Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1532181
including what the character wants in the scene and what has preceded it emotionally, and he looks for "small nuances" to furnish the answers. Hullfish doesn't stop with such general remarks, however. He interrogates the interviewees about the best methods for watching dailies, which prompts reflections by, among others, Hank Corwin, ACE ("I take copious notes when I'm screening") and Mark Yoshikawa, ACE. ("My assistant makes a KEM roll of every take into a single sequence. Then, as I watch, I use a lot of locators [in digital editing, virtual markers for tagging specific time locations] in real time. This records my first impression, which I find vitally important. I've gotten away from taking handwritten notes.") On the other hand, Orloff considers viewing dailies to be "a waste of emotional energy." "One of the reasons I got frustrated when I would watch all of the dailies religiously was that I didn't know what I needed yet," Orloff explains, noting that he does watch the material but does so at his own pace. "I would find these great performances, these special moments, that I got really attached to and I would realize, 'Actually, this is not useful.'" Mark Goldblatt, ACE makes use of the script supervisor's notes to avail himself of information about what happened on set and why certain takes were selected, while Steven Rosenbloom, ACE allows himself to be carried away by what he sees. "When you find the thing that makes the scene sing, then you have it." Carol Littleton, ACE misses the social aspect of watching dailies alongside filmmaking colleagues. "It enabled us to evaluate and refine the filmmaking process day-to-day," she says. "Dailies were a moment of reflection." Every subject is given an equally thor- ough treatment. In constructing a scene, Pamela Martin, ACE starts by using the angle she liked best according to her notes, and she doesn't leave it until she finds she wants to look at something else. "If I'm cutting conversation and I really want to see that person's reaction, that's when I'll cut," says Martin, adding that her assemblies are put together without any thought of what's being said in a scene. "In a weird way, I don't want to be distracted by the sound of the dialogue at that earliest stage," she says. "I deliberately make myself 'deaf ' in order to concentrate on body language and facial expressions." Michael Berenbaum, ACE echoes Martin's sentiment about staying on a shot until it becomes necessary to cut. "If there are sections where the actors are just on fire, I tend to just let 'em go," Berenbaum says. "You don't want to cut away." Other chapters scrutinize when and how to deploy coverage ("I try to use each set-up correctly and I try not to overuse set-ups," says Kirk Baxter, ACE), wide shots ("There's a lot of scope to 'Yellowstone,' so you wanna honor the scope," says Chad Galster, ACE), close-ups ("You really want to use it sparingly," says Kevin Tent, ACE), and reaction shots ("As soon as you 'get' the idea of what the first person is saying, you will look at the other person to gauge their reaction," Murch says). A chapter on transitions between scenes deals with such highly specific considerations as pre-lap and post-lap audio and dissolves, but also includes a wonderfully "big picture" obser- vation by Glauberman: "When you're trying to sell comedy, you don't necessarily want to end the scene on a pause. You want to put a comma on and just keep going." Do you want to hear the editors talk about flashbacks? Hullfish asked about them. Says Michelle Tesoro, ACE, "I'm a big fan of cutting them in and cutting them out, and it'll work if the emotion matches on both sides of the cut." How about continu- ity? Hullfish asked about that, too. Murch sees it as far less important than emotion, story, and rhythm, while Brent White, ACE quotes the immortal words of Dede Allen, ACE: "Matching is for sissies." Hullfish also explores first-act problems, abbreviating whole scenes into montage sequences, and even considers how best to refer to an editor's cut. Galster calls it a script cut, Tom Eagles, ACE, a compile, and Michael Taylor, ACE prefers assembly — "because that way we can say it's just a version of the film." Paul Rogers, ACE undoubtedly speaks for many when he discusses scenes that play beautifully but don't have a final home in the movie. "There are lots of moments where you're thinking, 'This moment is so good, but it doesn't service the film.'" Hullf ish prompts the editors to talk about the various routes to a career in post- production, from working as an assistant editor to earning credits on low-budget productions to making the leap from un- scripted TV or commercials, and broaches the all-important editor-director relation- ship. "I'm not around to edit a movie to make it feel like a Jeffrey Ford movie," says Jeffrey Ford, ACE. "I'm around to make it feel like the director's movie." Murch, a longtime collaborator of major directorial talents ranging from Francis Ford Coppola to Philip Kaufman, sees his role as being akin to a priest in a confessional. "[Editors] see the problems and they see people who are tired and disgruntled and euphoric, and discretion is very important to what we do." Tactfully, Hullfish even addresses how editors handle notes. "Sometimes you get a note, and it's better to just understand the problem than it is to do the note, because the solution may not be correct, but identify where they are falling out of the experience, and then explore that," says Simon Smith, ACE. As comments like these demonstrate, these editors are smart, talented, and, per- haps most important, battle-tested. The book's expert organization extends to the inclusion of pull quotes (excerpts from an interview placed in large typeface) and even boxes to define certain terminol- ogy, including circled take (a filmmaker's take of preference), MOS (material photo- graphed without sound), and oner (a scene that unfolds in a single shot). While the pro- fessional editors who read this book will, of course, be familiar with such terms, Hullfish is to be applauded for defining them for the film students or even amateur film enthusi- asts who will undoubtedly glean as much as the pros from this essential volume. ■ "Art of the Cut: Conversations with Film and TV Editors, Volume II" By Steve Hullfish, ACE Foreword by Ron Howard 337 pages, Focal Press, $49.99, 2025 48 C I N E M O N T A G E B O O K R E V I E W