A Word about the Editing Category

I would like to take a moment to express how much I hate it every year when I hear someone suggest that "those technical awards like editing" should be taken out of the Oscar broadcast because the show runs too long.  Nope.  Technical awards are given out on a separate night and include things like "the development of the Spydercam 3D volumetric suspended cable camera technologies." Lumping editing in here is like suggesting that putting words on the page to form a script can be done by a computer.

In fact, I like to think of editing as the final rewrite of the movie.  The previous revisions were made in words and the last version of the script is stitched together with pictures.  It is half artistry and half logic.  Editing plays with your emotions by making subconscious connections and omissions while insuring that you know how the characters get cleanly from A to Z.  It is a top notch category, folks, so just take a bathroom break if you don't understand it.

I understand why this job is misunderstood.  I am an editor and I generally do not see the editing in a movie the first time I view it. The editing work that stands out is either when it is incredibly flashy and stylized, or when the movie is really failing and you start to notice all the ways you hate the film you are watching.  It takes a few more viewings for me to start to see the subtle kinds of genius at work in most good movies.  But there is as much beauty and talent in fast-paced jump-cut laced action sequences as there are in powerful emotional moments where the editor is playing the actors performances like a finely tuned stradivarius. 

I don't expect an average movie-goer to fully appreciate the editor's job.  They don't need that knowledge to enjoy a movie.  Just, please stop suggesting that William Goldenberg, Tim Squyres. Michael Kahn, Jay Cassidy, Crispin Struthers and Dylan Tichenor don't belomg there on Sunday night.

Thank you.