Editing Today – another Philippic

[Herb Sevush]

[Bill Davis] “If you’re doing NAB this year, I’ll even pay off with a beer.”

Would love to take you up on that, but I’m chained to my Mac. Finishing up post on season 15 and then straight into shooting season 16. Life is good. You’ll have to drink for the both of us.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Andrew Kimery]

[Herb Sevush] “Would love to take you up on that, but I’m chained to my Mac. Finishing up post on season 15 and then straight into shooting season 16. Life is good. You’ll have to drink for the both of us.”

In honor of Herb’s accomplishment I will gladly accept his beer for him at NAB. 😉

[Bill Davis]

[Andrew Kimery] “In honor of Herb’s accomplishment I will gladly accept his beer for him at NAB. ;)”

Done. Your interest payment will be your needing to bring a sharpie and small label to print “Herb’s Beer” on it – and post a pic here of the result. I’d practice an “I’m really enjoying this, Herb” face in the mirror if I were you Andrew, since the result will be famous.

(Maybe we can do it in one of the watering holes at the Rivera to commemorate the coming implosion?)

See you all in Vegas.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Jeff Markgraf]

Hey Bill –

Sorry for the thread hijack. Is there an informal COW meet & greet this year? Last time I remember was a few years ago…you and Walter and a couple of others. Or is everyone just planning to see and be seen at the FCPWorks events?

[Bill Davis]

Hi Jeff,

I haven’t heard anything Cow specific. I’m arriving Saturday. Once again, I’m vaguely covering NAB for DVInfo.net so I like to pop into the perhipheral events like the classes and keynotes and write up something about the overall feel of the Conferences each year. The big themes and ideas that come up in the first few days.So if anyone’s about on Sat or Sun, that’s the easiest for me to schedule since it’s pre-show.

Monday, I typically do the BlackMagic Press Conference – and obviously I’ll be at the FCPWorks events mostly all day after that.

If you haven’t heard yet, the original FCP X Or Not event on Monday right after lunch was scrubbed – not quite sure why, although I suspect that somebody may have figured that there’s little point in acknowledging that OR NOT is even a viable option. I can understand that. That ship has kinda sailed. Plus, for FCPWorks business – their focus has always been on large workflow expertise. Noah Kadner, who’s in charge of the schedule asked me to consider a substitute topic for a presentation – but although I pitched a few ideas, I suspect this late in the game I’ll just be attending like everyone else. I imagine I’ll be in the suite a good bit this year.

Then the invitation only FCP Guru’s meeting at the Hard Rock is Mon Night will replace my Media Motion Ball slot, and late that night I’m due at Chris Hurds Party for the DVInfo crew.

Tues day, more FCPWorks – then Tues PM is the Supermeet, where I’ll be semi-MC ing and helping Mike and Dan put the show on as usual. Anyone who wants to say HI, that’s the best place, since I’m easy to find. And the doing the raffle at the end is something I look forward to every year!

Wed is possible for a meet up of some kind. Perhaps at lunchtime? Depending on how well we all fare the first 72 hours, this year. If anyone wants to do something OR NOT, just let me know.

It’s going to be a jam packed NAB this year from a FCP X perspective.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Tim Wilson]

I’m eventually going to have to go back up the thread to reply to many of the GREAT points up there, but for now, I have a couple of observations.

First, I think Simon is absolutely correct. The ease of nonlinear editing enables laziness of a sort that was previously impossible. I also agree that lazy editing enables lazy filmmaking. “Fix it in post” is no longer seen by producers as the solution to a problem. You’ve all seen it yourselves. For post wizards like you, again and again, the attitude of “Fix it in post” is the PROBLEM.

Fortunately most of you are more than up to the task. But I think among our arguments about the monkey work of pushing buttons, it’s worth talking about the toll our wonderful, amazing tools have taken on the classic cinematic arts, regardless of the time in which they’re being practiced.

To me, the watchword of cinematic anything — features, TV, videos, trailers, spots — is “INTENT.” Storyboarding isn’t where preparation for the implementation of cinematic intent begins. It’s where it ENDS. The vision expressed in cinematic intent starts long before that.

The details of the first creative spark are beyond the scope of a post even as ridiculously long as this one, but again, I think Simon is right. A discussion about cinematic editing presupposes some things about “cinematic cinematography” if you will, which extend backwards through lighting to staging. That’s where I think the visual aspect of cinematic intent begins.

To make my first invocation of film theory, the basic building block of cinematic intent isn’t “the shot.” It’s the FRAME. That’s what was so powerful about filmmakers like Fritz Lang, and cinematographers like Gregg Toland. Every single frame of their films could have been used as a publicity photo, because every frame was composed as a FRAME.

