Editing is an Art Form
What it's like to be an artist of an invisible art form.
HAPPY NEW YEAR - I’m re-releasing this post with audio for those were weren’t able to read it last year.
Editing is an art form a technical art form, yeah you can tell AI to mimic a famous movie’s edit style but it will be like that gymnastics AI video where AI tries to recreate tru gymnasts, it’s all gibberish. As an editor we’re reacting and having emotional responses to the material and I don’t care how much someone studies human emotion that’s not something anyone, especially AI, can predict precisely.
Most of the time when I tell people “I’m an editor” they stare at me with a polite face but I know, deep down, they have no clue what I do or what it takes to do what I do. It might be because even those who are in the industry don’t know what we do. I was just watching a The Duffer brothers Master class…where they not once mention Post Production or Editing… but that’s another post.
Editing IS a modern art form. It is one of the most modern art forms I can think of. Our “paintbrush” is constantly changing, we depend on technology, which we constantly have to learn new versions or techniques for. Being technical is only part of it though, I know some editors who don’t do the technical side instead they have an AE do that while they focus on the emotional side of the cut. But still, being able to be both technical and artistic is a talent. It’s not something that everyone is born with. For many of us, we can’t do anything else, and be as fulfilled as we are when we edit.
I came across a clip that someone had generated using AI to try and mimic gymnastics and it just struck me, AI cannot feel. Something that will always and uniquely be our own thing is emotion. Something that can’t be programmed into AI. You can watch how horribly AI fails to try and mimic human movement in the video below.
I’m not saying that eventually it won’t be able to mimic human movement but I do not think that it will not be able to emote. It can process, it can be fed data sets and extrapolate data at incredible rates of accuracy however when it comes to things like art, it can only mimic, not innovate. That comes from truly feeling what it is like to be alive and human.
Editing is this unique ability to both be technical AND artful. To be able to extrapolate what the story is that you’re telling and FEEL each and every emotion artfully. Editing is putting images together in such a way that an entire group of people (the audience) watching it will feel those same things and walk away different or changed in some way.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that every thing that is edited is artful, there are a lot of editors out there who don’t excel with this aspect of the art form instead they know the technical side of things but cannot understand emotional pace.
What I am saying, is that we the Editors, who choose this art form, dedicate our lives to knowing and understanding our craft. Down to the frames. Every frame counts. I got the opportunity to attend a live lecture from Walter Murch back in 2018 and watching him cut live on stage, as he was explaining his method was like watching Jackson Pollack put paint to canvas in person.
There was a charisma and energy about him, he has gotten so good in knowing when to cut, he doesn’t use music to cut to, it’s like watching a composer, but of pictures. He would watch the clip and pause on the same frame every time, this is how he knows it’s the right place to cut. He FEELS the cut but it’s seamless.
Thelma Schoonmaker another incredible editor, talks about sometimes wanting the audience to feel the cuts. How editing doesn’t always have to be invisible, sometimes you need to use jarring cuts or jump cuts to make the audience feel uncomfortable. In an interview with BAFTA talking about her editing with Martin Scorsese she said she will often edit multiple versions of a scene to show him, and then they together will decide which version of the scene fits best emotionally within the larger picture of the tapestry of the film. This is something I do as well because there are so many possibilities when handed raw footage you can take a performance in so many different ways it’s important to understand what serves the overall story the most.
This is something so many people don’t understand, for an editor, a film is never finished, we hold this material in our heads and our hearts for decades. Every feature I have ever edited I hold in my mind, I can remember the cuts, the decisions behind each one. Editing adds meaning to otherwise an infinite amount of possibility. Not everyone is able or capable of creating that. Which is why a truly gifted editor will be able to step in, collaborate closely with the entire creative team, and carry the project to the finish line.
Everyone focuses on the director, but let me tell you, the editor is who makes the director what they are.
Until next time,
Shawna Carroll