"Off-Track" Article 5: Film Surgery in the Garage

Overview

In the film editing guidebook called "The Healthy Edit", written by Hollywood film editor John Rosenberg, he compares the film editor's role to that of a doctor, describing editing practices with medical metaphors. Editing as a whole can be thought of as "film surgery". (*)

As mentioned in the previous article, a number of issues were revealed when translating script to screen, namely: In Scene 1, James' elderly dad Robert in the past did not look younger compared to his present-day appearance; In Scene 8, the first garage scene where James re-discovers his childhood model trains dragged on and was detrimental to the film's pacing; that same scene, there was another repetitive instance of Robert needing to calm James down when he walks in.

After taking a 5-day break to volunteer at Manchester Film Festival 2024, I thought hard of the suggestions from my group and tutor, and when I came back on Monday, it was up to me to perform some surgery on the scenes in question.

The main suggestion I took on was to intercut pieces of Scene 1 as a flashback triggered by James as he uncovers his old model trains, as a more dynamic way of showing his nostalgia of joyful times with his dad through their shared love of trains.

I was presented with lots of limitations regarding continuity and pacing, especially when cutting something in a way not shot with that in mind, plus some missing coverage at certain angles that would have helped with clarity.

Surgery Breakdown

The first third was the most difficult, where James uncovers the model station which is covered by a tarp. The complete action in the original takes were very slow and deliberate, and the camera was mostly focused on James with not much focus on the model's uncovering. We did have panning extreme close-up inserts of specific houses and figurines in the model as inserts, but nothing in-between that shows a bit more of the entire model, except a very wide shot of the garage.

After many revisions with the director, we decided on something that flows more aesthetically, without needing to be restricted by continuity. The focus should be on the models and figurines, not James uncovering the tarp, after all.

In the second third, James flashbacks to his childhood memories. We switch between past and present in this section. For example, after ending a shot on young James' face, it cuts to adult James' face to show the audience that these two are the same person. Both James pulls out a box from under the table and places model trains on the tracks, so we intercut past and present between certain moments, like when the box is being pulled, and when the carriage is being connected to the train. Young James and past Robert's dialogue can be heard during the present-day shots, which was easier for me to edit than before because we don't have to see them talk much on screen, allowing for smoother pacing. This was very fun to cut around.

In the final third, the original scene was supposed to end with the model train running out of battery, and Robert stepping in to check up on James. Now that we remove Robert's appearance, simply ending it on the train coming to a halt wouldn't be enough, so I edited in a few more shots in: Showing James looking seemingly frustrated, fiddling with the remote, with the train still remaining motionless.

This is a demonstration of the Kuleshov effect: If you put an image of a person with a neutral expression, juxtaposed with an image of some object, it can create wildly different interpretations of the person's emotions from the audience, depending on what the object is. (**)

Even if, in the shots of James I used, the actor was not specifically reacting to a stopped train when we shot it, the meaning of his face can be changed simply by cutting to something different after it.

Such is the power of editing.

After the Easter holiday next week, I hope to finish the offline edit and finally hand over to our colourist and sound mixer, and also work on materials for the electronic press kit.

Footnotes

(*) Rosenberg, J. (2018) The Healthy Edit: Creative Editing Techniques for Perfecting Your Movie, 2nd edition. Oxon: Routledge.

(**) More details about the Kuleshov effect: https://nofilmschool.com/Kuleshov-effect-definition