I always say that film editors and writers are bedfellows. Although our tools are different – words that conjure images and sound for writers, actual images and sound for editors – we’re all trying to do the same thing: engage an audience in a story.
TV writer and showrunner Tony Tost (Damnation, The Terror) has a list of concepts and philosophies he refers back to while working, using them to remind and guide him on what makes good and bad writing while he revises his work. As you can probably tell from this site I love a good concept or philosophy and there are several of his points that I think are particularly relevant for editors.
Drama
31. Every scene should be built around conflict. Most often, this is conflict between characters. But very occasionally, it can also be conflict between a character and their outer environment. Or their inner nature. Or even a conflict with the viewer’s previous understanding of them.
Pick up any screenwriting book and they will tell you that mainstream films are built around stories where characters want something. These characters then need to be kept from their goals, ideally by a mix of hurdles, whether their own flaws, the actions of an antagonist, or the nature of their uncaring environment. This is one of the engines of drama, and editors need to be aware of this so they can ensure that scenes are shaped around conflict.
28. TV isn’t a narrative art. It’s dramatic. That means you’re not just figuring out plot points of a story. Instead, you’re trying to create a second-by-second sensation in your reader/viewer: “oh God, what’s going to happen next?” This means creating a feeling of suspense and anticipation in the viewer as soon as possible and purposefully manipulating it until the episode or season or series is over.
Like most of these, I’ll write more a detailed post on the concept at some point, but I think you could make a fair argument that if there’s one thing you absolutely have to understand about telling stories, then it’s this: your goal is to make the audience wonder what’s going to happen next.
Shaping Scenes
42. Try to withhold every bit of verbal or visual information until it’s the most dramatically ripe moment for it to arrive. This even goes as far as when to bring a character into a scene, or when to notice a flat tire, or when to have a plate of breakfast arrive, or when to have your hero find out that Darth Vader is his father. Have this information arrive at the best/worst possible time.
How and when to deliver information is a key part of the editor’s job. This is a general filmmaking skill, rather than editing-specific, but getting good at this will separate you from the pack. I’ve already written a little about this here.
32. End the scene when the impulse for the next consequential action is made clear. That is, when either the goal is achieved or when the protagonist discovers there must be another way of achieving it. Don’t linger. “The end of a scene should include a clear pointer as to what the next scene is going to be,” Alexander Mackendrick.
Not many things are worse in a film than when scenes meander when they shouldn’t. Get in as late as possible, leave as early as possible.
34. On a page by page basis, a script isn’t a story. It’s drama. At its end, a script is a story and has a shape. But as it unfolds scene-by-scene for the reader/viewer, it’s drama, and drama is a feeling. “Drama is anticipation mingled with uncertainty,” Alexander Mackendrick. Scene by scene, you need to create new things to anticipate, and new causes of uncertainty.
Some scenes just leap off the page and the screen, others need a lot of work. One of your jobs as the editor is to root out problems, interrogate the material, and re-imagine what doesn’t work as well as it could and should, regardless of how a scene was written or shot. One thing all but the shortest of scenes should never do is just deliver information. If it’s not working, it’s your job to fix it.
Dialogue
12. The purpose of dialogue is not to be impressive, but to be revealing.
Obviously, editors don’t generally write dialogue (although we do often contribute to the writing of ADR), but we do have a big say in which lines get dropped, which lines stay, and how they’re placed and played.
2. The drama is not in the dialogue being spoken. The drama is in the desires and goals underneath the words. If the characters don’t have specific desires or goals, they can say many interesting things. But it won’t be dramatic.
During the edit, you need to look at every line of dialogue in the film and ask yourself the question “Do we need it?”. Often you’ll find that removing lines makes a moment stronger, not weaker.
33. Network notes and the necessities of plot and backstory will all push you towards using language as a window, revealing the contents of your characters’ hearts and minds with all the subtlety of an instruction manual. But remember: in our daily lives, language is very rarely used this way. Language is usually used as a shield, or a weapon, or a distraction, or a mask. Use language as an index of the character’s heart and mind in a dramatic situation, not as simply a clear window explaining his or her mere thoughts and facts.
Subtext, subtext, subtext. A viewer is desperate to get inside the head of a character. Who are they really? What makes them tick? Are they just like me? But you can’t just offer it all up, you need to make the audience work for it.
Challenge yourself
24. Don’t assume the audience or reader is invested in your characters, your writing, your story, or you. Even if the story is meaningful to you, or tackles an important subject, you still have to make the characters and story so inescapably gripping the audience can’t resist them. Don’t wait until page 30 to make your character interesting, or to reveal why they’re interesting: your reader will be on to the next script by then. It’s not enough for your script to be “good enough” or “professional quality.” It has to be so undeniably compelling that the people who read it want to attach themselves to it in order to see their own careers and fortunes rise. If it’s not compelling enough to do that, revise. Or, more often, try again.
It’s easy to think an edit is “working”, and leave it at that, but I truly believe that the latter weeks of an edit are absolutely the most important time. Once your big issues are fixed and you’re concentrating on really pushing the film as far as you can, being as brutal with the work as you can, making it as interesting and engaging and as bold as you can, this is the stage where you really should make the difference and where you earn your money as a filmmaker. Many times a film that’s fine, that’s working well, can suddenly spring to life once you really push it, and can surprise you with how much stronger it can be than you ever thought possible.
Openings
52. In the opening scene of your script, your #1 job isn’t to lay the groundwork for a good story. Your #1 job in your opening scene is to write something interesting enough to capture a stranger’s attention. In scene two, your #1 job is to intensify and reward that stranger’s attention. Same with scenes three, fourteen, sixty-nine, etc.
Again, I’ll talk more extensively some time about beginnings because they’re tricky and extremely important, but I do read a lot of scripts that do this “laying the groundwork” that Tony talks about, and they’re all pretty boring. Your opening scenes are not just about providing us with information. They’re about raising questions the audience is going to want answers for, they’re about showing us intriguing, flawed characters with problems they don’t know how to resolve. Writers and Editors need to ask themselves the same question about the opening 10 pages/minutes of a film, namely, “Am I doing all I can to ensure the audience will want to keep watching this?” Grab ‘em, and don’t let ‘em go.
Getting Notes
44. Feel free to challenge or disagree with notes, but try not to mock them, even in private. Making fun of network or producer notes simply turns that process into one where the writer is now some eye-rolling adolescent and those giving the notes are the out-of-touch parents who won’t let them drive the car or go to the junior high dance. Instead, try to take ownership of the notes you receive and guide the process to one where all the stakeholders can speak a common language and find common ground. (This happens only rarely, but at least you won’t be volunteering yourself to a self-infantilizing dynamic.)
Don’t give in to the instinct to be tribal and consider Execs and Producers who haven’t spent much time in the edit as not part of “the gang”. Being inclusive benefits everyone.
Pacing
46. When a script is boring, sometimes it means the writer is actually going through the scenes too fast. That is, the script is not really exploring the dramatic and emotional possibilities of a given situation — instead, the script is speeding past those possibilities to get to the next plot point. Sometimes a script gets more exciting when you slow down the scenes in order to milk every drop of potential drama from them (usually by introducing complications). Tarantino is a master of this.
An edit can be considered to happen in two parts. First, you make sure all the moments are given due time, attention, and focus, both in the edit and on-screen. Then when your individual moments work, you can hack out those which don’t actually contribute to the whole, and compress the film into a suitable, appropriate duration.
If you’re interested in more concepts and philosophies that film editors use to shape their work, check out the Concepts category.