If you haven’t read Walter Murch’s book on editing, In the Blink of An Eye, you really should.  Even if you aren’t an editor, every filmmaker should know the principles of editing.  And who better to learn from than one of the greatest living editors.

Murch’s IMDB credits are astounding.  They range from Apocalypse Now to Captain EO. He won an Oscar for Best Editing on The English Patient.  He also edited Ghost and Cold Mountain.

Murch’s book is filled with wisdom about film editing both in theory and in practice.  Murch is an older man but he has embraced new technologies.  Check out this video of he and Francis Ford Coppola talking about Final Cut Studio.  And the coolest thing about Murch is that he edits standing up.

Check out one of his little nuggets of truth:

How do you want the audience to feel?  If they are feeling what you want them to feel all the way through the film, you’ve done about as much as you can ever do.  What they finally remember is not the editing, not the camera work, not the performances, not even the story – it’s how they felt.

I particularly loved the following quote.

An overactive editor, who changes shots too frequently is like a tour guide who can’t stop pointing things out:  “And up there we have the Sistine Ceiling, and over here we have the Mona Lisa, and, by the way, look at these floor tiles…”  If you are on a tour, you do want the guide to point things out for you, of course, but some of the time you just want to walk around and see what you see.  If the guide – that is to say, the editor – doesn’t have the confidence to let people themselves occasionally choose what they want to look at, or to leave things to their imagination, then he is pursuing a goal (complete control) that in the end is self defeating.  People will eventually feel constrained and then resentful from the constant pressure of his hand on the backs of their necks.

I instantly think of movies like Transformers and the Bourne series.  (You all know of my dislike for these films.  This is EXACTLY why.)

Get your hands off the back of my neck, Michael Bay!

Anyway, check out this book.  I learned a lot from reading it and I think you will too.  I got it from the library (but I live in Burbank where it is normal to have a lot of film books in stock.)  You might have to order it from Amazon.

What other books on editing are must reads?