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Editing “Detroit” – Essential Reading
A simply wonderful interview by Steve Hullfish with the editors of Detroit:
https://www.provideocoalition.com/art-cut-editors-detroit/
Obviously I particularly liked this insight from William Goldenberg:
“… my process was to watch all the film and write lots and lots of notes on locators and then pull selects and organize selects in a really rough scene. Then start whittling it together almost like sculpting. What’s telling the story? How are these pieces of the film telling the story?”
But that aside, this is crammed full of fascinating observations. As we know, all editing will in the near future be entirely automated and you won’t need the messy human element, but for now it’s a pleasure to revel in the creativity and sensitivity that great editors can still bring to the game.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki -
3 Replies
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[Simon Ubsdell] “As we know, all editing will in the near future be entirely automated and you won’t need the messy human element, but for now it’s a pleasure to revel in the creativity and sensitivity that great editors can still bring to the game.”
I share your hope that in 20 years, we’re not the new version of the old guys sitting around Steam Engine displays talking about the golden age of passenger trains.
Hope springs eternal.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
And another great line for the interview:
William Goldenberg: “Michael [Kahn] would say to me all the time, ‘If you want to go faster, slow down. If you slow down and you’re patient everything will happen faster.’ You learn a thousand things and maybe ten of them will stick in your head and never go away. That was one of those… take a Zen approach and go slow… be methodical. ”
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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[Oliver Peters] “William Goldenberg: “Michael [Kahn] would say to me all the time, ‘If you want to go faster, slow down. If you slow down and you’re patient everything will happen faster.’ You learn a thousand things and maybe ten of them will stick in your head and never go away. That was one of those… take a Zen approach and go slow… be methodical. “”
Reminds me of some threads about famous successful contemporary songwriters I’ve read over the past few months.
One artist describing how it took them two full years of constant revision and focus to craft the perfect chart topping music and lyrics.
And then Lady Gaga comes along noting that “Million Reasons” took her about 15 minutes – start to finish.
Creativity is a damn funny thing.
One director (nominally batting 500) with a HUGE budget struggles to get EVERY DETAIL PERFECT – and maybe bats 500 at the Box Office and in Syndication.
A different director (also batting 500) with pennies in comparison – tosses off a film merely to fulfill a contract – maybe with a decent if silly and pedestrian script – (paging George Bailey?) and the genie pops out of the bottle and the society embraces it and comes to LOVE it for a million reasons that were never expected.
This business is just SO weird that way.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.
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