Film editing is now something almost everyone can do at a simple level and enjoy it, but to take it to a higher level requires the same dedication and persistence that any art form does.
Interpretation
Film editing is accessible to many, but mastering it as an art requires dedication and effort.
This quote by Walter Murch highlights the accessibility of film editing in today's digital age, where technology allows nearly anyone to engage with the craft. However, it emphasizes that achieving mastery in film editing, like any other art form, demands significant commitment, persistence, and dedication to elevate one's skills beyond the basics.
In practice
In a presentation on film techniques, one might quote Murch to explain the importance of both accessibility and mastery in editing.
You can always make a film somehow. You can beg, borrow, steal the equipment, use credit cards, use your friends' goodwill, wheedle your way into this or that situation. The real problem is, how do you get people to see it once it is made?
The notion of directing a film is the invention of critics - the whole eloquence of cinema is achieved in the editing room.
I believe that one of the secret engines that allows cinema to work, and have the marvelous power over us that it does, is the fact that for thousands of years we have spent eight hours every night in a 'cinematic' dream-state, and so are familiar with this version of reality.
There are many, many nouns for the act of looking - a glance, a glimpse, a peep - but there's no noun for the act of listening. In general, we don't think primarily about sound. So I have a different perspective on the world; I can construct soundscapes that have an effect on people, but they don't know why. It's a sort of subterfuge.
Film is really the one art form that can effectively use silence. Music and theater can play with silence, but they can't sustain silence without losing energy, whereas film can go into a silent mode and stay there for minutes at a time.
This applies to many film jobs, not just editing: half the job is doing the job, and the other half is finding ways to get along with people and tuning yourself in to the delicacy of the situation.
As far as the filmmaking process is concerned, stars are essentially worthless - and absolutely essential.
Everything on this record is what I really wanted to say, and I'm back to being the poet I always thought I was.
What I mean is that none of my talents had a - what's that great word - rubric. A singer, an actor, a dancer - there was nothing I could really say I was. The writing came much later. And, actually, thank God, because if I had said I'm a singer, I would really have just had one thing to do.
Magic has universal appeal. I don't believe in magic in the way that I describe in my books, but I'd love it to be real.
I record all of my music with authentic instruments in a studio before we start editing, doing many, many versions. The music shapes the film as we edit so it has an organic relationship to the content.
I'm more interested in melodic things. I think the biggest challenge when you go to play a solo is trying to invent a melody on the spot.
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