On editing

Eddie Hamilton, editor on the later Mission Impossible films, Top Gun: Maverick and Kingsman: The Secret Service uploads his AVID timelines to his website. He's an editor who knows the weight of his craft and revels in it. There's a need for good editors that persistently grown with the increasing media out there. In his website, he listed Cutting Edge, the documentary by the American Cinema Editors (ACE) on the craft of editors; looking at the history of editing and the personalities involved who have brought this craft from an invisible art to the biggest collaboration on a film. 

Cutting Edge documentary (notes)

There would be no film without editing. It's the most important invention for filmmakers. A way to tap into the psyche of the audience and manipulate their feelings to feel forced empathy for the character. When the editing is good, the empathy works. If it feels off, the empathy feels forced or the audience knows they're being manipulated. Its the fault of the editing; because that's how you get seen. A good editor is like a spy, he's figuring out how to win over the audience and leave a mark in their minds. Like Leo from the Departed. Or more recently, the faux director from Jigarthanda Double X. They leave an impact on the audience by sheer visible invisibility. An audience may not know who's exactly responsible for something not feeling right in a film and it's usually the editor I would say. A good editor can save the film. They can turn a mess into a coherent mess. Save a horrible film from being bad. They can bring empathy and reach the hearts of even those who don't understand language. That's the power of editing and cinema.

Sergei Eisenstein saw editing as history as a clash of images and ideas. He took notes from his contemporary Kuleshov's experiments with editing and combined them with Marxist ideologies to make films of revolutionary epics. The meaning of his films weren't in the shots but how they were juxtaposed next to one another to give them significance. When two images and in contrast, their collision or intercutting them creates a meaning of a higher order. For years, editing had been an invisible artform but Eisenstein's contribution made it an exciting and face front view of what editing can be. The Odessa step sequence from Battleship Potemkin is an example of how powerful editing can be in creating emotion: a reaction from the audience to the image on screen. 

Editing can engage the audience with the suspense; it can make an audience feel the weight of the action. It can be a rollercoaster. A good edit feels truthful. It is strong. It gives all the necessary information without going on for too long.