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Editing Today – another Philippic
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[tony west] “Yeoh and Ziyi were very skilled and Lee could stay on wide shots longer to show the beauty of their talent, as opposed to Lucy Lue who was was not skilled or athletic.”
I think that had more to do with choreography and how Kill Bill was shot than Lucy Liu’s talent. Look at her work in Ecks vs. Sever (terrible movie BTW) and Shanghai Noon (still not good). I think she was every bit as skilled as Ziyi Zhang, and definitely more so than Chow Yun Fat (who I really respect as an actor). But I think that goes to your overall point. Camera work, staging and editing can make a world of difference given similar material.
Shawn
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[Shawn Miller] “I think that had more to do with choreography and how Kill Bill was shot than Lucy Liu’s talent.”
I guess it’s hard to know right Shawn, because we didn’t see her talent.
You would think if she had some they would have used it.
That final fight scene in KB was very weak compared to Tiger
If I get some time later I will post both side by side
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[tony west] “[Shawn Miller] “I think that had more to do with choreography and how Kill Bill was shot than Lucy Liu’s talent.”
I guess it’s hard to know right Shawn, because we didn’t see her talent.”
Choreography can hide a lot… even talent. Check out Jackie Chan’s fight under the train in Legend of the Drunken Master. It takes an expert to pull off choreography that refined and complex. But then check out his fight scenes in The Protector… just about anyone could have done those. If you only saw JC in The Protector, you might never know how good he really was. Same with LL, not saying that she was anywhere near JC’s level. But the basics are there, strength, focus, posture, refined movement.
[tony west] “You would think if she had some they would have used it.”
You might be surprised. A lot of the time, directors just don’t know how to get the best out of the performers they work with. Kill Bill was an interesting revenge story and a nostalgic look back at classic martial arts films… but as a martial arts movie, I don’t think it was that great. I mean, you have Gordon Liu AND Sonny Chiba in the same film… but they fight Uma Thurman and Darryl Hanna? WTF?! Further, why not throw Samo Hung in the mix and let them do what they do best?
[tony west] “That final fight scene in KB was very weak compared to Tiger”
Yup, completely agree! I think it was just weak… I thought Chloë Grace Moretz was worlds more entertaining as Hit Girl in the first Kick Ass… then again, it was choreographed, shot and edited better. 🙂
Shawn
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The other point I mean to add to this Jeremiad against multicam is that it makes for compromised camera positions – as is only too obvious if you think about it.
One of the main results of this is that you can often get really poor eyelines … I know very few people seem to care about that stuff anymore but it bugs the heck out of me when I see it.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
I’m not saying that this is the wrong place to have this discussion but it would be a great thread to have over on “the Art of The Edit” forum. Tim?
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Simon –
I agree with most of your points. One question, though.
If I understand correctly, you believe multicam shooting and NLEs are the major factors contributing to the loss (for want of a better word) of good staging and composition, ala Spielberg, et al. I wonder if the rise of multicam and the modern style of over-cutting are the symptoms, rather than the cause. Perhaps TV and lower-budget, faster-turnaround movies have created more pressure to save time and money, resulting in more frequent (and unnecessary) use of multiple cameras. Certainly the time pressures inherent in series television tend to steer a director away form inventive staging and into basic coverage. Add into this the seemingly unstoppable devaluing of history and craft (in all disciplines), and you have the current state of most cinema and virtually all television.
Thoughts?
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I guess he’s taken his ball and gone to play with Aindreas.
Anyone else feel like weighing in on “fixing” vs “enhancing” and whether they’re one and the same?
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Because I do not respond to you immediately does not mean that I have, as you say, taken my ball elsewhere. We have a perception problem here. Or, as in Cool Hand Luke, a “failure to communicate.” When functioning as an editor I regard my job as doing my utmost to tell the story in the best way possible using what resources I have at my disposal. I do not think of my job as fixing other peoples mistakes. A philosophical difference. You seem to want me to break down and admit that I spend all my time fixing what others have screwed up. And my point, from the very beginning, is that that is not the way I approach the job.
Tim
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Easy there, tiger. Just an easy opportunity to poke a little fun at Aindreas. Having a little fun is all.
[TImothy Auld] “You seem to want me to break down and admit…”
No, I don’t “want” you to do anything in particular.
[TImothy Auld] “A philosophical difference.”
Now we’re getting somewhere. As I’ve said a couple of times now, my initial question stemmed from the way you phrased your initial point, which seemed to me to set up an either/or view of editing. “I don’t fix, rather I enhance,” to paraphrase. I suggested my experiences were different, and that perhaps they were actually same thing. Then the dialogue turned into a discussion of “luck,” which is a completely different topic and got no one anywhere.
I think not so much a philosophical difference here – more of a semantic difference. But certainly relevant to Simon’s point/argument.
All seem to agree (at least in discussing cinema) that well-staged scenes require less cutting and tend to yield more satisfying artistic results. Save the cuts for when they mean something, etc. While Bill’s counterpoint had more to do with non-cinematic projects, he at least indirectly raised the question of how to handle material that was not as well conceived and shot, or might need to be changed or refocused for any number of reasons.
I certainly consider cutting a traditional master/closeup/closeup scene in such a way as to either remove pauses to tighten or add pauses to loosen performances to be fixing a scene. Choosing a cutaway can be either an artistic choice or a practical choice (such as covering a distracting continuity error). It’s not necessarily a negative thing, just something that editors often have to do in order to “tell the story in the best way possible.” Sometimes it is a case of fixing something that someone else screwed up. Sometimes it’s enhancing a scene. Sometimes it’s just a matter of personal taste. That said, I would think I’d be less likely to need or want to mess with a performance by a great actor or second guess an A-level director. But let’s be honest – most movies have neither. That goes double for TV.
So perhaps we mostly agree, after all.
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[Jeff Markgraf] “Anyone else feel like weighing in on “fixing” vs “enhancing” and whether they’re one and the same?”
Merely two different opinions. In practice, we are just editing and trying to tell a story the best we can with the material we are given. Later we may assign labels to what we have done; others may assign different labels. All philosophy (aka, explanation) is secondary to the experience it tries to describe.
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