WEBVTT

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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Editing is central
to what we do.

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It's the most important
part of the process,

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and in a way, of course
it is, because it's

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the synthesis of all the
stuff that you've gathered.

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But this has to be seen in the
context of an entire process,

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in which we never
stop researching,

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and we never stop writing.

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So editing is something
that is beginning.

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And while it is
ongoing, we are still

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And while it is
ongoing, we are still

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engaged in many, many
other aspects, all feeding

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in to the editing,
and all with the idea

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that we are somehow making
this developing script,

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this developing cut, better
and better and better.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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I have never really, since
college, been my own editor,

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where I've cut the
film and marked it.

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I've done all that.

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I've cut A and B rolls.

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I've cut A and B rolls.

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I've done the old,
arcane stuff, worked even

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with upright moviolas
and steambacks

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and flatbed moviolas
and Cam machines,

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and all sort of stuff.

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But since I began my
professional life post-college,

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I've had someone physically
editing the film.

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And the single best thing you
can do is get good people.

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And they don't have to be
good necessarily artistically.

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They're just good people.

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Because you can learn
all of this stuff.

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Because you can learn
all of this stuff.

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And so I've converted
housewives to producers and kids

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that were interns into
unbelievable editors.

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And the biggest thing you
have to do is to trust them.

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And so what I don't want
to do is hang over them

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every single moment.

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I try to limit my contact
to those screenings, where

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I can focus all my
attention and benefit

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from a bunch of other
eyeballs looking at it.

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But a lot of it is trust.

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And that's true
with cinematography.

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And that's true
with cinematography.

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It's true with other
people that you're

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engaged in who work on
the project with you.

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It's a wonderful
thing when you can

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love the people you work
with and begin to trust them.

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So it's not a singular exercise,
is the first law of filmmaking.

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Nobody, no matter how great the
auteur, not Orson Welles, not

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anybody does it alone.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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After our experiences with
"Civil War", "Baseball",

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and "Jazz", in which our
editors were spending

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an inordinate amount
of time adding picture

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to the first
assembly, we created

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what we call a blind
assembly, in which we

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have worked on the script
through several iterations.

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I, as the scratch narrator
had recorded that material.

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We've dumped in
whatever talking heads,

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however cut up they might
be, into places where

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however cut up they might
be, into places where

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we think they might work.

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And then we listen to it, look
at it, as a blind assembly.

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Whenever there's the narration,
you're seeing nothing.

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Whenever there's a first-person
voice, you're seeing nothing.

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There's no music.

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It's just to sort of
hear it, almost as

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if you had heard a radio play.

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We would do that to help
us understand the larger

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shape of the narrative
and what was extraneous

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and what we needed to do.

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And that permitted
us in the next pass

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to go and begin to add picture.

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In some of the
longer series, we now

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In some of the
longer series, we now

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have two, sometimes
three, blind assemblies,

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because we are really wrestling
with complex structures,

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Russian novels, in
which you've got dozens

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and dozens of characters.

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But in essence, that
permits us the possibility

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to see the rough shape of it.

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And then we can turn
to the editors and say,

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we're not going to
waste your time.

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We're not going to
pull that 45 minutes

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that you took two weeks to edit
out just because like that, we

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realized it was extraneous.

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We'd rather do that
when it's blank,

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and we can just cut it out on
the script, and then move on.

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and we can just cut it out on
the script, and then move on.

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And it's really tightened
our game in a really good way

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and then permitted us a
great deal more latitude down

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the line, as then we move to
a true assembly with images,

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to an intermediate
cut, to a rough cut,

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to an intermediate
pass, to a fine cut,

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and then work to lock.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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Your first assembly
should look terrible.

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Your first assembly
should look terrible.

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It should be way, way long.

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If it's not terrible
and it's not way,

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way long, something's wrong.

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It's not an assembly.

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You're farther along.

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The idea is probably not good.

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I've learned-- it
took me a long time--

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to learn to welcome
the kind of terror

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that comes from
the daunting task.

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I mean, when you
look at an assembly,

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you're basically at the
base camp of Everest.

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And you go, well,
OK, you know, there's

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And you go, well,
OK, you know, there's

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a lot of stuff we have
to do here to make it

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a real thing, to make it the
place where you can pull away

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the scaffolding and
pull away the false work

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and pull away the
props and the crutches,

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and all of those things.

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I have never had an assembly
where it hasn't been like,

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yikes.

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And I've looked around at my
colleagues, and they've been,

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you know, there's a kind of
panic look on their face.

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And one of the other jobs
I have is to go, oh yeah,

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I know what to do.

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I would just wish, absent any
sort of list of things to do,

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that I would just wish that you
could find a kind of enthusiasm

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that I would just wish that you
could find a kind of enthusiasm

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for the process and
for what you're doing.

