A transcription of a lecture on film editing by Walter Murch at Spectrum Films, Sydney, Australia in October 1988.
Cuts
There are no “bad” cuts. There are only “appropriate” cuts for the movie. Differing cuts can create a difference “sense” or feeling for each scene. These should be tailored to the kind of film you’re making.
`Always try to do the most with the least. (p.15)
Attempt to make the biggest effect for the viewer with the least amount of things on the screen. You only want what is needed to stimulate/engage the imagination of your viewers.
"Suggestion is always more effective than exposition"(p.15)
After a certain point, it’s not just diminishing returns. You’re actively turning the audience into spectators vs participants when you put more effort into more detail. Cutting should be used as a tool for a specific use, not a hammer for everything.
6 Criteria for Ideal Cuts: 1. Emotion 2. Story 3. Rhythm 4. Eye-trace 5. Two-dimensional plane of screen 6. Three-dimensional space of action
This criteria is listed from most important to least important. If you “need” to sacrifice any of these elements, you should be sacrificing bottom-up.
Film editing tools: Moviola, KEM Universal, Avid
`Perhaps the explanation is as simple as that: We accept the cut because it resembles the way images are juxtaposed in our dreams (p.58)
To me, the perfect film is as though it were unwinding behind your eyes, and your eyes were projecting it themselves, so that you were seeing what you wished to see. (p. 60)
...one of the central responsibilites of the editor, which is to establish an interesting, coherent rhythm of emotion and though---on the tiniest and the largest scales--- that alows the audience to trust, to give themselves to the film.