the score.”

What are the new, MTV-influenced editing values? Here are the main ones:

• In your face editing: Audience aware of cuts and that they’re watching a show.
• Faster paced with short shot durations in every type of scene.
• Non linear structure frequently. Often takes effort to follow timeline due to asynchronous events.
• Multiple plotlines, commonly.
• Music drives story or songs vital to show and may end show.
• Continuity – whatever! Often observed but not THE WAY.
• Jump cuts embraced.
• Crazy-free use of visual effects. Audience aware of all types of dazzling wipes and other transitions.

Brief resolution

“That [MTV] revolution pushed us into an evolution that’s still going on. When MTV appeared, it seeped into mass consciousness and now is part of everyday life–like Starbucks.”
Mark Goldblatt, A.C.E., in Video Spawned the Editing Star: What Hath MTV Wrought?

Modern editing makes the viewer much more aware of the cuts and pacing. I appreciate seeing how different scenes and characters breathe in different rhythms – like music with its staccatos, allegros and rests – and like life with its times of stress, tranquility, and convergence.

I don’t appreciate the mindless cuts and effects that idle, diminish, or chop up the story. I love to relax into a B & W 1930s movie on TV and just let the present go.  And, I also love the stimulation of seeing where a millennium movie is going to take me in the present and into the future.

I recognize that “constant change is here to stay” as the old adage says. So I am staying tuned to what’s next.

admin Editing practices, Editor’s role, History/research, Sound and music editing, Visual FX editing

If an editor -- standing in for the viewer -- is a movie’s eyes, are those the eyes of someone suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder?

Since 1981 and the birth of MTV, filmmakers have been complaining, arguing, and embracing the effect of MTV on cutting. This week I’ll look at the pros and cons. Feel free to chime in!

Modern Editing

In “The Lost Art of Editing,” a 2006 article in The Boston Globe, writer Jessica Winter refers to the “dizzying pinball effect of hyper speed editing”, calling today’s editing “jittery” and a “chaotic, rat-tat-tat style of assembly.”

Winter reaches out to Steve Hamilton, editor of commercials, promos, and independent filmmaker Hal Hartley’s films. Hamilton explains, “There is much more pressure on an editor to try to do something noticeable, or perhaps there are more editors who’ve grown up thinking that they have to make edits that are noticeable, whereas before the goal was simply to tell the best possible story and to do so relatively invisibly. I think this mentality is leading to a mistrust of the shot.”

Or is it a mistrust of the material and the editor to bring forth the story from the material -- to sculpt the perfect the piece from its hunk of marble -- the footage?

Yesterday…All my long cuts seem so far away

“…recent American cinema has seemed so rushed and frazzled, desperate as it is to hold its ground in the losing battle between the haughty silver screen, that decrepit diva who insists on your silent attention, and the accommodating computer screen, the loyal manservant whose command is your every wish.”

Jessica Winter, from “The Lost Art of Editing“

What are the traditional values of Hollywood Style editing? Here are the main ones:

• Invisible editing: Viewer is unaware of cuts -- seeing whole show.
• Long shot durations, except for action scenes.
• Typically have linear structure and 1-2 plotlines.
• Music enhances the story. Songs sung on stage and usually backdrop to plot, not driver of plot. Producer tried to remove Somewhere over the Rainbow from Wizard of Oz.
• Continuity rules! Editors finesse footage to maintain continuity via match cuts (matching eyelines, action, angles, POVs etc.)
• Jump cuts eschewed.
• Spare use of visual effects that audience aware of: Time transition effects such as dissolves and fades most common.

Enjoy a fun, old style editing musical salute to Hollywood, made in 1980 by Forbidden Planet.