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Having that kind of
enthusiasm gets you

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through those big
speed bumps of when

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you look and your assembly is
twice as long as it should be.

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Or you need to cut an hour out
just in this pass to get it

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down to within fighting length.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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I wear a lot of hats in
the things that I do.

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I wear a lot of hats in
the things that I do.

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I'm the executive producer.

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I'm the producer.

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I'm the director.

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But my most important
thing is an ability

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to go into a screening
and see the film new

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as if I knew nothing about it.

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And that's the single greatest
talent you have to have.

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Because as you get
deep into a project,

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you begin to assume knowledge.

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You know the back story.

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And you make leaps
and connections

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that are not necessarily there.

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And it's super
important to realize

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I'm taking somebody
who has not yet

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decided to commit
their attention to you,

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decided to commit
their attention to you,

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and in the first few
minutes of the film,

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I have to let them
know that the thing I'm

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going to talk to them about
for the next hour and a half,

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or 2 hours, or 18 hours,
is, in fact, worthy

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of their attention, and
that I am going to lead you

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so the point that you wish
to know more and ever more

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as you proceed.

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So if there's a place where they
fall out in the first episode,

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that's it.

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You're gone.

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They're going to go
to something else

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and look at something else.

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My job is to try to
anticipate that in advance.

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And I think everybody can do it.

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And I think everybody can do it.

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You just have to
understand that,

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when I say the first shot,
that has a certain value.

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The second shot-- already
something new is happening.

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And you've got to make
sure that I haven't jumped

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over either metaphorically,
a few shots or a few bits

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of information or a
few bits of commentary,

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or whatever it is that
you just take along.

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And editing is, in fact,
weeding out the extraneous

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and rewriting so that you
get a smooth narrative

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and rewriting so that you
get a smooth narrative

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arc within the context of parts
of a scene, an entire scene,

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a chapter, an entire
episode, and then

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of course, when all those
things are put together,

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an entire series.

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If you can do that, you
can do just about anything.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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You definitely want
to have screenings.

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I would urge you to do that.

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And if you have a
subject that in any way

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relates to history or the
Academy or something in which

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relates to history or the
Academy or something in which

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scholarship would aid
you in getting it right,

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you really have to
do that, you know,

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whether it's about
housing, or they're

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about prisons, or whether
it's about the Civil War.

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Once we're probably at
the rough cut or beyond,

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we start inviting in
our historical advisors.

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They've been involved in
the treatment and scripting,

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but we sort of left
them out until we

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did a little bit better
job of filmmaking

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and we had some
pictures to show.

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Then we invite them in, and we
have these incredibly complex,

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very energetic discussions.

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very energetic discussions.

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And it won't just be
the historical advisors.

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It might, in the
case of a war film,

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be the veterans that
are in our film.

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It might be warm bodies
from the neighborhood.

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It might be colleagues from PBS.

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So we've got a lot
of bodies there,

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and it's my job to sort of
manage after each episode.

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It's a very slow process.

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We convene in the barn.

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We look at a two-hour episode.

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We talk about it, and we listen.

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We just invite.

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And I take, you know,
very particular notes

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about what people are saying--

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less the good things
than the bad things.

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And they provide feedback.

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And they provide feedback.

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They're not filmmakers,
so you don't ever

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give them scripts,
because then they'll

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spend the entire time
looking down at the script.

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It's literally-- it's hilarious.

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We are given scripts,
the handful of us,

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but everybody else has
to write on a notepad.

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And we want them to
write like this, looking.

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And so we get some information,
and we can weigh it.

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All provide a
measure of feedback.

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All of them are
giving you raw data,

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which you have to
sort of take in

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with the immediate colleagues
that are working on it,

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with the immediate colleagues
that are working on it,

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and then figure out
how to digest it.

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You can honor most of
it in the spirit of it,

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if not necessarily
in the letter of it.

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And it's extremely helpful.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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We're talking about
how you make a film.

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And for the most part, the
forces that work on that desire

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have to do,
obviously, with money.

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Clearly, talent and intention
and plan are important.

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But the single
greatest thing is time.

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But the single
greatest thing is time.

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My only wish would be that
each one of you, in some ways,

00:10:04.620 --> 00:10:09.000
can try to recreate the
conditions that best give you

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the most amount of time.

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Because that time will
deliver you those seasons.

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That time will deliver
you that extra archive.

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That time will give
you a chance to think

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outside the box in
the editing room

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and make new associations
and new connections.

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That time will make sure
that your film is better.

00:10:26.670 --> 00:10:30.000
Everybody knows what quick
and dirty means, you know.

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Everybody knows what quick
and dirty means, you know.

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Let's not do that.