Timecode is for people who love film enough to appreciate the craft that is at its core, which is editing. It is also for people who love film but aren’t quite sure what editors do—other than trim out “the bad stuff.” Spliced, cut, recollected and sequenced from my own experience as a film editor and filmmaker, Timecode explores the aesthetic and technical concerns of film editing, the art of storytelling, and the mysteries of the creative process. Offering insight, guidelines and criteria, tips, suggestions, and commentary on film, I hope to elucidate the finer points of editing, explain why cuts “work” and help readers appreciate the extent to which editing shapes narratives, enhances performances and builds the moments that make us laugh, cry, cheer and cringe.
Beset by technical and story challenges on the one hand and the emotional roller-coaster of the creative process on the other, making a film is always a unique adventure. Even with a script at your side, there are infinite possibilities before you, myriad paths to take with each scene, each character and the story as a whole. To arrive at each cut—the moment of transition between one shot and the next—requires more than knowing which buttons to push. It is a decisive and deliberate action often prompted by instinct, but arrived at through thought and reflection. As legendary editor Walter Murch points out, editing is “not so much a putting together as it is a discovery of a path.”
By documenting my own experiences, sharing information and elaborating on process, it is my hope that Timecode will evolve into a helpful educational resource and a rich source of inspiration. There are plenty of websites, books, and blogs devoted to the technical intricacies of filmmaking, so I will be focusing more on the internal process that invariably leads to exceptional results—if you have the courage to trust it.
