John [Cassavetes] had shot a great deal of Shadows and I had to go fulfill my contract in California, so he and all the rest of the Shadows cast came out to California and they finished it off and he cut it. He turned the garage into an editing room and he was by then a director of Shadows. That's the only thing he'd directed. But, he loved it.
The main thing I try to do is write as clearly as I can. I rewrite a good deal to make it clear.
And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke.
Someone said to me that we have to encourage more young women to want top-level editing jobs. I think that will happen naturally as we have more role models, more examples of boss ladies who aren't sad and cruel and overworked and undersexed like in DevilWearsPrada, but who are straight-up owning it and notable not for their gender but for their editorial savvy.
I'm a student. I want to do better, and I want directors who can find the actress in me and be my teachers. I'm interested in the whole process of editing, post-production and direction.
When you're in the editing room, as a director, you get the opportunity to look at your work. As a writer, you can rewrite. But as an actor, unless you're watching playback, you really rely on the director to help you.
I love producing. I am loving doing that. I think that is my most natural space in the business. I just love producing or editing and that's where I thrive.
That was an amazing experience [making Dream of Life]. It's hard to imagine that we were editing every day for a year. And it was pretty extraordinary; it also went by super fast. But every day was an experiment.
I know when something is done and when it isn't. There's been times working on movies when they [moviemakers] lock in a release date and so you're stuck to that schedule. But sometimes you're still editing and you feel like you're not really done, but they're sort of releasing the movie anyway - that's kind of depressing.
I like to do the camera work myself because I kind of feel it, you know, I don't articulate it, I feel it. It's the same with editing.
When I have just sat down and tried to write the lyrics of a song, usually about half of it sounds like bullshit. I just have to go away from something and come back to it again later. I do a lot of editing and switching around and putting little pieces together to get the right mood and personality, and it takes me forever to get a song finished.
I became really aware that when you're making a movie, you're making it three times. You're making it when you're writing it. You're making it when you're shooting it. And then you're remaking it again when you're editing it.
My first cut was three hours and 17 minutes. And then I just became very shrewd about the editing.
Basically, editing is done in rehearsal and in the writing process and in the acting, so it's very, very tricky, very, very tricky.
The way I work is that I never let people do an assembly. I don't like it because it shapes the film in a way that I can't really control. To me, editing is making the film and it's a huge process and editors are under-rated.
I learned directing by editing because I saw all the mistakes I had made.
I'm too big a fan of rhythm and editing. I'd much rather my editing be brave than my shooting.
Writing is therapeutic. It helps you cope with issues that seem gargantuan at the time. The process of expressing yourself about a problem, editing your thoughts, and writing some more can help you control issues that you face.
The relationship with actor and director is probably closer to theater, in that, when we record the dialogue, there is very little in the way of the creative collaboration - no cameras, lighting or even locations. Then, once we record, the post process is very similar to the post flow in filmmaking - editing, sound design, mixing, etc. At the end of the day, it's all about storytelling and honing in on a tone by developing a rhythm and structure that suits the storytelling.
Evolution advances, not by a priori design, but by the selection of what works best out of whatever choices offer. We are the products of editing, rather than of authorship.
I spend a lot of time in preproduction working with authors, and a lot of time in postproduction.: editing, music, all that sort of stuff. Casting. On the set there's not a lot for me to do.
I'm interested in pitches that have compelling people and ideas at the core - and a good news peg certainly doesn't hurt. We look for stories that are solutions-oriented, but not irrationally upbeat, from writers with a strong voice. For LadyJournos, where I'm curating not editing.
Once you sign on as an actor, you know, you don't go to the editing room, you don't see how they cut, you don't see how they score, you don't see how they cast the rest of the movie.
I was always creatively stubborn, adverse to editing by others, and wanted to use the kind of Ukrainian we spoke among ourselves rather than the more artificial prescribed literary Ukrainian. The problem was the greatest in prose, where editors would change my language because "it sounded better this way." My poetry they left alone probably out of deference to that hallowed genre.
The content dictates the style all the time. That's the way it is. If the content of the film - as in Husbands and Wives - is highly jagged, neurotic, fast-paced, nervous New York film, it just called for that kind of shooting, editing and performance.