WEBVTT

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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Editing is at
its essential core

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the distillation of
the material you've

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collected into a coherent story.

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So you can go back
to human life.

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How is your day,
someone ask you?

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And you immediately
begin to edit that

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into a coherent narrative
of what took place.

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You do not spend 24 hours
telling that person what

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You do not spend 24 hours
telling that person what

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your day was like.

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But you want to-- you
hopefully have collected

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24 hours worth of
material in order

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to be able to answer the
question, how is your day.

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That's all that editing is.

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It's taking the seemingly
random chaos of events

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and ordering it into a story.

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You can look at our
cutting room floor.

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You can look at our
cutting room floor.

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The proverbial
cutting room floor

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isn't filled with bad stuff.

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It's filled with great stuff
that you would look and go,

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wow, you're an idiot.

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Why isn't that in
the final film?

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But if I could put it
back into the final film,

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I'd show you the way that
wonderful scene de-stabilized

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the arc of something better.

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Part of what I am is in some
ways a traffic cop, ultimately

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deciding what's going
to get into the film

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and what's not going
to get into the film.

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And that makes it an
incredible burden.

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Nothing in the hunter
gathering portion

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Nothing in the hunter
gathering portion

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compares to what takes
place in the triage,

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in the merciless
triage that everyone

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who wants to be a
filmmaker will come

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to have to face, that
you will have to kill,

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as they say in journalism,
all your little darlings.

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All those sentences that you
think are perfectly read,

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all that shot that you
think as you're taking it,

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oh, it's going to be
in the final film.

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And be willing to sacrifice
them in the service of something

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else that has gone places that
you couldn't even imagine.

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else that has gone places that
you couldn't even imagine.

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And I think it's in some
ways having a kind of courage

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to make sure that
you permit yourself

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to let it go in a
direction that you didn't

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think it was going to go.

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There is a huge amount of
humility at the end of the day

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that you begin to realize
this whole thing is about.

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It isn't about
imposing what you know.

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It's about acknowledging
what you don't know

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and asking of the material
what it might need.

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It doesn't mean that you
don't impose yourself.

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You do.

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But you've got to have an equal
ingredient of humility that

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But you've got to have an equal
ingredient of humility that

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permits that material
to speak to you

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and tell us what it
needs to make it better.

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We use all the time in the
editing room musical analogies.

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Hold that a beat longer.

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Hold that sentence go beat beat.

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We have adopted without
really know what we're

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talking about musical ideas.

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Because if you think
about it, Wynton Marsalis

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says that music is the
art of the invisible.

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says that music is the
art of the invisible.

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You can hear one note
and then a second note,

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and something more has happened.

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And that happens with words.

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It happens with images.

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Music is the fastest
way to your heart.

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And so I think, as we begin
to edit, I find it helpful--

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I think you would
find it helpful--

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to think about what these
things represent in kind

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of almost musical notations.

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I don't know anything
about music in that way.

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But I know enough--

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and you know enough--

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to be able to employ that.

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So a shot may be an 8th
note, or a 16th note,

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So a shot may be an 8th
note, or a 16th note,

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or a 30 second note,
depending on how long it's on.

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It may be that that line of
narration is so dramatic that

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you need to, at that
period, at that rest,

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you would say at the
end of the note--

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the period after the note--

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to hold that.

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One beat, two beat, cut.

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I often try to respect
the word and try

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to get to the end of
a phrase or a clause,

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where there might be a comma in
the script, before I would cut.

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where there might be a comma in
the script, before I would cut.

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That's not always the case.

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But for the most part, I think
that, like musical phrases,

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I kind of want a pace to it.

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And then I can increase
the pace of it.

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I can slow down that pace.

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We can do different things.

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What you're trying to do is
reconcile a word, or at least

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a tension, between the
word and the reception

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of those words, which is a
singular oral experience,

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and then the reception of
the visual information.

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and then the reception of
the visual information.

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How long it takes
to read an image.

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How much more meaning
accrues during the duration

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of that shot.

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And if you, in some
ways, set up oppositions

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where you're kind of
forcing the viewer

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to choose listening
over watching,

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or choose watching over
listening, you've failed.

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So I'm just looking
for that place

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where you have not accentuated
these moments of tension.

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You want to find a pace and
rhythm that permits you.

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If that means cutting at the
end of the phrase, so be it.

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If that means cutting at the
end of the phrase, so be it.

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But that may be the
phrase in music too.

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But there are no rules.

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I mean, sometimes that
works beautifully.

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The pace of a
particular scene is

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about what all of the
elements are telling you.

