What is Best Editing?
Best Editing*
What does that mean exactly?
Best costumes? Sure. Best Visual Effects. Right, got it. Heck, there can even be a BEST COSTUMES or BEST VISUAL EFFECTS winner for a film that hasn’t even a chance at a BEST PICTURE award. (Alice in Wonderland or Independence Day for example)
But there’s never a BEST EDITING award for a movie like... say... Scooby Doo? **
Maybe? Radamy Aarorrds?
It always HAS to be a film that is worthy of Oscar consideration to even be considered, right?
So what exactly is BEST EDITING?
Traditionally, it seems to favor the accomplishment of the amount (or perceived amount) of work put into the quantity side of editing - mostly through the larger scope of the picture itself. So if it’s up for BEST PICTURE do they choose the most ambitious editorial workload of those in the running?
Is that why “Titanic” had to win Best Editing because just looking at it, it appeared as a huge editorial undertaking compared to something like “Good Will Hunting”?
And then there is the 2000 Best Editing winner, “Traffic”.
“Traffic” had noticeable jump cuts (traditionally viewed as mistakes in Hollywood Cinema) that called attention to themselves. Audiences were AWARE of the editing - and did that visual fingerprint make it a more obvious thumbs up over other films that year for Best Editing?
Sometimes people talk about the the horror of the “MTV style” editing. Quick cutting and multiple angles collaged together equals narrative awfulness - but, “Borne Ultimatum” was the BEST EDITING 2007 winner and it contained a visual flurry of quick “MTV style” editing?***
So, again, what exactly IS Best Editing?
The degree of the editor's skill or participation could be instrumental, collaborative, political or mechanical - they call it Best Editing NOT Best Editor perhaps for this reason? We can have a favorite director or favorite composer but can we have a favorite film editor?
I saw film editors Joel Cox and Kent Beyda speak at an editor’s presentation a few years back. Joel Cox is Clint Eastwood’s editor. Kent Beyda worked on such films as Innerspace, Spinal Tap, Big Momma and Scooby Doo.
That night at the event, Joel Cox showed us a “raining outside the saloon” scene from “UNFORGIVEN”.
Cox (a high profile user of Avid Editing Systems) was saying to the audience that this movie was aided tremendously by the AVID. For instance, in "this" scene, it wasn’t really raining outside the saloon but with the magic of the AVID, you could add sound effects to a scene so it seems like it was raining when it wasn’t.
Cox looked out to the audience to witness our amazement.
Silence.
He seemed to second guess his delivery so he said it again with an inflection to add that we might not understand… “It wasn’t really raining at the time we shot the scene”, he says, “but with the AVID we could add those sounds in!!”
Again, silence.
People sort of looked around at each other kind of stunned…" Does he really think we didn’t know that?" "Does he not know about iMovie?" For all the wonderful things he could say about AVID, this choice was kind of a weird one - even a little disappointing for some reason.
Then Kent Beyda spoke. He shared with stories and commentary about the politics of working on Scooby Doo. It was originally a witty comedy (written by James Gunn ) meant for adults with more adult undertones. Beyda believed that THAT version of the movie was going to be great. But eventually the studio wanted it changed to a different tone so they had him take on the endeavor of restructuring the movie with the option to redo ADR and CGI stuff to match the new take on the film.
Listening to him describe the work on this silly little picture felt so inspired and engaging. Political and passionate. Highly demanding yet mostly under the radar. You quickly could tell he was strong with creativity, storytelling, and technical chops - and because of this he will (most likely) continue being hired onto similar movies that will be unrecognized for editing.
When it was over, the audience crowded themselves around the Academy Award winning editor to ask questions - and no one went near the Scooby Doo guy…
So, is (or should) the respectability of “Best Editing” now called “Best Achievement in Film Editing” be only valid based on the final prestige of the film itself?
(The Oscar award???)
…and, still...
...what exactly IS Best Editing?
*(Best Achievement in Film Editing as it’s now called)
**Yes, I know. Scooby Doo ended up being kind of a lame movie...
***Personally, I never originally noticed the amount of physical cuts in “Bourne Ultimatum”. I simply remember how I felt during it. The chase sequence caused my heart to beat faster and when it was over I felt the entire theater taking a breath with me. It wasn’t only because of the quantity of quick edits - It was because of setup to the the stakes presented to characters on the screen and how the choices of editing actually made the audience “feel” as opposed to cut accounting.