Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1507954
2 8 I D G A M O N T H L Y Miloš Forman on how he's evolved his editing process in his years of experience: "My first few films, I didn't allow the film to be touched without me being present. But then, I don't know if it was Ragtime or, it doesn't matter, the editor, on his own, did some little assemblage before we finished shooting and I went into the editing room, and it was good. So now. I don't mind because when I come the first day in the editing room, I want to watch all the dailies for the scene and carried the way I was sometimes imagining already what I was shooting for it in editing and put it together. Then I like if then the editor is left alone for half a day and does his own version, so that I can compare the versions and then combine what's good in each. Now I don't mind if the editor is touching the film while I am still shooting, and preparing me his cut." The DGA's Visual History Program is an endeavor designed to explore the art and craft of the Director and the Director's team via peer-to-peer interviews with other Directors, Assistant Directors, Unit Production Managers, Associate Directors and Stage Managers. Created in 2000 by the Special Projects Committee and consisting of more than 200 videotaped interviews, the Visual History Program serves as an invaluable teaching source for those curious about the craft, a preservation of the professional wisdom of DGA members, and a unique repository for Guild history. The interviews, which last between three and eight hours, emphasize reflective and collegial discussions about all aspects of the creative process in film, television and other media. Visual History interviews are accessible to all Guild members as well as to the general public on the DGA website. The Visual History database is fully searchable by topic, and each interview is indexed, allowing for quick retrieval of segments pertaining to specific interests and topics, either within a particular interview or across the entire collection. Joan Micklin Silver on the flow of a production ending in an editing room: "I've also thought when you make a movie — first of all you write it, or you work on the script, and everything is safe and nice and comfortable. Then you go out and you make the movie, and you're… 'Oh, the wind's blowing,' and everything else. Often times it's quite difficult to get everything you want in a day. And then you retreat back into a cave when you do the editing, and I like that rhythm. I just love that kind of, if you want to do something three times, you can change your mind the next day, all the things that you can't do when you're on the shoot itself. That whole rhythm is something that I find very pleasing." Featured here are a few excerpts dealing with Editing. Perspectives on Editing from the Visual History Program Archives View more excerpts and interviews in the Visual History Collection via the link on the homepage of www.dga.org. Melvin Van Peebles on the editing process and innovations: "Sometimes if I can't be allowed I'll give somebody editing credit but I do the editing. For me someone else editing is like writing a novel and giving it to someone else and saying, 'OK. Here's the alphabet put it in the order you want to,' and that becomes a novel. Editing for me is not only extremely important but it's a lot of fun. When I was editing Sweetback I finally got tired of picking up one piece of film, looking at it, putting it down, picking up another piece of film and then going back and forth to make a decision. [I thought] Hey. Why not have two cameras running, two monitors running simultaneously, so I could compare them in real time? Then I tried do it with three screens all at the same time but that allowed me to get certain effects synchronized. Later on they came out with a Steenbeck and then the Chem-Table and then from there they have the AVID and Lightworks etc., but at the beginning everybody thought I was nuttier than a fruitcake. But it worked." Arlene Sanford on editing scenes in her head as she continues filming: "Sometimes I edit it for performance, not so much for the shots. Although I tend to have an idea of how to do it, I always let the Editor do the Editor's own thing because maybe it'll be better than what I thought of. But I'm very aware of lines that I think are perfectly performed in one take versus another. And I know that I have the scene. We all work with feature Actors now who are not used to doing five to eight pages a day and I've sat there with a script going 'check, check, check,' for a line at a time with some people who had trouble doing it. You have to do it because ultimately the performance is more important than anything, especially now you can take a shot that's here and then blow it up to here if you're shooting 4K. So, I'm very much am aware that the performance is there on the scene before I move on."