The Eye is Quicker Read online

  The classic use of parallel editing is often recognized in the opening to early moments of a film; with cuts between — sometimes among — diverse characters and/or places.

  The French Connection opens in Marseilles, France. An undercover detective is on assignment: The scene in Marseilles leads to additional scenes, before the story takes us to Brooklyn, New York. There, two undercover detectives are on assignment: depicted in scenes. Parallel editing, in this format, assures a ‘meeting’ of the characters — eventually they do ‘get together’ in New York. For parallel editing to be (most) inconspicuous — for the technique, and process to avoid mere facade — it should do something more than ‘perform’ cuts between people and places. There should be a visual connection — though not necessarily French — between the characters and/or places. [Figure 8.1] In The French Connection we ‘see’ undercover detectives on assignment in Marseilles, and in Brooklyn.

  Figure 8.1

  VISUALLY Sharing

  The opening of Atlantic City provides another classic example. We meet Sally in Atlantic City; and Lou is spying on her. Cut, and we meet Dave; he is spying a drug drop-off in a telephone booth in Philadelphia. [Figure 8.2] Both are intact scenes: There is no intermingling of shots as in cross-cutting.

  Figure 8.2

  They’ll meet In Atlantic City, You can bet on It!

  The 1989 release sex, lies, and videotape serves as an example of cross-cutting. It is also used at the film’s outset, but here the technique is a ‘flourish’ of conspicuousness. [Figure 8.3] Graham ‘is on the road’ and is cross-cut with Ann, during her therapy session. The cutting is a 1:1 symmetrical — back and forth — intermingling of scenes.

  Figure 8.3

  Asymmetry would have cut the chaos

  Given the context — Graham is already heading somewhere; to meet someone(?) — and no visual connection, it would have been less conspicuous, and more effective to ‘stay’ with Graham. Several imaginatively bold cuts of ‘Graham’s journey’ would have been one of several better approaches. The editing’s disjointedness is (especially) called to mind — and eye — by Ann’s ‘Voice-Over Discussion’ with her therapist. The effort to link the scenes does the opposite.

  HINT: An appreciation of context and simplicity is key.

  Our prodigious attraction to tales — truthful and fictitious — seems certain to be of human inheritance. Søren Kierkegaard’s comment that “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward,” instantly illustrates, and confirms, storytelling’s appeal. The facility with which film can alter arrangements in Time, Place, and Character, makes parallel editing — cross-cutting still more — carelessly invigorating: They (can) so easily become the attraction, that the editor overlooks “the film’s dramatic requirements.”

  Parallel editing can be effectively used throughout a film — not limited to openings. But great care must be taken to prevent the technique from becoming a leading indicator of film’s episodic nature: You might find your work ‘splitting’ into a detectable visual schematic.

  There are three categories of parallel editing:

  1. TIME(S)

  2. PLACE(S)

  3. CHARACTER(S)

  The French Connection and Atlantic City are — at their start — parallel edited PLACE. Inevitably, whatever the ‘balance,’ the categories operate in a configuration. Some configurations are more advantageous than others.

  Catch-22 and The Sweet Hereafter are each structured in parallel edited TIME. [Figure 8.4] Since both have a principal character — protagonist — the otherwise ‘debilitating’ obviousness of the “mere aesthetics of editing” is happily reduced.

  Figure 8.4

  Catch-22

  The Sweet Hereafter

  Stories are, after all, about people

  Iris is structured in parallel edited TIME. [Figure 8.5] It encompasses a lifetime. It is about people, but the observable time design takes its toll.

  Figure 8.5

  At some time, the Past Time should be left behind

  TIP: There often comes a time in a film when parallel edited TIME is no longer (as) effective. Consider staying (more or less) in a single selected TIME from that moment to the film’s end.

  CHARACTER(S) parallel editing is most ineffective when it ‘plays’ in a 1:1 ratio. That is, a continuous back and forth between CHARACTER(S), as if an Equal TIME Requirement were in effect.

