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Author
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Topic: Who actually edited the digest films of old?
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Mark L Barton
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 621
From: Bristol, South Glos, England
Registered: Mar 2009
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posted July 13, 2011 03:45 AM
Now I'm not sure if the following has been answered but, looking back at the old days of the super 8mm collecting when a film title would be cutodwn to either 200' 400', 2x 400' etc etc does anyone know who the editors were that abridged some very famous films with convuluted narratives. I mentioned in another post that I understood from days of old that Spielberg actually cut the 400' edition of Close Encounteres, now I'm intrigued as to knowing the names of the editors involved. As we can appreciate to cut a film down from a possible 2 hrs to 16 mins or so is one hell of a challenge and involves superlative editing skills, especially as these editors were cutting celluloid and not using NLE software such as FCP7 and such like, offering built in dissolves and all types of built in enhancements. I'm rambling again, so the challenge is et, can we come up with the names of these unknown masters? Cheers to all.
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Gary Crawford
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 979
From: Manassas, VA. USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted July 20, 2011 07:17 AM
I've been asking folks the same question for years. When Scott MacGillivray's book on Castle Films came out, I was hoping he would have been able to track down at least a few of the editors , but there was nothing. I would love for some of the editors to come forward ...I've always wanted to thank a few of them...for the great , creative job they did on a few of the Castles....especially Frankenstein....and a few of the others. Instead of just cutting pieces of the films together...as was done with the later 400 foot Universal 8's.....these Castle editors had original material to work with...plus budget and lab work available to do special lab transitions(wipes, fade ins and fade outs..etc.....remixing of music and sound.....special titles ....to make the cutdown as smooth and give the viewers the feeling that they were missing very little from the feature....and even if that goal wasn't always fully achieved, some of the editors at least gave it a great try....and tried to make the cuts smooth and viewable. The ones who did Frankenstein and some of the others...seemed also to have some respect for the films themselves, which showed in the finished product. I'd love to talk to some of those folks to ask, for example, about the thought process that went into doing certain cutdowns.....what guided them in deciding what to put in and what to leave out..... how they worked with others to design and shoot special titles for the films. what the budget was for a typical Castle film...and how much time did they have to complete one of them. Some of the editors who, in the 1970's , must still be around today. I wish they would come forward so we could talk to them. Maybe they don't realize their work is still being bought, sold, discussed and appreciated today.
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