Which is to say, we can skip over the whole depth of field argument. We can skip grain, spherical lenses, the flicker of the shutter in the projector. Go straight to INTENT. An example of what happens when everything is composed INTENTIONALLY is that the actor has to hit every mark, or there’s nothing to fix in post. There’s no frame.

Look at something like Birdman. It looks loosey goosey, and there appears to be a lot of improvised camera movement. But I think that the movement had much narrower parameters than there appeared to be. You can only create an illusion if you control every element. Otherwise, you can see the cards up the sleeve, the knotted hankies in the pocket, the rabbit in the hat.

We know that the ILLUSION of Birdman was REALIZED in post, but it wasn’t FIXED in post. Things had to happen on the set and on the street in a predictable fashion.

At least that’s my guess. LOL Fortunately, I’m right about the rest. LOL Think about what’s required for a tracking shot like the one in Children of Men — far more moving pieces than in the also-marvelous tracking shots in Goodfellas and The Player, although for any of them, it’s almost impossible to conceive how many things needed to happen at exactly the right time, in exactly the right way.

To that end, I don’t know how deeply the laziness in shooting and editing is rooted in multicam per se but, again, I think Simon is absolutely correct that aspects of modern tools enable new kinds of laziness.

That is, there’s a fine line between “flexible” and “wobbly.”

[Winston A. Cely] ” Who are the new auteurs? We have a few old ones left, Scorsese, Spielberg, Allen, Coppola, and even those guys aren’t necessarily producing at the level we may imagine their older works are at. But Who’s the next Kubrick? Kuroaswa? Bergman? Fellini? “

I don’t know about all these guys. I wasn’t a fan of Kubrick, Fellini gave me a headache, I have LESS than no use for Woody, etc. Not that I’d want to persuade anyone else about any of that, or argue that any of them weren’t auteurs (of course they are) but my point in mentioning some of the auteurs today is that I don’t think that any of the masters you mention would acknowledge a conflict between “movies” and “films.”

Okay, maybe Bergman would. LOL

Here’s my short list of guys working today who deserve to be considered somewhere in that general group.

Wes Anderson. Has there ever been a filmmaker for whom you can more definitively look at a single frame and say, “It HAS to be his. It can’t be anyone else.” I personally don’t think so. And of course, hyper-literate scripts, fantastic art design, and stylized editing to match.

Alejandro Iñárritu. It happens that a lot of his best work is in Spanish, but still.

Not to put the Mexican guys in a clump, but Alfonso Cuarón is amazing. I haaaaaaaated Gravity, omg, I hated it so much, but Children of Men features not only one of the best handfuls of tracking shots in movie history, but it’s a work of art from stem to stern. Don’t you DARE leave off Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban from his list of marvels, another bravura piece of filmmaking from a modern master.

I swear I’m not meaning to do this on purpose, but gol dang, I’m insane for Spain’s Pedro Almodóvar, who I think of as today’s Fellini, minus the headache. LOL Fully embraces absurdity, art, and populism.

Christopher Nolan. I don’t care for his Batman pictures AT ALL, but Memento, The Prestige, Inception, Interstellar? Wow. Not all of them are 100% winners, but wow.

Steven Soderbergh. He uses assumed names for shooting and editing, but he does in fact shoot and edit. Even if his career stopped with Sex Lies & Videotape, Kafka, Out of Sight (I really love this), The Limey, Traffic, Erin Brokovich, and Oceans 11, that’s straight-up legit.

Richard Linklater. He’s another who could have ended with Slacker, Dazed and Confused, and Before Sunrise, and he’d make my cut. A very distinctive voice. Add a couple of others from his filmography like Waking Life, School of Rock, Bernie (what? You didn’t see this? DO!) and Boyhood, and you’re in pretty rarified air.

Neill Blomkamp. It’s too easy to dismiss genre guys, but District 9, Elysium and the not-great but undeniably HIS Chappie reveal the firm hand of a man with a vision. Very unusual for a guy to put this strong a stamp on his work this early in his career…unless it’s Anderson, Linklater, Soderbergh, Tarantino….never mind. LOL BUT STILL.

An older guy of course, but I don’t think James Cameron gets enough credit. Terminator, The Abyss, Aliens, Titanic, that blue cartoony kind of thing — what was the name of that again? In any case, as strong an imprint as any director has made, ever, and he wrote them as well as directed them. A deep visual palette for sure, and superlatively edited.

It astounds me that Spike Lee isn’t mentioned more often on a list of modern auteurs. It’s also amazing to me that the guy can do Oscar-nominated work, and still has to go to Kickstarter to raise money for his pictures.

