The root of the problem and film editing

Walter Murch is one of the finest film editors and sound engineers the
world has ever seen. He’s also renowned for editing his films whilst
standing up (it creates a more physical, engaging act).

I first heard of him whilst writing an essay on The Conversation,
Francis Ford Coppola’s early film and a sound designers dream.

He went on to mix the sound for The Godfather II and Apocalypse Now,
and edit The English Patient.

Because Murch’s job is about story telling he’s fascinated by how
people understand them.

In his book, ‘In the blink of an eye’ (“Try cutting when the actors
blink, since blinking often signifies the completion of a thought.”),
Murch talks about audience research and trying to understand the
feedback that they give.

Often the research will report that people didn’t like a scene.

Digging a little deeper Murch will find out that they didn’t
understand the scene.

Digging even further demonstrates that they saw what happened in the
scene but couldn’t grasp why it was happening or why it was of
consequence. In other words they understood the scene, but didn’t have
enough information to make sense of the scene.

The research found the symptom of the problem, but not the cause.

There’s something fascinating about this.

Most people in film or in marketing / advertising would just cut the
scene or rework it.

But Murch isn’t most people.

Rather than taking the easy, literal way out, he digs deeper looking
for the root of the problem.