Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Editing:

Got back from "Land of the Dead" tonight. If you like the other Romero Dead movies you'll like this one. (and I liked it)

Saw "Boogeyman" the other night. Not as bad as they say, but it really falls apart at the end.

What do the two movies have in common, though, other than being horror movies? One was edited in a flashy, MTV manner. The other was edited very low-key.

Boogeyman was flashy, quick cuts, sped up frames with clipped frames here and there to give it a staggered look. Land was low-key.

And you know what? I'll bet if you asked the average viewer which movie had the best editing they'd say Boogeyman. Because...and this is key...they noticed the editing in Boogeyman.

And the irony is...the best editing is the editing you don't notice. When it steps out of the way and lets the story play out. Any editor worth his salt will tell you that.

But flashy seems to win in the hearts of today's viewers. I get it. I do. I used some flashy editing in my first film(and won an editing award for it), but it bothers me that a lot of movies nowadays seem to substitute cuts for story.

Let the scene play out. I feel like these guys are getting paid per cut, like "Hey, it's $20 a cut so if I can put in forty cuts per minute I can knockdown a hundred grand on this flick!"

What happens is that society is getting accustomed to that flashy, quick editing. People complain a movie is "slow" when it actually takes time to build a story, or flesh out characters. Take a look at some older classic movies and I can assure you that many would be thrashed by today's viewers.

Hitchcock is rolling in his grave.