  HINT: Again, think asymmetry!

  What is most precarious about the CHARACTER category is that it (often) lacks a clearly pronounced protagonist. A storytelling flaw: Whose story is it? Screen The Big Chill and/or Laurel Canyon. They become soap opera, exhibiting an edgy concern that all audiences are afflicted with Limited Attention Span Syndrome.

  Cross-cutting is seldom a primary structural device, but often it suddenly materializes — delaying, or abandoning the story with a disruptive interlude. It ‘spells out’ themes; meanings; ideas; or propaganda. Screen the Czar’s Soldiers Slaughter Workers and Butchers Slaughter Cattle scene(s) from Strike; and the Shaving Mister and African Pubertal Ritual scene(s) from The Color Purple. [Figure 8.6]

  Figure 8.6

  Strike

  The essential measure of inconspicuousness requires that you do nothing more — or less — than stick to the story.

  Color Purple

  Editing should not be about editing

  NINE

  a wealth

  of distributions

  “Every film should have a beginning, a

  middle, and an end. But not necessarily

  in that order.”

  — Jean-Luc Godard

  One evening, as Christmas drew near, my wife asked our son to tell me about a wacky thing that happened to him. At the time our son was a Special Ed teacher in New Jersey. He also had an after-school job at Monmouth Mall. A close friend’s father owned a stationery store, and our son helped out. During that afternoon he had driven his car to Neptune, some fifteen minutes south of the mall, to pick up a carton of Zippo lighters to be displayed for Christmas sale. On his return, our son parked his car several dozen yards from the mall entrance, lifted the carton out of his car’s trunk, and carried the Zippos to the store inside. Ten minutes later, over the mall’s PA system, he heard this announcement: WILL THE PERSON WHO OWNS A RED (that’s his car’s color) NISSAN (that’s his car’s make) SENTRA (that’s his car’s model) WITH NEW JERSEY PLATES BXS867A (That’s his CAR) COME OUT TO THE PARKING LOT TO RETRIEVE YOUR VEHICLE!

  Our son hurried outside. He could see his car. It was more than 200 yards from where he had parked it, sitting in the roadway that circled the mall, close to a chain link fence that separated the roadway from a culvert and woods.

  When he left his car he had not engaged the emergency brake, and the standard transmission was in neutral. The car had rolled backwards through the steeply sloped parking lot. Miraculously, it missed hitting any of the many light towers, other cars, holiday shoppers, and a UPS truck approaching the mall with a delivery. Several construction workers tried — but failed — to stop the car as it rolled past them at a curbside work site. They were waiting with the car, directing traffic around it.

  During the next weekend, my wife and I had friends visit for dinner. My wife began to tell them about our son’s close calamity. After furnishing background about the Zippo lighters, and our son’s drive to Neptune, my wife revealed that our son had not engaged his emergency brake, and that, as he carried the Zippo carton to the mall, “His car started rolling through the parking lot.....” I interrupted, contending that she was spoiling the story by tipping off our friends about the emergency brake, and by not holding back the other particulars until after the PA announcement, and our son’s rushing out to retrieve his car. My wife and friends glowered at me. I apologized.

  The evening provided many lessons. First of all, there is something to be said for good manners. Our friends were not expecting to hear about “The Monmouth Mall Incident” in the most reso
urcefully dramatic fashion, but rather in the pleasures of a civil setting. Respect required that the storytelling be accepted, without debate on the principles of storytelling excellence. I had been rude.

  Sometime later I considered objective and subjective perceptions about storytelling — or storyshowing. How does the setting of presentation ‘control’ and dispense the showing and telling? Is superior storytelling nothing more than subjective judgment?

  The answer to the second question seemed obvious. There must be an objective evaluation of good storytelling. We all know people with a knack for setting and arranging yarns in stunning display: friends who have a way with telling jokes. When Sam O’Steen was asked what he thought makes a good editor he replied, “Someone who can tell a joke… the timing’s right and he tells just enough.”

  Finding answers to the first continue to hold my interest.

  HINT & TIP: Sometimes the best storyshowing can be established through storytelling. Not in the technique and style of great oral tradition — I’m not talkin’ Garrison Keillor, or my efforts at “The Monmouth Mall Incident” — but in a crisp, clear, and focused approach.

  David Mamet gives a clear — and simple — example of this in On Directing Film: “The movie… is much closer than the play to simple storytelling. If you listen to the way people tell stories, you will hear that they tell them cinematically. They jump from one thing to the next, and the story is moved along by the juxtaposition of images — which is to say by the cut. People say, “I’m standing on the corner. It’s a foggy day. A bunch of people are running around crazy. Might have been a full moon. All of a sudden, a car comes up and the guy next to me says….”

  A thesis student opened his film, Life Before Me, with a Medium Close-Up of a young man gazing outward. Behind him, upper floors of buildings revealed that he was on a rooftop. A series of shots ‘saw’ him open an envelope; read a letter; bow out of frame; untie his shoes; take them off; and climb onto the roof’s ledge.

  I asked the student to tell this opening scene in the order of his cuts. “A young man is on a roof. He reads a letter. He unties his shoes. He takes them off….” [Figure 9.1] I asked how it ‘sounded’ this way: “Someone is untying his shoes. He takes them off. It is a young man. He is on a roof….” [Figure 9.2] We agreed on the second version.

  Figure 9.1

  This…

  Figure 9.2

  … became This

  Life Before Me

  Director, Chris Graham; Editor, Ian Brownell

  This simple device is what helped to ‘find’ the opening arrangement for Serpico. The original opening followed — as scripted — a chronology, which began with the commencement, and graduation from the Police Academy. An energy and urgency was missing, and, it was agreed, very much needed. So, in place of: [Figure 9.3] Here is the Police Academy graduation; here is Frank Serpico; here is his happy and proud family; here is his first day on the job, a new opening emerged. [Figure 9.4] Who is this scruffy guy with blood all over his face? This guy is in a police car, and he’s a cop? Another cop could have shot him? The New York Times knows this guy? The audience can’t help but get caught-up in this new showing.

  Figure 9.3

  This…

  Figure 9.4

  …became This!

  Let’s examine the Distribution of (so very much) Information in Jerry Meets Carl and Gaear in the Saloon scene from Fargo. In (nearly) obvious — and implausible — exposition we learn that Jerry is hiring the two to kidnap his wife; for a split of the ransom; which will be collected from his father-in-law; who is wealthy; but doesn’t like Jerry; who needs money; because he’s in some kind of trouble. [Figure 9.5] The next twenty minutes (or so) of the film is ‘dedicated’ to a distribution of information which verifies that Jerry did not lie to the kidnappers. Thin — and pointlessly redundant — story cargo; unless Jerry’s ‘story’ was, at least in part, a lie.

  Figure 9.5

  A ‘Telltale’ Scene

  What if we had only heard something about ‘a ransom?’ What would the next twenty minutes ‘conserve’ for the audience? What if the audience thought that Jerry might be ‘plotting’ the kidnapping of his father-in-law? What if this scene were (much) later? What if this scene were deleted?

  HINT & TIP: Ask a whole bunch of questions!

  If “The Monmouth Mall Incident” were ‘told’ on film, other possibilities in presentation would have to be considered. The selecting and ordering of information is fundamental to good storytelling. The primary distinction between poor storytelling and good storytelling is in the distribution of information.

  If, in the telling of “The Monmouth Mall Incident,” my wife had withheld information about the emergency brake, an important part of the punch in the story would have been preserved for a more advantageous moment. But, if my wife were showing “The Monmouth Mall Incident” as in an edited film, the emergency brake information might be one of the ‘punches’ to exploit earlier:

  EXTERIOR. MONMOUTH MALL. DAY.

