The Reading List: Screencraft - Editing & Post-Production By Declan McGrath

Screencraft - Editing & Post-Production By Declan McGrath

15 of the worlds greatest editors come together to talk about the mechanics behind the edit as well as revealing a few tricks of the trade. The introduction to this book warns that once read is will be like hearing every instrument individually in the orchestra of your favourite classical piece, over time you will be able to hear the music as a whole and appreciate it even more. 

Looking at an editor I haven't talked about before: Ralph Winters, who directed what was at one point my favourite movie Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) about this film he says that "In dance numbers and audience should see as much as possible of the full figure at all times. Hence less cutting if the shot holds up" he says this comparatively to a previous comment about stage director and choreographer turned film director Chuck Walter. Walter saw everything from the view of a stage so therefore often had longer takes, and thought that if the two characters related and were emotive enough in the wide there was no need for a close up. Such can be said and understood from the point of a dance scene, where full body movements tells us more than any close up could. Though Walter admits holding this technique to a gold standard the bitterness can still be heard as he says "He did not know enough about the cinematic medium to to use shots as well as he could have" this comment stems from his earlier comment about people thinking they can play all roles, namely directors who thinks they're editors, and the sad fact is that they are doing a poor job at what they think they're an expert.

Despite the bitterness Winters does make a really good point early in the chapter where he talks about how over the years once cutting could be done on a computer, which is a more personal form of editing that people thought they could do the job themselves, as opposed to the days of actually cutting when there were many editors needed to help do the job and they were like a family. Though Winters does not condemn the progression of the technological age I feel that he is holds an incredible double standard whereby praising the progression but slating the progressors.