To cut or not to cut
May 12, 2016 12:31 PM   Subscribe

The Internet's gift to movie geeks that just keeps on giving is out with another video. Tony Zhou (so many previouslies) makes an examination of the editing process in film with some particular examinations of Hanna and Her Sisters, In the Mood for Love and The Empire Strikes Back. And if that isn't enough to wet your editing whistle, have a look at CineFix's Top Ten Most Effective Editing Moments of All Time (Warning: Un Chien Andalou. I learned my lesson from last time).
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI (16 comments total) 43 users marked this as a favorite
 
AlonzoMosleyFBI: "Warning: Un Chien Andalou. "

Ah, a warning that can only be useful ex post facto.
posted by boo_radley at 12:35 PM on May 12, 2016 [3 favorites]


I WAS ABOUT TO POST THIS!

I love Tony Zhou with all my heart and soul. He explains movie making like nobody I've ever listened to before.
posted by xingcat at 12:54 PM on May 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


Ah, a warning that can only be useful ex post facto.

Yes, I know. I suppose there was no getting away from that (though, in hindsight, I could have chosen a better title for the post even though it's thematically relevant).
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 12:54 PM on May 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


Zhou is great as usual. If you're interested, The Cutting Edge is much longer documentary on editing. As I remember there's a few NSFW shots in that but I assume that you're not watching a two hour movie at work.
posted by octothorpe at 2:25 PM on May 12, 2016 [3 favorites]


Next up at #2, the Dawn of Man cut from from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Spanning millions of years in a single cut, Stanley Kubrick's visual metaphor works on so many levels: connecting the invention of tools to the advent of space travel; the flight of a bone to our liftoff to the moon.
Jesus Christ. It is painful when presentations wander so far off the mark.

I think we are not so much looking at tools here as weapons: the first murder weapon cuts away to an orbiting nuclear platform. And the voiceover goes on to blather about how editing is an incredible "medium" (?) while onscreen, a dozing Heywood Floyd does not notice his pen drifting away from his hand in microgravity. This is a direct reference to the bone being hurled aloft, which you showed us like eight seconds ago.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:56 PM on May 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


I love how Zhou compares a similar scene in Empire Strikes Back to Antman! You can really see how film has to be so much faster now.
posted by Kevin Street at 4:00 PM on May 12, 2016


I'm still ahead in the Tony Zhou Previouslies, AlonzoMosleyFBI.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:23 PM on May 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


I do wonder why the Ant-Man scene is so much faster than the Empire one. Is it because modern moviemaking is so expensive there isn't time to do multiple takes? Or is the editor afraid the audience will get bored? Or is it just that the audience has already seen many scenes of this type in previous movies, and the editor is trying to avoid a feeling of déjà vu by making it quick?
posted by Kevin Street at 4:37 PM on May 12, 2016


I do wonder why the Ant-Man scene is so much faster than the Empire one.

Like Zhou says, editing is largely based on feeling, and modern sensibilities are much quicker cut. (Broad brush, obviously, there are always differences between individuals.) There may be an age aspect to it as well; I find older movies less tedious than when I was younger and the Ant-Man edit seems rushed to me.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:27 PM on May 12, 2016


Action filmmaker feel the need to cram so much plot and so much action into a 2+ hour movie that there isn't so much time to waste on character moments.

I do find that as I get older, modern movies tend to make me feel very battered and anxious and sixties and seventies films feel so calming.
posted by octothorpe at 6:27 PM on May 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


It's also probably an effect of technology too. Modern digital editing suites make it a hell of a lot easier to assemble a film out of quick shots than it was when you had to cut each length of film by hand.
posted by octothorpe at 6:33 PM on May 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


Modern digital editing suites make it a hell of a lot easier to assemble a film out of quick shots than it was when you had to cut each length of film by hand.

Hrm. It's quicker to do the process, no doubt, but I don't think that in itself means your choices would be quicker cuts. That's just putting more work back on the editor.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:57 PM on May 12, 2016


Also, I think the Ant-man scene was part of a training montage, which would encourage speed in the cuts. It occurs to me now that there are no montages at all in the original trilogy (can't recall if the prequels had one).
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 7:17 PM on May 12, 2016


At 4:40 the music is wrong. That's not "This is the End."
posted by doctornemo at 8:54 PM on May 12, 2016


I love Tony Zhou’s videos. There’s another series like this I see linked occasionally which tries to deliver the same kind of critique as Zhou’s, but compresses the audio so the narrator never breathes. It’s as exhausting as Zhou is calming.
posted by migurski at 10:32 PM on May 12, 2016


Also, I think the Ant-man scene was part of a training montage

Ah, that would make a difference. His point still stands, but eighties-style montages are a convention unto themselves.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:50 AM on May 13, 2016


« Older Making peace with missing out   |   "The Brontes had their moors, I have my marshes." Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments