Movie Editing

Why are Hollywood movies cut to shit and back?

How would you edit this scene?

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I would use fast cutting because budgets and child actors but I am pretty sure about 3/4 of the cuts were unnecessary.

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looks fine to me

Nothing wrong with all these cuts here.
Sure they suck in action scenes where the audience deserves to know what's going on but for stuff like this it's great for emphasizing how frantic everyone in the scene is.

Editing is a lost art.

i'd cut it so that you see the boy choking on the floor then it cuts to the top of the thing with the guard looking into it and being spooked

needs more slo-mo, and rain, also It Ain't Me should start playing when he turns into a zombie

What in the fuck is this stupid ass shit?

>that music video I saw on MTV... gimme that guy's name, I wan't him to direct new Catwoman flick

that was nauesating to watch, i dont even think i finished that shit show of a movie

/thread

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter Part 1

i think seagull got that beat

>how can we a static, drunk, barely moving Liam Neeson into a dynamic action star?

>asking Sup Forums to be filmmakers

Lol

roger ebert knew more about editing than any amateur filmmaker and he didnt even make filsm

That entire movie is edited like that. A 1-2 hit kill has like 15-30 cuts.

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even the normal conversations have too many cuts

I think the editor was on crack

That kind of editing hides flaws from the day. If the blocking and the framing weren't done well, it'll look really fake with straight shots. With all that stuff going on in such an enclosed space, not to mention trying to make a little kid seem menacing, it's tough to get it filmed in an elegant way, so they shoot tons of coverage and say, "we'll fix it in post".

And so on the day, they do lots of really, really quick pickups - a little bit of CPR here, a girl clutching a magazine, people looking concerned, CPR with a makeup change - to get everything you need to see in the shortest amount of time, then they just mash it all together in the editing room.

Otherwise, they'd have to get really creative and do tons of planning to figure out how the camera's going to move; where people are going to go; and what you need to see. All that takes creativity and time. It's a lot easier and cheaper to just wing it and quickly film a bunch of stuff that you can piece together later.

Same story. Cool ways to do it take creativity and time, otherwise you risk ending up with lumbering, not-very-menacing looking creatures and a silly fight sequence. Easier to just breeze through filming it straight and easy, because hey, you can fix it in post. If you take out the jump cuts on his walk forward, it's almost funny because he's clearly not actually moving fast at all, and he's basically in the Frankenstein's monster pose.

>hide everything and make it look like shit because we are so inept that we can't make it look right no matter what we do

okay.jpg

I need to watch this flick when I'm sniffing gasoline fumes

Basically. And time is a serious factor with low budget movies. What's easier:

1. Figure out a way to realistically film a boy choking, getting CPR until he turns into a zombie, have him lunge, and. . . pin down a fully grown adult? In a crowded tram (or whatever)? Have all this be suspenseful instead of looking completely silly.

2. Film some shots of the boy starting to choke, then getting CPR. While he's getting his zombie makeup put on, shoot pick-up shots with the extras and the secondary characters in the scene reacting to the CPR. Bring the kid back in, film zombie CPR, have him lunge, guy falls on back, slight struggle.

With number one, if you swing and miss, you end up with something that looks hokey, and there's no way you're going to be able to get all those people back. Whereas with option two, you can film a whole bunch of stuff with different angles, mash it up in post, and you only need all the extras and kids for an afternoon. It's a lot easier to pay some joker to edit a bunch of stuff coherently than it is to plan, choreograph, and film a complicated scene, and even though the editing is shitty, at least it won't look laughably unrealistic and poorly done. Most people will just think the editor has crap sensibilities.

or just show him choking then cut to the tram stopping at the top with zombies pouring out
less is more

This.

Make the audience think more.

And actually, perfect example:

Peter Jackson wasn't originally going to direct the Hobbit movies; he picked them up shortly before things were really getting moving, so he was sort of making it up as he went along. He'd figure out how he was going to film stuff pretty much as he was doing it. When it came time to film a big battle scene, it finally wore him down to the point that he just really needed time to plan, so he shut down production.

While he was stalling before it shut down, the battle was still sort of being filmed. People showed up at the set, and the 2nd unit was just filming stuff that they figured might be used. A little chanting here; a little beating on shields there; some swords clanging together.

These movies are basically 100% 2nd unit work.

Good luck convincing the people producing the B movie you're hired to direct that it will be better if you start cutting out the zombie action. At the least, they'll make you film it anyway, and if you refuse, you're the one that's going to be cut from production.

is this a parody?

when there's no dialogue or plot this is what happens. It's shot like a commercial having a heart attack

>b-movies
>low budget

Even high budget AAA movies do this shit now.

There's not enough money in the world to make ScarJo look like she's believably kicking ass.