Stay tuned for Part 2, and positive reflections on the MTV effect.

admin Editing practices, Editor’s role, History/research, Humor, Sound and music editing, Television

I was extremely pleased that The Hurt Locker won for both picture editing and sound editing and sound mixing too. This was a picture and sound editor’s movie if there ever was one and it previously won the A.C.E. Eddie award for best feature editing. Picture editing drove the rhythm of this story about an American bomb diffusion squad in Iraq and in a way, diffusion was the movie’s metaphor – trying to mitigate the harm the war’s causing. The editing provided the tension from the film’s first frame,  and brought the excellent script, acting, and footage together. It was also the first time a husband-wife team won. Hats off to Bob Murawski and Chris Innes.

Sound editing

I will never forget the night scene in The Hurt Locker when members of the squad go up a blind alley, guns at the ready, not knowing what they’ll find. We can’t see much of anything but their grunted words and the sound effects carry us through. Thank you sound team, led by Paul  N.J. Ottosson, editors and Paul  N.J. Ottosson and Paul Beckett, mixers. Today’s LA Times reported Ottoson’s words backstage, “The most important part was to put you as a viewer into being the fourth man on the team and always being with the guy we’re with. We really [thought] about every shot in the movie instead of making something flashy and cool.”

Last thoughts

All movies nominated had excellent editing but I am glad not only that Hurt Locker took the editing Oscars but also the best picture and best director awards. In accepting her Oscar (finally a woman!) I was hoping Kathryn Bigelow would mention other women directors: Lois Weber, Dorothy Arzner, Barbara Streisand, etc. But I was pleased when she said, “I think the secret to directing is collaborating,” giving credit to all who toiled along with her.

admin Awards, Editor’s role, Joy goes to the movies, Sound and music editing

By a reader’s request, I am launching a series of posts on comedy editing starting next week. To begin, here is a trio of comic videos on editing that both teach and entertain. And the editing? Well, you be the judge.

1)    Reader Jeff Underwood of Mission Media in San Diego crosses an exercise video with a rundown of FCP best practices.

2)    A valley girl/editor/dreamgirl tells you how to de-saturate and re-saturate the color on your FCO video and makes you want to see her video.

3)    This is a terrific, contemporary take on as the frustrated editor Albert Brooks played in Modern Romance. (See Joy post on December 15.) It proves that editing -- like any profession -- is not joyful when you have a non-appreciative boob for a boss.

admin Editor’s role, Humor, Sound and music editing, Technical and process

Annually, MPSE presents the Golden Reel awards to honor the year’s best work in all areas of sound editing: ADR, dialogue, effects, Foley, and music. MPSE has a large swath of categories including features, TV, computer entertainment, and student films. They also bestow a Filmmaker Award which will go to Steven Spielberg this year.

Here are MPSE’s Best Sound Editing live action feature film nominations (nominees too numerous to list) for Sound Effects and Foley:

admin Awards, Sound and music editing

As I wrote in last month, a long time friend of mine, Paul Frommer, created the Na’vi language for Avatar. I finally got to spend an evening with him – the first time I’ve seen him since the movie opened on planet earth. Five of us plied him with questions so here’s some more information:

Paul Frommer by Bryce Homick

There’s a website devoted to learning the language: http://www.learnnavi.org/

Oel ngati kameie (“I see you”)

Paul has been amazed and delighted by the response to Na’vi. People from around the world have signed a petition entreating him, Karyu Pawl (Father Paul) to teach them the language. The number is over 3500 and growing daily.

You can sign the petition and/or hear his response – spoken and written in Na’vi with English subtitles – at

admin Joy goes to the movies, Sound and music editing

For the first time since 1943, there are 10 nominations for best picture. Everything else gets five nominations. Let Joy know your thoughts on the nominees and all things Oscar, especially the editing nominees.

I will be on an Oscar panel with other film authors, so if you’re in the LA area come on over! I’d love to see you. Here’s the official announcement:

The Writer’s Store Pre-Oscar Bash and Discussion with the Authors of Michael Wiese Productions
Date: Thursday, February 25th, 6-8PM
Location: Writer’s Store, 2040 Westwood Boulevard,  Los Angeles, CA 90025
Phone:  (310) 441-5151
RSVP: http://www.storylink.com/event/2009OscarPanel

Join Screenwriters, Directors, Editors, and Indie Filmmakers for a lively discussion about the picks and pans for 2009!
Hear from Industry Insiders about their favorite movies for 2009 and learn new skills about writing, screenwriting, editing, storyboarding and more.

