Time for another filmmaker’s confession. During my last year at the USC Film School I still didn’t know how to make a film. Although I learned a tremendous amount about nearly every aspect of the filmmaking process I still hadn’t made anything even remotely watchable! While all my friends were making “films,” I was slugging along making a perfect grade on every technical test but failing miserably in the all-important creative department. The Film School’s goal seemed oriented toward churning out a bunch of miniature George Lucas producer-types. I even looked at Lucas’ “THX” student film trying to figure out what I was missing. I just didn’t get that “creative thing,” and I worried I might be the first graduate who managed to slip through their microscopic cracks. Then I got lucky and took this one, obscure class in the film school.

The class was taught by a good-natured gentleman named Lester Novros. In addition to being a gifted teacher, amateur psychologist and filmmaker, Mr. Novros was one of the inventors of what is now know as “Imax.” Lester taught me about editing.

For me (and many other people), the art and craft of editing is difficult to master. What he did is assign me class project to make a short film based on a Walt Whitman poem called “Beat Drums Beat.” If I remember correctly, the poem has a line which repeats over and over again: “Beat drums beat, blow bugles blow.” The remedial task would force me to visually interpret the beat and rhythm of the words. The words themselves suggested I cut the film like the sharp beat of a drum or the quick notes heard from a bugle. This simple exercise yielded my first true film. Finally, I understood the basics of pacing, tempo and breakdown-of-time which are the foundation modern editing as perfected by the great Russian filmmaker, Sergei Eisenstein (i.e.: the well know Odessa Steps sequence of the “Battleship Potemkin”).

This lesson helped me make numerous documentary films in the years after graduation. But a feature film is a whole new ballgame with different rules and regulations. The developed prints of the first day’s shooting were silent sequences of filmed dialog which reassured the cameraman but did nothing for me. The film’s editor (which I had stolen from the Greek guy), looked at the first day’s results and quickly clued me in. He gave me a quick “Editing 101” course in feature film editing.

First of all, photographing the contents of a script page is your primary goal. The number of individual shots necessary to adequately edit that page or scene is known as “coverage.” Most feature films have somewhere around 100 individual scenes. Notice I refer to the film rather than the script here. While the writer may determine that a scene dramatically begins or ends at a certain place, the filmmaker must break the written scenes down into smaller pieces and add important non-scripted elements like transitions, establishing shots and cut-aways, etc.

It’s helpful to think of each individual scene as a small movie all by itself. No matter how short or insignificant, every scene has all the same dramatic elements of the whole story. Each scene has it’s own beginning, middle and end. Every scene has it’s own rising and falling action, relative humor or sadness, plot movement and story revelation. If it doesn’t, you should closely examine the scene and determine what’s wrong. Weak, ineffective scenes should always be deleted before you shoot or made a part of another, stronger scene. Sometimes writers don’t see this and it’s the director’s job to weed them out.

“Coverage,” means never leaving a set or location until you have all the material absolutely necessary for an editor (or yourself), to edit the footage into a smoothly flowing, seamless, dramatic sequence. This also means shooting enough material to give the editor choices. I believe that directors who shoot scenes in such a way as to limit the editor’s choice of cuts are just plain stupid. A good editor can make or break a film. Why limit this skillful and valuable creative resource for any reason at all?

Next Article:   How I Made My First Feature Film - Chapter Fifteen (Editing, Part 2)

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