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Obviously, what the music is is
hugely important to what it is.

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And what's happening in the
scene, what the action is.

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And what's happening in the
scene, what the action is.

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You know, people reading at
home doesn't have the same pace

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as a battle scene.

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And at the same time, there
are moments within a battle,

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or at the end, or
at the beginning,

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in which the pace is even
more stately than somebody

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reading at home.

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And so you have to be open to
what the scene itself deserves.

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It's like, when you speak
and you're telling somebody

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a story, you'll find the
best story tellers often

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begin to lower their
voices and lean back

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and start to tell you a story,
and that forces you to lean in.

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And so if you've got the
control and the mastery

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And so if you've got the
control and the mastery

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of these elements, you're just
inviting people to lean in.

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Now, these are not
MTV fast cut videos,

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except I can show you the
middle of the Tet Offensive

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from the Vietnam War,
and that sucker is really

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moving as fast, if not faster,
than any music video I've seen.

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And that's what it
told us it needed.

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[EXPLOSIONS, SHOUTING COMMANDS]

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[EXPLOSIONS, SHOUTING COMMANDS]

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NARRATOR: The
fighting continued.

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[GUNFIRE, SCREAMS]

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We had to blow our way through
every wall of every house,

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one marine remembered.

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It's a shame we had to
damage such a beautiful city.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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In the last month
of editing, there

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are sometimes some big
and scary decisions

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to make additions,
more importantly,

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subtractions from it.

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But most of it is
opening up to frames.

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That's a twelfth of a second.

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Opening up six frames.

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That's a fourth of a second.

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You can say that's
imperceptible,

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but when you are as engaged in
the editing process with us,

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it's true.

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You feel it at that level.

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I once was working on my
very first film in our cabin,

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I once was working on my
very first film in our cabin,

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and my editor, who was soon
to be my first wife, said,

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I'm going to cut one frame
out of this hour-long film

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on the "Brooklyn
Bridge," mostly archival.

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And just tell me.

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And I found it.

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I knew exactly where it was.

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I was so anxiously but
also powerfully engaged

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in the subject,
that I would wish

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that on every single one
of you, that at some point,

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that on every single one
of you, that at some point,

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in some aspect of
what you were doing,

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that you would,
either specifically

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that or the equivalent
of that, know the frame.

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That's being the
princess with the pea.

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You know, however
many mattresses,

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you still feel that pea.

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And that's the kind of
sensitivity and awareness

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you have to awaken in yourself.

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It isn't just a job.

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It isn't just a widget.

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If you chose to do
that, that's great.

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And I can help you
with some outer stuff.

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But if it really
wants to be something

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But if it really
wants to be something

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that changes you and
changes other people,

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then, at some point,
in some aspect

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of what you're
doing, you're, going

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to have to say
under 10 mattresses,

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I didn't have a
good night's sleep.

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There was a pea
under the mattress.

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And somebody just took
out a frame from my film.

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And I want it back.

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The adage is that you
never finish a work of art.

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You abandon it.

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But there is a sense that
you do get to a point

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But there is a sense that
you do get to a point

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where you can whittle
this stick down to nothing

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and it ought to stop.

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That the scenes are all working.

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Yes, you can tinker
and you can fuss.

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And I've seen what's happened
when you fuss too much that you

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end up saying,
well, let's go back

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to the way we were last
week because I think

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we've like over done it here.

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And that happens.

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But I do think,
in some ways, you

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have to let this thing,
this imperfect thing.

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There's nothing will be perfect.

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Go.

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And just say that, you know,
it's like a photo album.

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And just say that, you know,
it's like a photo album.

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Like, I can go
back into the '70s

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and I can see myself in
these bell-bottom pants,

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and this Paisley patterned
shirt with big wide collar.

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And you go, oh, my god,
that's so horrible.

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But you never take the
picture out and tear it up.

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It's true.

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And I can look at
an earlier film

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and say, wow, that's
still working.

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Or I can go boy, I
wouldn't have done that.

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But I would never for a moment
think of going into that film

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and changing the length of that
fade, or removing that fade,

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or making the dissolved
longer or shorter

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or getting rid of the
dissolved, or changing

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or getting rid of the
dissolved, or changing

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the font on a graphic,
or making it smaller.

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All of stuff I've
thought about as I

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looked at "Brooklyn Bridge"
as it was recently restored.

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But it was just me.

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And the audience didn't care.

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They liked it.

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OK.

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Just-- you've won.

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Declare victory.

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It's OK.

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Don't fuss.

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And that's what you want to do.

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At some point, you go,
you know what, this

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is what we can do right now.