Panelists

Moderated by Christopher Vogler, author of The Writer’s Journey 3rd edition

Marcie Begleiter, author of From Word to Image – 2nd edition

Gael Chandler, author of Cut by Cut: Editing Your Film or Video and
Film Editing: Great Cuts Every Filmmaker and Movie Love Must Know

Michael Hauge, author of Selling Your Story in 60 Seconds

Christopher Riley, author of The Hollywood Standard – 2nd edition

admin Awards, Joy goes to the movies, Sound and music editing

My interview didn’t make it into Sunday’s broadcast. As a result, they gave me my own show at

After Wednesday, the podcast will be archived and available on the Blog Radio site or its main site:

admin Announcement, Editing practices, Editor’s role, History/research, Humor, Sound and music editing, Television

Two weeks ago Jamey DuVall, producer and co-host of Blog Talk Radio,
interviewed me on a host of editing topics: the editor and the director, the editor and the producer, the editor’s contributions to films, editing trends, the role of digital editing, my two books and more.

Today the podcast will broadcast at 3 p.m. PST. It will be available through Wednesday here:

After Wednesday, the podcast will be archived and available on the Blog Radio site or its main site:

admin Announcement, Editing practices, Editor’s role, History/research, Humor, Sound and music editing, Television

Here’s the conclusion to my interview of my friend Paul Frommer, the creator of the movie’s fictional language, Na’vi, and a linguist and professor of Clinical Management Communication at USC’s Marshall School of Business.

I must say, although I am a skxawng (moron) about the language – that is the one word I came away from the movie remembering – I am glad I have a little more insight into Paul’s mind and the world of linguistics.

GC: Where does the word Na’vi come from? Did Cameron conceive it?

PF: Yes, it’s his word. I made sure, though, that the apostrophe meant something–that is wasn’t just there for decoration. It indicates a glottal stop–the sharp break you hear in, for example, “uh-oh.”

GC: Does the language have gender?

PF: Only rarely. There’s a general word for he or she, po. But if you need to specify he vs. she, then he is poan and she is poe. There are a few other such examples: itan, son; ite, daughter. As you see, the -an ending is masculine, the -e ending is feminine. But as I said, only a few words have that distinction.

GC: How does Na’vi relate to Klingon?

PF: Klingon is a rough-sounding language with a complex and difficult phonology and grammar that now has a devoted base of followers. To some ears, Klingon sounds like a cross between Russian and crawfish, but the Na’vi language is far more gentle on the ear. Cameron wanted something melodious and musical, something that would sound strange and alien but smooth and appealing.

GC: What was the process for transmitting the language to the actors?
PF: I met with all seven of the Na’vi-speaking actors off-set before their scenes were shot to help them with the pronunciation, and I also supplied recordings in the form of mp3 files so that they could listen to and absorb the dialog…

…it was quite a challenge. They had to learn their lines in a language no one had ever heard before, including learning to make unusual sounds and sound combinations, and then they had to act convincingly in that language! That involved not only memorizing the sentences but mastering the stress and intonation, so that they could place emphasis in the right place. It wasn’t easy, but they did a remarkable job.

When I couldn’t be there, however, the dialog coach, Carla Meyer, took over. She didn’t know the grammar of the language but did understand the pronunciation, which was the main thing.

GC: What things did you create in Na’vi: dialogue, song, video game, lexicon and ?

PF: Yes, all of those. I translated lyrics for four songs that JC had written in English–that was fun! Gave me a chance to try my hand at Na’vi poetry.

GC: How did ADR go?

PF: There was no ADR for the Na’vi.

GC: Is there a word for editor or editing that I could possibly use?

PF: No word for edit or editor, yet.

http://www.dblondin.com/092507.html

Follow this link to an extensive, well written and in-depth article about fictional languages and sound design.

admin Joy goes to the movies, Sound and music editing