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19 SEP-OCT 14 / CINEMONTAGE filmmakersdestination.com 818.777.1111 / 818.777.0169 / 800.892.1979 Find Us DOWNLOAD FROM APPLE APP STORE AND GOOGLE PLAY STORE Universal Studios_Post Prod & Media Services ad_Editors Guild CineMontage_12.12.13 in fine detail, fussing over frames." When he did identify a problem, he trusted Hirsch to come up with the answer. "I once called him on location and told him I was unsure how to use a particular shot I saw in the dailies. 'You're the editor — you figure it out,' he told me." Of course, on a Brian De Palma film, occasionally the "figuring" simply involved choosing which iteration to use of one of the long takes for which the director is famous. "When directors do scenes in more than one take, it is usually the last one that is the best," Hirsch opines. "The crew and the actors work to refine the shot as they shoot, until they finally get what they were aiming for." In addition to Hirsch, the crew on Blow Out was made up of many old hands — producer George Litto, cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC, composer Pino Donaggio, and supervising sound editor Dan Sable had worked with the director before, as had assistant editor Gina Roose. Hirsch and Roose (joined by apprentice editors Lisa J. Levine and Mark Rathaus) edited in New York while the company completed principal photography in Philadelphia. But the production's collegial, family- like atmosphere was interrupted by what Hirsch describes as "a catastrophic occurrence." Blow Out was processed at Technicolor in New York, but the film was sent to Los Angeles for negative cutting. Four days' worth of footage was shipped on a Friday, but on the following Monday the phone rang in the editing suite. The footage had gone missing. "Apparently the truck driver who collected the cartons from the lab the previous Friday had stopped to make another pick-up on 57th Street," Hirsch says. "While he was inside, the truck was broken into and thieves took the four cartons. They probably didn't even know what they were stealing." The purloined footage was never found, necessitating re-shoots — to the tune of $750,000, but covered by insurance, De Palma told Films & Filming — of one of the film's most important scenes: the chase set against Philadelphia's Liberty Day Parade, as Jack desperately tries to stop Sally from becoming the latest casualty stemming from the conspiracy that killed the politician. The scene was first shot over winter, but now it was summer. "But in the end, we were able to patch all the holes in the film," Hirsch reveals. "Although you can see that the trees have leaves on them in some of the shots." Most memorable? Maybe not — but, with its enduring quality and unique backstory, Blow Out has to be up there. f