Here’s 8 movies in 8 years:

• She’s Gotta Have It
• School Daze
• Do the Right Thing (if I was teaching a film criticism class, I think this would my third movie on the syllabus)
• Mo’ Better Blues
• Jungle Fever
• Malcolm X
• Crooklyn
• Clockers

I don’t think any other director on this list made 8 movies in a row this good.

Then later of course He Got Game, Summer of Sam, Get On the Bus, 4 Little Girls, When The Levee Broke, and the sorely underrated (imo) Inside Man.

I included a couple of documentaries for Spike, because I think his authorial stamp on them is clear. But let’s add

Errol Morris. He won an Oscar for The Fog of War of course, which falls in line with a couple of others of his in particular, notably The Thin Blue Line, Standard Operating Procedure, and The Unknown Known — but within his work, you can also group Vernon Florida, Gates of Heaven, Fast Cheap & Out of Control, Tabloid, and, honestly, A Brief History of Time.

Those are staggering feats of editing. They’re also staggering feats of connection to his subjects, without parallel in the history of film, I think.

And of course, if we’re talking about an auteur documentarian, we might as well count the dude who’s got an editing technique named after himself, Ken Burns. He really did rewrite the rules of Looooooong forum documentary, including the use of voiceover for primary sources, and I think at least as much, music. Watch what he does in 9 hours of his baseball documentary series with ONE SONG. (“Take Me Out To The Ballgame.”)

But he really is kind of sui generis, yes? How long does it take to peg a work as undeniably Ken Burns? Surely not 90 seconds? Maybe 60 seconds? 30?

Does Quentin Tarantino qualify as an auteur? Me, I think so, but it’s getting hard to remember. Make some more movies, son!

And of course, Tyler Perry‘s auteur-dom extends from film into television. His shows on Oprah’s network get higher ratings than Oprah does.

(You know what? I really like the guy as an actor too. I’m sorry his Alex Cross picture tanked, but it’s a genuine mystery to me how nobody has taken someone with this amount of charisma, intelligence, and yes, I’ll say it, good looks, and found something better to do with him than put him in a dress. God bless him for blasting his way into opportunities though. More power to him.)

Before I go further into television, though, lemme make a quick observation. Nolan is 44, Perry and Anderson are 45. Blomkamp is 35. Besides Cameron, Burns, Almodóvar and Morris in their 60s, the rest are in their 50s. Yes, Quentin Tarantino is in his 50s. Spike turned 58 last week.

What I don’t see today is the guys who are as bold in their 20s as THESE guys were in THEIR 20s….but, apart from that, I honestly do think that the health of auteur-dom is as sound today as ever.

TELEVISION
I agree with what other folks have said, that a lot of the most intent-laden, cinematic work is being done on television, where you can again point to some real auteurs… although, interestingly to me, they are typically more often writer-producers than directors.

This is not unlike traditional Nashville, where writer-producers have historically held much more sway than singer-songwriters. Willie Nelson had to leave Nashville to become a singer-songwriter-PERFORMER.

But the whole French critical movement to define “auteur” was to ask, who is the “author” of the film? The French are the ones who turned their focus to the director, but when it comes to TV, can we concede that among the “authors” of a TV series is…the AUTHOR?

Let’s start with Vince Gilligan, who’s also supremely interested in LOOKS, both as a writer and director, but before Breaking Bad and calling Saul, I think you have to start with the 49 episodes he wrote on The X-Files, plus the two he directed….plus the six episodes he wrote of The Lone Gunmen. You KNOW which episodes are his when you see them. One of you has surely built a playlist with them at Neflix or IMDb.

(If not, then get to work, you lazy bastards.)

David Simon: Homicide Life on the Street, The Corner, The Wire, Treme. Wow.

Bryan Fuller. I don’t think he gets nearly the credit he deserves, because his work is so quirky. Wonderfalls, Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies, Hannibal – complete auteur-ishness.

Shonda Rimes. Full stop.

Joss Whedon, whose TV auteur-dom of course extends forward into films. (He’s actually a 3rd-generation TV writer. His grandfather wrote for Donna Reed; his father for Electric Company and Golden Girls.)

I pity anyone who dismissed Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel as genre shows for teens. Fortunately, this is easily remedied through a number of streaming resources. Firefly, leading to Serenity, ’nuff said.

It was especially interesting to see him put his stamp on Much Ado About Nothing. It was 100% unaltered Shakespeare, while undeniably being a Joss Whedon picture. And he was the best part of The Avengers, imo.

