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60 C I N E M O N T A G E F E A T U R E like proofreading a college paper. "Take out all the typos and bad grammar and it improves, even if it isn't stellar. If you take out all the things in a scene that are not great, it gets better. You might have a terrific ensemble with one bad actor you have to minimize." How do you know when it's bad acting? Steven said: "Cut whatever reveals that it is actors talking, not characters talking." Actors look at marks, they look in the lens, they smack their lips, they fumble their lines. Re- move the impediments. 9 KEEP IT REAL. A humorous moment is funnier when it seems like it could really happen. Good dramas season sto- rylines with humor. Somebody trying to be funny is not as funny as somebody trying to be serious while caught up in a crazy situation. Whether broad or serious, once you set the tone, don't violate the level of reality or the audience will object. I often sacrifice mo- ments of comedy, removing jokes to keep things as dramatic as possible. Then the remaining jokes play funnier. The more believable and grounded a story is, the stronger the jokes land. 10 C R E AT E T H R E E - PA R T STRUCTURE OUT OF THE CHAOS. Life is absurd. That is a mes- sage the Universe is sending out every day. But humans are pattern seekers. We look to the sky and impose a framing of organized constellations on a random scattering of stars. Disarray causes anxiety. Patterns are pleasing. We prefer to edit our world, to line things up, to attempt to control the chaos. The strongest geometric f igure is a triangle. Similarly, the strongest multi-part joke has three sections, or three examples, or three beats. It's the rule of three. Three people walk into a bar, not two or four. Goldilocks meets three bears. There are three wishes. Storytelling works best with three-act structure. In cutting a montage, showing three shots feels right. Two feels inadequate and four begins to verge on overindulgence. Editing is finding the most concise and effective organization of myri- ad chaotic pieces. An editor is expected to bring a fresh perspective to a story, to a scene, to a line of dialogue, and to the filmic artform overall. Art helps others see a slice of the world from a new perspective, the way the artist saw it. When an editor finds a cleaner and less obvious path, it pleases and surprises the audience. They like surprises. And truth. And pain. They want it all, but they want it faster. ■ This essay was drawn from Roger Nygard's new book "Cut to the Monkey," published by Applause Books. Nygard has edited Emmy- nominated episodes of "Veep," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," and "Who Is America?"