In the Cut: Employing the Art of Editing, My Impressions
My impression of In the Cut: Employing the Art of Editing Seminar by Thomas Ethan Harris at the Egyptian Theatre 2/17/2011
(Note: A slightly revamped version is coming again, Wednesday April 20th. Thursday, December 8th. See link in the comments below.)
Part I
It's hard to convey the sheer brilliance of the seminar a lucky few of us had the chance to attend last night.
I've seen glimpses of this type of information, namely in two places, Peter D. Marshall's directing course and in an introductory speech by Professor Daniel Jacobo from Chaffey College on the Tao of Super 8.
Granted I have not attended any film schools nor have I studied too in depth in regards to film theory, but I would agree that this type of expertise could probably be gotten at any film school, through lots of diligent study, but this night we were treated to an intensive course in intelligent filmmaking through exposure to some great scenes and lively discussion about the particular editing techniques used (or not used).
As a fairly new editor and filmmaker, I was completely unaware of the insidious disease that has been being transmitted to the youthful filmmakers of my and the upcoming generation of filmmakers, the infectious disease of (actually less-than) mediocre filmmaking.
It didn't take long to discover that I and thousands of "filmmakers" the world round were engaging in unsafe activities and further propagating the existence of such deadly things as "mumblecore"!
It was nice to get professional treatment right there on the spot, in this make-shift “clinic”, the Steven Spielberg Theatre at the Egyptian. An “inoculation” directly applied to the filmmaking wound of mediocrity that is festering and infecting the future of filmmaking.
"Dr" Thomas Ethan Harris not only provided emergency treatment but also provided education to help us prevent future outbreaks.
The evening started out with a direct look at a recent mumblecore, sundance-playing feature, The Freebie. We looked at a couple clips from the film, one where the wife confides to her bestie that she and her husband have agreed to allow each other to have sex with someone else and the flashback where the couple is discussing the possibility of agreeing to such a thing. To me, it wasn’t the editing that was so much a problem as was the actual shot photographed, hand-held and not the best framing. There seemed to be not much interesting to the scene. I understand the dialogue was supposed to carry the scene but “eh...!” I was bored with it. Use a tripod for God’s sakes!
Truly, to me, this interview I found today on the net, was shot and edited better than the actual film: http://www.makingof.com/posts/watch/1246/katie-aselton-dax-shepard-on-the-art-of-improv
The technique used in this interview was the exact technique used in the film and taught to film students all over, Master shot, shot, reverse shot. (It's just better executed in this interview.)
"What's mumblecore?" you're asking. Mumblecore was defined as tens of thousands of dollars or less to make, lower (in status, creativity, etc) than an indie film and usually had to do with some love situation with some 20-30 year olds. The genre is further defined here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumblecore.
To be continued…