Add JJ Abrams to my list of guys I don’t think get enough credit. It’s hard to imagine three shows more different, yet more genetically related, than Felicity, Alias, and Lost (he only did the first season, but still). He certainly put his auteur-y stamp on Fringe as well.

I also really enjoyed Cloverfield and the first Star Trek reboot…and talk about an auteur’s stamp! He probably single-handedly forced ARRI to develop spherical lenses for Alexa.

And no kidding, if there was a better movie in 1994 than the first 2 hours of Lost, I sure don’t remember what it was.

To bring this back around to the actual topic of EDITING WITH INTENT, I submit to you all the ne plus ultra of auteurs working today: DAVID FINCHER, Y’ALL.

(Also in his 50s, btw.)

(Like me, btw.)

(Yes, I’m exactly like David Fincher.)

Several things strike me about him, particularly with respect to editing.

First, he was the first director I’m aware of who has heavily relied on reframing in post as an additional vector for directorial intent. He’s done this from the days of shooting Girl With The Dragon Tatoo in 4K, and then Gone Girl in 6K. (I think that was his first 6K, but my point is the same.)

Not that he tells his DPs to shoot any old thing. But that as his story emerges, he can use reframing, or even movement within the frame, as part of EDITING WITH INTENT, to enhance storytelling that’s still evolving organically in post.

I don’t need to mention his movies by name, do I? My personal favorite is Fight Club, by a country mile, but really, take your pick. Don’t forget Alien3 or House of Cards.

What strikes me even more is the extent to which he places every kind of editing at his disposal, for every kind of work.

What’s the most frequently annoying, haphazard, seizure-inducing, pile of poo medium ever created? The one that’s most responsible for the rotting of the hearts and minds of America’s youth, indeed, destroying the moral fabric of American society?

Music videos.

Oh yeah, and responsible for killing rock and roll.

But music videos.

Fincher did “only” 60 of them, and they were all really good. Half of them are outstanding. A handful of them are not only among the best videos ever, but the most visually compelling short films of all time.

There’s Aerosmith, Janie’s Got A Gun, featuring a stunning turn by Leslie Anne Warren, realizing the truth about her daughter’s nightmare. CLASSIC Fincher, and one of his earliest runs at getting a strong performance from an ACTRESS, who’s there strictly to act, and not at all part of the musical proceedings.

This is a stunner. I definitely dropped what I was doing whenever it came on.

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Don Henley, “The End of The Innocence.” Not a “story” video, but beautiful imagery. What blows me away about this one is the absolutely gorgeous camera movement working together with the editing. Classic, classic Fincher, and a stellar example of CINEMATIC INTENT.

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Bourgeois Tagg, “I Don’t Mind At All.” I absolutely adore this. Not one of his most famous videos, but one of the most beautiful. Gleaming classical musical elements via Todd Rundgren (for the record: Todd iz Godd), very clever use of mirrors and panes of glass in motion by Fincher, lit like a dream.

Absolutely gorgeous grown-up pop music, too. Wonderful, wonderful stuff, in every way. As much as you’ll be glad you watched this, you’ll be glad you heard it.

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Say, remember when Paula Abdul was one of the biggest pop stars in the world? Not that she didn’t have the goods for a while there, but four videos by Fincher played a HUGE role. “It’s Just The Way That You Love Me,” “Straight Up,” “Cold Hearted Snake,” and this one, “Forever Your Girl.” I like it a lot, but it’s also highly unlikely (what? CHILDREN? SMILING?), and it’s really witty. Still looks like Fincher.

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To me, Fincher’s true muse was Madonna, for whom he made what I think are three of the greatest music videos ever. I’d put all three in my top 5, for sure.

Madonna, “Oh Father.” Almost never gets talked about as one of her songwriting pinnacles, and perhaps her most emotional performance — a powerful story built around the death of her mother when Madonna was 5. The story is how Madonna’s father shattered with his wife’s passing at age 30 — Madonna’s age when she did this video — and the price his daughter paid for his pain. She’s not ready to empathize with him yet, but can finally imagine a day when she might. Strong stuff, to say the least.

Some of the most powerful images — notably, her mother in state with her lips sewn shut — come directly from Madonna’s memories, but a stunning (very) short from Fincher at his very, very, VERY best.

Opening reference to Citizen Kane, too, except instead of his mother signing young Kane away as we watch him playing in the snow through the lower pane of a window, we see young Madonna playing in the snow, through the lower pane of a window, as the sheet is pulled over her mother’s face.

No kidding, this is Maximum Fincher, and an absolutely devastating song.

