Rhythm and Attitude
Michael Kahn Speaks at A.C.E. Seminar
by Linda Dove
Academy Award-winning editor Michael Kahn spoke at an A.C.E. seminar in October. Michael is on the Board of the Editors Guild and is a member of the American Cinema Editors. He started out in episodic television before editing 'Rage' for George C. Scott and has been Steven Spielberg's editor since 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' (except 'E.T.'.) He received an Oscar for 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' and for 'Schindler's List', a film which he described as "a giant emotional experience". The following are some of the highlights of that rare and illuminating seminar.
SECTIONS:
Michael started by introducing his assistants and then read a letter he received from someone in the computer department of Johns Hopkins University who had seen 'Schindler's List' five times and said he felt "the creative and powerful editing is a significant part of the power of that movie. Yet, unlike... great music or great cinematography or great acting, I cannot guess why the editing affects me how it does". The letterwriter went on to discuss scenes where intercutting between cause and effect was "terrifically powerful" and ended by saying he wished he understood the reasons for "the powerful emotions engendered by these editing techniques".
"As an editor", said Michael, "when I read something like this, I don't know how to respond because a lot of the time we don't know why things work the way they do. We do a lot of things from feeling, not necessarily from knowledge. We feel it would play and it does and, I guess, years of experience help us, with our directors obviously, to evaluate how people are going to react".
George Grenville, who was moderating the event, pointed out how rare it was for anybody to comment on the work of an editor and said "the average critic ... doesn't know what we do".
"Steven [Spielberg] is very specific about what he'd like to see," Michael said, "but then you have to not only do what he says, you have to do what you think he feels, what he really means. Before a picture starts I always ask Steven to give me the opportunity to make mistakes. Give me the chance to be wrong. So in that way I can try different things and experiment, be innovative. I think an editor needs that because to try to bring about the director's vision you may have to take some circuitous routes editorially. Directors select the takes but editors have all the dailies. Sometimes you need a bridge, you have to get from here to here and you have to use your own initiative to get there and make it work. When it comes to rhythms and pace, that's always with the editor, because that's what an editor is presenting to the director. A lot of what we do is rhythm and pace and feeling".
"It takes a lot of years for an editor to develop that feeling of what plays. Sometimes you see a picture that an audience will be uncomfortable with. They don't know what it is, but a good editor could look at it and say it's off rhythm, the rhythms have to be changed or massaged a little... Things don't happen when they're supposed to happen rhythmically - even if it's off this much or a beat off - and editors who have been doing it for a while will look for and understand that".
Michael introduced the editing crew of 'Schindler's List' - "My editing team had the most remarkable dedication and energy, and protected me from losing myself within the frames of all that footage. They stayed with me all the way: Alan Cody, Pat Crane and Michael Fallavollita were with me in Krakow. Peter Fandetti stayed here in Hollywood and he was our conduit. He helped us coordinate 'Jurassic Park' because we were finishing 'Jurassic Park' while we were starting 'Schindler's List'. And, just to get into that a little, we had a satellite hook-up with ILM, in Krakow at Steven's house. We'd look at shots every night and, if Steven approved the shots, we'd get two prints, one print would go to Peter, one print would go to us and we'd cut it into the dupe that we had with us. And, if matches were right and the rhythms were right, Steven okayed it, we'd call Peter on the phone, give him key numbers and he would cut it into the print in Hollywood, and that's what they would dub with. The dubbing was here while we were in Krakow. We accompanied Steven to Paris twice to listen to the dubs which Steven approved and it went very well.
"I was lucky to get Marty Cohen [the post production supervisor], he's great. He coordinated all of 'Schindler's List' . I couldn't be involved with going to the lab and dubbing. He just took care of everything. You need somebody like Marty to get the picture out because originally the release was like 385 prints and we had a running for Scheinberg and Pollack here and they looked at it and they loved it, they thought it was great. All of a sudden they wanted a thousand prints, 1500 prints and to get it out was really a problem. Marty really was on top of all that".
Later Michael said, "My guys - we're all like family. And whenever I cut a scene I like to bring them in and show it to them. I want their opinion, I want their ideas. It's a chance for them to grow. I've had a lot of assistants who are now editors".
Somebody asked how he hired his assistants: "It's all through recommendations. It's hard to hire people - attitude is so important. We're all part of a team. I rely a lot on the assistants."
Asked about music Michael said, "I edit with music. Whenever I go on a picture I always do research before. We find music we'd like to use and it's good to put music in - even if it's wrong ... it's good as a guide. It helps the emotional level. There was a lot of music [in 'Schindler's'] but it couldn't be big big score, it had to be something that's more introspective".
"I wouldn't show Steven a scene unless it has music or some sound effects in it. Even my first rough cut. He likes to see it as good as it can be"
An assistant asked if Michael thought he had "an instinctive ability to cut right from the beginning" of his career. Surprisingly, Michael said, "When I first started I wasn't too interested in editing. I didn't know what it was. I assisted at Desilu on a lot of television shows. Television goes so fast I wasn't able to get too close to the editing. John Woodcock gave me something to put together, but I found editing very difficult. I had no sense, no feel for it at all". Michael described being encouraged by Danny Nathan, his editor at Bing Crosby Productions. Danny literally pushed Michael into editing scenes and re-editing them, over and over again until he got it right. Editing started to gel for Michael. He then went on to edit 'Hogan's Heroes' for six years and, he said, "slowly but surely things evolved and then I caught on and I figured out that what the old editors used to say: 'the film will tell you what to do' wasn't necessarily valid. I started realizing that I could bend the film, change it and tell it what to do. I did different things, took chances, and I started having a command over the medium. I started to feel passionate about editing. I wasn't intimidated anymore by the film or by the directors - as new editors usually are. Directors started saying 'hey, that's an interesting idea, I didn't think of that.' And that sort of encouraged me on, then I tried other things - I kept trying things. And directors seemed to appreciate it".
Michael said he appreciated his experience in television when he started working with Spielberg "because I was able to keep up with him - he's a dynamo". On 'Schindler's List' they got "between 10 and 18,000 feet a day." "Steven's very fast and, boy, we got footage. 40-50 set-ups" in a day.
Michael has received numerous awards and nominations, including an Emmy for 'Eleanor and Franklin', but says "I never judge my own editing. I never know whether I'm doing good or bad in a sense - whether it's a great piece of work or not. I just do the work and I don't second-guess myself, I don't think 'Gee, I'm doing a good job, it's a great scene'... I just go in and work it. It's a zen thing - it's like beginner's mind, you know, each thing is new, it's like the first time I approach it and I go into it with no ideas of where I'm going or where I've been. I just do it every day and it's really very simple. I think attitude is very important and - if I do anything right, I think it's my attitude toward film, my approach to the director of the film".
At the end of the seminar Michael read a statement he had written about something that concerns him deeply at the moment. It read in part:
"New editing systems are moving into prominence and will be added as one of the many editing tools. Experienced editors should do well with these systems, but I'm not sure about how the emphasis is placed. The name of this game is editing. The computers will not edit for you, you must do that. The emphasis should be on the creative editing process. It takes many years to develop into a competent editor, capable of making a contribution, but it takes only three or four weeks for an editor to learn which buttons to push in order to make cuts and overlaps and things like that. Whether your editing decisions are fast or slow, those editors who have sufficient experience will creatively support their directors with suggestions and ideas and not just be pushing buttons. So prepare yourself. Not only on the mechanics of these devices, but more importantly prepare yourself with the techniques and aesthetics of film editing. When I learn the Lightworks and the Avid, which I'm in the process of doing, I'll be able to bring my experience into that arena. It is just another scissor. If I did 'Schindler' on a Lightworks it would look just like it looks now. But the Lightworks won't edit for me. I must do that. Audiences don't know what you work on. But I'd love to see more discussions and more talk about aesthetics and creative editing than about mechanics. What I bring to it is a lifetime of experience. Now the young editors that want to grow, you can learn to push the buttons, but you better learn how to edit as well. Learn what makes pictures work. That's the important thing.
When this interview was published,
Michael Kahn was editing 'Casper' for Amblin Entertainment.
Bruce Green and the American Cinema Editors.
Reprinted from
The Motion Picture Editors Guild Newsletter
Vol. 15, No. 5 - Nov/Dec 1994
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