  A RED NISSAN SENTRA pulls into a parking space. A young man gets out, and walks to the back of the car. He unlocks the trunk. The young man lifts a carton from inside the trunk. He slams the trunk closed, and carries the carton toward the mall.

  In our film version of “The Monmouth Mall Incident,” we could ‘show’ an Extreme Close-Up of the emergency brake. It is not pulled up. Or we might ‘show’ a Close-Up of one wheel. Perhaps we see the wheel begin to roll. We might hear ‘creaking’ while we ‘show’ the Extreme Close-Up of the emergency brake; the sound precedes a cut to a wheel. The audience ‘sees’ it begin to roll.

  In this presentation, letting the audience know something that the young man doesn’t, might prove emotionally beneficial to good storyshowing. [Figure 9.6] Here, the distribution of information is making use of:

  Figure 9.6

  Dramatic Irony

  The Audience knows something our son doesn’t

  Dramatic irony can help deliver tension, conflict, humor, emotional fervor, and above all, an eagerness to ‘see’ what the story will bring.

  Playwright Tom Stoppard presented a superb example of how the distribution of information — utilizing dramatic irony — influences the lot of storytelling. A man and woman are on stage. The setting is a living room. The man stands before a small bar. “Would you like a drink?” he asks. “That would be nice,” answers the woman. The man fills two glasses from a whiskey bottle, and hands a glass to the woman.

  Not much of anything here; even trite. But, what if the audience knows that the woman recently joined Alcoholics Anonymous? What if the audience knows that the man is a suspected poisoner? What if the audience knows that, earlier in the day, the man’s roommate used the whiskey bottle for a urine sample? Mediocre scene now?

  The raw stuff of the dailies prompts an exploration in arrangements, connections, and associations, that form an extensive ‘balance’ in the distribution of information:

  1. Dramatic irony.

  2. Insight(s) unknown to the audience, but possessed by a character. This requires ‘indication.’

  A splendid example appears in The Verdict [Figure 9.7] Attorney Frank Galvin is about to give up ever locating a missing witness. He opens a can of beer, takes a nip, and puts the can under his chin. He ‘holds’ it there as he sorts through the day’s mail, which includes his New England Telephone Company bill. Galvin looks intently at the envelope. He eases the can out from under his chin!

  Figure 9.7

  Galvin knows something! The Audience doesn’t, but wants to!

  3. Insight(s) gained simultaneously by audience and character.

  HINT: These are three of nine key elements.

  It is essential to recognize that there is a considerable difference between the audience not having all of the information — yet enthusiastic to go on with the story — and an audience befuddled.

  The postproduction exploration into the distribution of information was summed-up vividly by one o
f my thesis students: After many months of intense work on his feature length project, he announced, “I’ve come to realize that my screenplay only got me my dailies. I still had to find my film.”

  TIP & HINT: ‘Finding’ a film demands a readiness to shuffle scenes; and this directs the editor to a rearrangement of sequences.

  TEN

  zoom-in

  from

  the cosmos

  “To teach is to learn twice.”

  — Joseph Joubert

  Teaching film editing has made me more attentive to the overall progression of the filmmaking collaboration than if I’d simply worked as a film editor. It has made me aware of ‘misleading’ terminologies.

  The term Master Shot communicates immense importance and worth. The term Cut Away/Insert communicates slim value. Yet their concrete significance is lopsided. The Master Shot might well ‘play’ an entire scene, but it is fundamentally a paradigm of theatre — and all too frequently ‘opens’ every scene in a screenplay. The Cut Away/Insert is often considered a ‘piece of protection’ permitting the editor to ‘get out of trouble’ by using it in brief, then to return to the ‘real shots’ of the scene. It is of far more value; and seldom mentioned in a script.

  The Cut Away/Insert is a Close-Up, or Extreme Close-Up, of a ‘bit’ of a subject, or an object. It is the fulfillment of the proverb, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” It is, therefore, capable of swift, simple, and absorbing storyshowing!