First Cut: Conversations with Film Editors

by Gabriella Oldham

First Cut offers an opportunity to learn what film editing really is, and to learn from the source. Gabriella Oldham's interviews with twenty-three award-winning film editors give a full picture of the complex art and craft of editing a film. Filled with animated anecdotes and detailed examples, this is the first book to provide a comprehensive treatment of both documentary and feature film editing.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction

417 pages, Paperback

First published July 2, 1992

Reviews

[Isaac · Rating 5 out of 5]

Editing is more than just "cutting out the bad bits", it involves the art and mastery of storytelling.

This book is an endless supply of knowledge & encouragement for me. I cannot recommend it highly enough for anyone who is even remotely interested in the mystery of film editing. Whether you are a student, a budding editor, professional, or just the curious reader, this book will reveal and explain the significance of film editing.

I am currently reading it for the second time, visiting it again almost 5 years since I last plowed through it. As an editor myself, I have experienced some of the scenarios described within, and I can relate to the horror stories, techniques, and tricks revealed by many of the editors interviewed for this book. However, this book still has the ability to inspire and guide me as I continue to grow in the craft.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can't learn editing from a book, although you can get an idea about what editing means, and believe me, editing means different things to different editors. This book provides a thorough glimpse into the minds of several different types of editors and their thoughts on the processes and styles they employ. The book is by no means technical (not at all) and is an interesting and well edited read.

I would recommend this book to filmmakers more than non-filmmakers, although the latter would benefit their cinematic understandings from reading an interview or two. For anyone who wants to edit or direct or produce, I would highly recommend this book.

[Alejandro Teruel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I watched my father cut and splice a couple of his 16 mm home movies when they had torn apart due to problems with his home projector and I remember a couple of commercial movies' scenes with editors and screening rooms, I had next to no idea what film editing is about and especially its importance and impact on film making. After reading these twenty two thoughtful and considerate interviews with twenty three film editors -one of the interviews is a joint father-son interview-, I have developed a far better understanding and far more respect and admiration for the profession, the different styles of editors and their rich relationships with directors and producers.

Because I was so unfamiliar so the material, and in spite of an excellent and brief introduction by Oldham, it took me a few chapters to get into the book. Of course it helps a lot to have seen the feature movies and documentaries mentioned or covered in the interviews, and I was fortunate enough to have seen at least two or three of those 1939-1992 movies mentioned in each chapter. I would probably urge readers who have seen only post-1992 movies to first read Oldham's second book, First Cut 2: More conversations with film editors (2012), which explores the transition from celluloid to digital films in twelves interviews.

Oldham obviously loves films in general and film editing in particular, and she has meticulously but unobtrusively prepared for her interviews, which allows her to focus, tactfully, on key questions that obviously draw rich and appreciative answers from her interviewees. The interviews are rich, rewarding, nuanced and very human including many frank and relevant anecdotes which shed light on the love for the craft and profession and the variety of possible relationships between the director and the film editor, and, to a lesser degree the actors, music editor and the producers. Most of the interviews also reveal the interviewee's inspiring sense of humor, quirkiness, rhythm, doggedness, hard work, sheer delight in their calling, and their gratitude and awareness of the occasionally serendipitous nature underlying a particularly inspired solution to film problems.

Stephen Prince, in a Film Quarterly review of the book printed on the back cover of the 1995 paperback edition of the book sums it up superbly:

This superb collection of interviews illuminates the art of film editing with a level of detail and insight that few previous books have possessed.... Through descriptions of the cutting of key sequences in films directed by Coppola, De Palma, Forman, Pollack, Lumet and others, Oldham's interviewees reveal not just the mechanics of cutting shots together but also how the editor is guided intuitively by the 'inner rhythm' of a sequence.... This book is indispensable for all those who wish to deepen their understanding of the editor's contribution to film structure.

I would highly recommend this book to film buffs and students -and I am happy to see other Goodreads reviewers who are also film practitioners, praising it.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bello ritrovarsi in un libro. Vorrei scriverne una versione al femminile però