Law of the Jungle and why it [rocks]

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Sunday, June 02, 2013, 05:50 (3983 days ago) @ narcogen

"It's neat."

In all my years as a film editor, whenever I ask a director justify his vision when I disagree, and he comes back with this, then that's a guarantee that the idea is bad.

I honestly don't know what's more jaw-dropping, the fact that you just said that, or that nobody else has called you out on it.

Why would anybody call me out on it? That's what you're supposed to do as an editor. You are supposed to draw out the director's vision and make the best thing you can. By posing it as a question of that sort is actually helpful to them, and it's helpful to the editor to understand that vision. The good directors appreciate this. The bad ones hate it. The best editors do this well. The not so good ones don't.

Since you've brought it up, though, how many years is that? How many directors have you disagreed with (don't cheap out and say "all" even though I'd believe it) and what "neat" things were you proven right about when the final product tanked?

Since 2003, so that's ten?

The answer is all of them. How on earth could two people agree on every single thing? Sometimes it goes right. "Put in the shot of her walking into the house from the outside, we need to show the house off." "It slows the scene down, and her back is to the camera making it less intimate, and this is supposed to be a scene where the audience really connects to her."

Now. If the director then says "But the house is neat and we need to show off production value", you know that the decision doesn't really have any creative merit. But if he says "That's okay, because the house is meant to show the contrast between their worlds, and her walking in is like her bridging the gap between those worlds, so we need to show the contrast. Slowing the scene down is worth conveying this." then okay, you're on to something and now I get you.

It's not really a good idea to bring the specifics on these sorts of discussions out of the editing room, because it's kind of a safe place where ideas, good and bad, get thrown around. You only want people seeing the good things that come out of it.