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Some days that you’d ask me, that’s my favorite video of all time, by any artist. Other days, it’s this one, Madonna, “Express Yourself.” Some VERY playful references to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.

Wait, there’s a black cat and a girl pouring the cat’s bowl of milk onto a shirtless dude’s face in Metropolis, right?

In any case, THIS was the video that turned me into a David Fincher fan back in 1990. After this, I worked my way back through his filmography, so to speak, which I have to tell you, in the days before the internet, was really, really hard.

After this, watching every single thing David Fincher did became a compulsion. FANTASTIC work.

“Come on girls, do you believe in love?”

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There are a million lists of David Fincher’s best videos floating around the interwebs, because this is always a conversation worth having. I can’t overemphasize the extent to which these videos made me fall in love with David Fincher for life.

I fell in love with everything about him, including his adorable goatee.

I have to say two things about this final video, which is the one that most often tops the aforementioned lists of David Fincher videos.

First, you only THINK you remember how stunning this is. I’m not kidding, it’s the cinematic equal of anything Fincher has done since, and an absolute gamechanger for popular music.

The second thing I have to say: “Strike a pose.”

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I have so, so much else to say on the topics of auteurs and CINEMATIC INTENT, including its expression through editing, but this is probably enough for the next year. It might take you until next year to finish reading it.

Even if you have no interest in watching the videos, at least watch the first 10 or 15 seconds of each. I think you’ll be hooked, but I think you’ll also be impressed with the power of editing, cinematography, direction, and, above all, CINEMATIC INTENT in an under-discussed corner of David Fincher’s world.

PS. I adore the word PHILIPPIC. The best thing about this thread besides David Fincher’s goatee.

[Simon Ubsdell]

Fantastic post/article – I’ve got a lot of viewing to catch up on now!

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com

[Jeremy Garchow]

This is like, the post to end all posts. We can zip up Creative Cow and leave this post on the outside of the duffel bag for everyone to read and discover.

[Tim Wilson] “It astounds me that Spike Lee isn’t mentioned more often on a list of modern auteurs. It’s also amazing to me that the guy can do Oscar-nominated work, and still has to go to Kickstarter to raise money for his pictures.

Here’s 8 movies in 8 years:
She’s Gotta Have It
School Daze
Do the Right Thing (if I was teaching a film criticism class, I think this would my third movie on the syllabus)
Mo’ Better Blues
Jungle Fever
Malcolm X
Crooklyn
Clockers

I don’t think any other director on this list made 8 movies in a row this good.

Then later of course He Got Game, Summer of Sam, Get On the Bus, 4 Little Girls, When The Levee Broke, and the sorely underrated (imo) Inside Man.”

I have always wanted to be a fly on the editing room wall of a Spike Lee Joint, with Spike and Barry Brown at the helm. I just want to hear those conversations.

Totally agree about Inside Man. I enjoy Spike a lot.

But you also skipped two of my favorites: 25th Hour and Miracle at St. Anna. In 25th Hour, Mr Lee’s post 9/11 homage to New York and the people of New York, is nothing short of masterful.

And Miracle at Saint Anna presents a point of view that many filmmakers, historians, and cultures simply ignore, don’t understand, or perhaps don’t want to tell. That movie was absolutely slammed by critics. A shame. I find it to be a great piece of historical fiction.

I also really liked his take on OldBoy. I understand that’s controversial, but I found it to be full of pretty good performances.

Anyway, great post Tim. We could sit here and talk about this post and everything in it for the rest of 2015.

[Tim Wilson]

Thanks for the kind words, fellas!

[Jeremy Garchow] “But you also skipped two of my favorites: 25th Hour and Miracle at St. Anna. “

Holy COW! I missed both of those! Thanks! It’s a measure of how deep his filmography is that I can be a fan and still let a couple slip past me. I’ll definitely add ’em to the list!

[Herb Sevush]

Tim –

You did leave out the Cohen Brothers, not that I’m overly fond of them, but they certainly belong on this list. And if Cameron is on it than certainly Peter Jackson should be there as well – the two masters of CGI movies.

On the Indie side I would invite you to consider
Edgar Wright – Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim vs the world, Hot fuzz and The World’s End
Thomas McCarthy – Station Agent, The Visitor, Win Win
Jason Reitman – Juno, Thank You for Not Smoking, Up in the Air

And for TV you somehow left out the single most prominent writer/producer of our time – Aaron Sorkin, Sports NIght (my favorite) West Wing, Newsroom – who writes every single script for every episode on all his shows as well as screenwriter – A Few Good Men, The American President, Moneyball, the Social Network – and playwright – The Farnsworth Invention. There is no more consistent voice in American pop culture.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf