EDITOR'S NOTE
Coppola & Murch Redux
by Tomm Carroll
 Tomm Carroll |
Ever since I joined Editors Guild Magazine back in 2004, I’ve wanted to publish an article on Walter Murch, a true renaissance man in post-production. Embodying the triple-threat of picture editor, sound editor and re-recording mixer, Murch is also a card-carrying member of the three honorary organizations representing those respective arts––the American Cinema Editors (ACE), the Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE) and the Cinema Audio Society (CAS).
Murch did contribute a brief piece and provided photographs to augment the article Paul Hirsch, ACE, wrote for us on the fabled “Droid Olympics” (see Editors Guild Magazine MAR-APR 05), which took place on Murch’s farm in Marin County, California 1978-82, but we’ve never done a full article on him during my tenure.
When I learned that Murch’s latest film, Youth Without Youth, marked his reunion with a fellow Fog City Maverick––producer/director Francis Ford Coppola, his longtime friend and collaborator––and that the film was opening Stateside in mid-December, I knew this issue was the time to profile Murch. Interestingly, the last full feature that the two worked on together was Apocalypse Now (1979), and it was during the editing of that epic that the first “Droid Olympics” took place.
Writer Bill Desowitz interviewed both Murch and Coppola (separately), discussing their working relationship as well as the new film, which was primarily shot digitally. In addition, we were lucky to find Franco Origlia, an Italian photographer for Getty Images, who captured exclusively images of the pair for our cover and story at the Rome Film Festival in October––the only time and place that the two legendary filmmakers would be together for the remainder of 2007!
Speaking of legends, we are also saluting pioneering editor Dede Allen, ACE, the 2008 recipient of the Editors Guild’s prestigious Fellowship and Service Award, which will be presented to her by one her many directorial colleagues, Warren Beatty, at the Guild’s Board of Directors Installation Dinner in early January. In the special section dedicated to Allen (which begins after page 32) are heartfelt tributes––from her friends, her peers, her collaborators and her former assistants––as well as a biography and filmography.
Lest we forget, we are once again in the midst of Awards season. As a prelude to the Academy Awards that will take place in late February, our writer Michael Kunkes queried some previous Oscar-winning and -nominated Guild members, as well as a few film critics, to see what they think are the award-worthy movies (in terms of picture editing, sound editing and mixing) for 2007.
Elsewhere in this issue, you’ll find coverage of the fall post-production trade shows and conferences, including The New York Post|Production Conference, reported by Dan Ochiva; HD Expo LA, with an editing panel covered by Bill Stetz; and HD World in New York, reviewed by Michael Grotticelli.
And, for a change of pace, in this issue we are printing an excerpt from My Liar, a forthcoming novel from Rachel Cline, in which the main character is a film editor! Also new, and possibly recurring (depending on its reception by the readership), is the Post-Prod Puzzler, a post-production-themed crossword puzzle by Tiare Widmaier and Myles Mellor. We hope you enjoy it.
Happy New Year!