Walter Murch is a multi Oscar award winner for his work in Editing and Sound Design. He has had a successful career spanning over 5 decades working on films including 'Apocalypse Now', 'The Talented Mr Ripley', 'Ghost' and 'Godfather II'. Because of his success and the successful films he has worked on, I decided he would be a key person to look into to kick off my research.
In his book 'In The Blink Of An Eye' written by Murch, he discusses his approach to film editing and what he keeps an eye out for. In the book he discusses the 'Rule of Six', six rules you should follow when editing a film.
 |
| 'In The Blink Of An Eye' - Walter Murch |
1) Emotion
How will this cut affect the audience emotionally at this particular moment in the film?
“How do you want the audience to feel? If they are feeling what you want them to feel all the way through the film, you’ve done about as much as you can ever do. What they finally remember is not the editing, not the camerawork, not the performances, not even the story—it’s how they felt.”
Telling the emotion of the story is the single most important part when it comes to editing. When we make a cut we need to consider if that edit is true to the emotion of the story.
“How do you want the audience to feel? If they are feeling what you want them to feel all the way through the film, you’ve done about as much as you can ever do. What they finally remember is not the editing, not the camerawork, not the performances, not even the story—it’s how they felt.”
Telling the emotion of the story is the single most important part when it comes to editing. When we make a cut we need to consider if that edit is true to the emotion of the story.
From editing films i have done in the past, I have found that it is important to consider if the cut is distracting the audience from the emotion of the story, so you have to show all emotion happening with the characters in the story in every scene. Having jump cuts could be a distraction to showing emotion, but this is depending on what is happening within the scene. Murch comments on emotion and says that it “is the thing that you should try to preserve at all costs”,
“How do you want the audience to feel? If they are feeling what you want them to feel all the way through the film, you’ve done about as much as you can ever do. What they finally remember is not the editing, not the camerawork, not the performances, not even the story—it’s how they felt.”
2) Story
Does the edit move the story forward in a meaningful way?
"Each cut you make needs to advance the story. Don’t let the edit become bogged in subplot (if it isn’t essential) if the scene isn’t advancing the story, cut it."
In my opinion it is pretty straight forward to piece together an edit to tell the story. But I need to focus on the main story. With 'Roadman' I don't believe it will be too difficult as the story mainly focuses on Jimmy and Billy and the story of their friendship and Jimmy's struggles.
"Each cut you make needs to advance the story. Don’t let the edit become bogged in subplot (if it isn’t essential) if the scene isn’t advancing the story, cut it."
In my opinion it is pretty straight forward to piece together an edit to tell the story. But I need to focus on the main story. With 'Roadman' I don't believe it will be too difficult as the story mainly focuses on Jimmy and Billy and the story of their friendship and Jimmy's struggles.
3) Rhythm
Is the cut at a point that makes rhythmic sense?
Editing must have a beat, similar to music, it has to have a rhythm to it and timing is everything.
“it occurs at a moment that is rhythmically interesting and ‘right'”
If the rhythm is off, the edited film will look sloppy, a bad cut can be ‘jarring’ to an audience. So I have to keep the cut tight and interesting to view.
“Now, in practice, you will find that those top three things on the list…are extremely tightly connected. The forces that bind them together are like the bonds between the protons and neutrons in the nucleus of the atom. Those are, by far, the tightest bonds, and the forces connecting the lower three grow progressively weaker as you go down the list.”
4) Eye Trace
How does the cut affect the location and movement of the audience’s focus in that particular film?
What Murch is discussing is that you have to always be aware of where in the frame the audience should be looking, and cut the film accordingly to this. Match the movement from one side of the screen to the other, or for a transition, matching the frame, shape or symbol, e.g. Murch when editing Apocalypse Now uses the repetition of symbol, from a rotating ceiling fan to the blades on top of helicopters.
One technique he has discussed is the 'Quadrant Rule'. You have to break the screen into four quadrants, and try to keep the movement in one of those quadrants. For instance, if your character is reaching from the top left quadrant, and his eyes are focused to the right lower quadrant that is where your audience’s focus will naturally move after the cut.A great example of this is in 'Drive' where this technique is used throughout.
 |
| Scene from 'Drive' |
Is the axis followed properly?
Make sure the cuts follow the 180º line. This will keep the action along it’s correct path of motion and maintain the continuity. Looking at your quadrants again, be sure the movement flows along the same path, for example a car leaving the left side of frame, would enter again via the right. Sticking to the 180º line allows the audience to keep track of the spatial place of characters and objects in your film and is less distracting on screen.
6) Three Dimensional Space
Is the cut true to established physical and spacial relationships?
During shooting the 180º rule states that you draw an imaginary in between your characters and keep the camera on just one side of that line, this is true for editing also.
This rule should always be adhered to, unless you decide to break it on purpose. Breaking the 180º line works really well if you want your audience feeling confused, or to disorientate them.
A great example of this is from 'The Shining" throughout the film are reverse-angle wide shots between characters, the freezer door opens from both sides of frame (from one cut to the next), even the architecture of the set makes no sense with doorways to rooms that spatially would be somewhere mid-air above stair ways. The managers office (where Jack is interviewed) has a window with a view to outside despite being located in the middle of the hotel/set.
Scene from 'The Shining'
The main point though is to stick to the 180º rule, and spatially your edit will work, unless you really want to mess with your audience’s minds.
