Case Study | Editors

April 22, 2024

Case Study | Editors

Paul Machliss

Renowned Film and TV editor awarded honorary degree | Solent University

Paul began working in production in 1990 as a runner for Channel 7 in Melbourne, and by 1995 had worked up the ranks into editing, in September of that year he moved from Australia to the UK, which by 1999 eventually led to making contacts such as Edgar Wright which catapulted his career, the first project Machliss worked on with Wright was a Channel 4 series called 'Space'

In an interview with BAFTA, Machliss discusses his experience with the editing process in Baby Driver, until watching this video I was not aware of editors being on set for the production process, where as in this interview, Machliss says he was working on set as the production was being made alongside Wright, this was due to the stylistic choice of cutting to music in Baby Driver, this was so Machliss could see in real time the shots and how he would cut them to each track.

In terms of editing style, I am really inspired by Machliss fast paced cutting to tracks and take inspiration from this for future work, cutting to tracks in this way makes the production more visually engaging and serves well for the genre of film.

babydriver002

Wright,E (2017) [Online] at https://film-grab.com/2019/03/05/baby-driver/#bwg1855/115826 Accessed March 2024

Thelma Schoonmaker

Thelma Schoonmaker Is the Backbone of Scorsese’s Mastery

Thelma Schoonmaker started her editing career by complete chance, in an interview with Port she explains how she saw an ad the New York Times for an assistant film editor, this job she explains was terrible but influenced her choice to learn film editing which led to a chance meeting with Martin Scorsese when she started a course at New York University, that essentially created the career she has today.

In another interview with studio binder, she explains that people often think that editing should be invisible but doesn't believe this should be the case, as this keeps the audience hooked.

The first project Schoonmaker worked with Scorsese on his first feature film 'Who's that knocking' (1967) and a lot of documentaries that influenced her style of editing, she explains she likes to edit in the more choppy moments to add grit and realism, compared to the typical polished Hollywood style of editing. This style is more effective in conveying a certain message or feeling to the audience, the example she uses is the scene in Goodfellas when they break the glass; it's cut together chaotically, in a way some people may consider to be a 'bad cut' but was a choice that Schoonmaker and Scorsese chose to fit the scene.

In Shutter Island, Scorsese and Shoonmaker mutually agreed to use these 'abrupt' cuts to represent Teddy's fractured state of mind, this is also represented through the harsh and gritty colour grading; the choice of colour is dark and high contrast which connotes a dark theme; contrasting to scenes with his wife that are bright and high saturation which represents the 'dream' state Teddy is in. This editing choice has influenced how I will cut and colour grade our rendition of 'Call me by your name', as our version of the film we are trying to show the entrapment within the relationship, the harsh colour will help represent this, and quick, chaotic cuts will represent the chaos within the relationship.

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