Tech tools cut into editor's role

Widespread use of digital systems means more meddling

By DAVID BLOOM

Their craft long poorly understood, film editors now have a bigger concern: whether transforming new technologies will leave them out of the picture in movies of the future.

For decades, editors occupied a low-profile but vital place in the Hollywood pecking order. Studio chiefs, for instance, often had a staff editor at their side when watching dailies, advising them on a pic's pacing and probable length.

And in that cloistered temple known as the cutting room, the editor reigned supreme, crafting hundreds of thousands of feet of negatives into a well-paced pic.

Ten years ago this month, that all began to change. A company called Avid introduced the Film Composer, an amalgam of computer, hardware add-ons and software that radically revamped editing. Along the way, it gave editors new abilities, such as color correction, sound editing, titling and visual f/x.

Pricey Avids (an editing suite runs $12,000 to $190,000) now dominate feature film editing.

But the company's pre-eminence, especially in independent and documentary filmmaking, has been challenged by Final Cut Pro, Apple Computer's $999 software program that runs on the company's PCs. Final Cut has done so well, Avid has responded with its own $1,699 alternative.

The two powerful, low-end programs are credited with opening the editing craft to thousands of newcomers, and increasing its profile.

"Yes, the technology is becoming democratized, no question," says Steven J. Cohen, an Editors Guild board member and former Avid consultant. "In the early days, no one knew we existed. Now, high school kids know what we do."

And editing is becoming more celebrated, in flashily edited pics such as "Moulin Rouge," "Black Hawk Down" and "Gladiator."

But practitioners wonder if their skills are simultaneously being devalued, because non-editors may believe anybody could achieve the same results with the same tools.

"There's always somebody somewhere who has an idea and thinks, 'I can do this better myself,' " says editor Howard Smith, now working on actioner "Torque" and drama "Sonny."

Smith says the technology has affected film's aesthetics, making many advanced techniques relatively easy to do, and just as importantly, to undo.

"It changes the relationship between the editor and the director," says Tim Squyres, a pioneering Avid user now editing "The Hulk." "The director would say, 'Why don't we do it this way?' and we'd say, 'It doesn't work.' Now, we say 'Why not?' "

But it also has changed the shape of the craft. Squads of assistants no longer are needed to edit a pic, and many entry-level jobs -- as assistant editors or editing of docs and indie pics -- have been eliminated.

"Because that road (into the profession) has changed, it's hard to say how that's going to affect movies in the future," Smith says. He worries about where the next generation of editors will learn, and what sensibilities they'll bring to filmmaking.

The craft has always been a closed society, its practitioners locked in small, dark rooms far from movie sets, huddled over arcane machines practicing a painstaking, physically demanding job. A director or producer would drop off a list of notes, then check back later. No more. Now, typically, the director sits in on every cut.

"Before, no director would dream of getting on an upright Movieola and making changes," says Phillip Linson, senior filmmaker-in-residence for post-production at AFI. "Now there's someone standing right behind you."

Though editors consider themselves storytellers who are key to a movie's flow and shape, many have long felt more ignored than honored, their contributions minimized by their collaborators.

Final Cut Pro only worsened that professional inferiority complex. For relatively little, a film could even be edited on Apple's laptop computers. A dabbling/meddling director or producer might assume he or she could do it better.

"I've heard producers say, 'I'm going to go home and recut this scene,' " says Eric Marin, who teaches film editing at UCLA. "Some people may say that's fine if it makes the film better. But it may just add to the chaos. There's little to stop it, and it may further the director's megalomania."

Longtime editor Dede Allen, now the guild's VP, says that since the new technology has arrived, "many more hands get into the process. It does get everybody and their cousin into it."

Access to cheap tools doesn't automatically translate to more talent, any more than cheap digital tools have automatically improved other parts of moviemaking. Film fest programmers, for example, say cheap digital cameras have not increased the number of well-made narrative features, although digital has been a boon to documentarians.

"Everyone has a hammer, but not very many people are carpenters," says Cohen, who nonetheless predicts there will be much more competition for editing jobs. But getting good will still take time, and getting into Hollywood will take more.

"You could learn the basics of editing in an afternoon and the details in six months," says Squyres. "But editing doesn't exist in a vacuum. There are still all kinds of business and financial barriers to keep the kid in high school from editing 'The Hulk.' It's not like the hierarchy has been completely torn down and thrown away."

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