Art of the Cut

Chapter 4Structure

“The editor is the first person that experiences the story with a continuity of time.”

I’m fascinated with the changes that occur after the script has been written and as it passes through post. What occurs to me is that the editor is the first person that gets to see the story and experience the story with a continuity of time. The writer doesn’t deal with the experience of the story in time at all. The director deals with time, but he or she is shooting out of continuity and without true context. The person that deals with the story the way the audience will experience it—over time, continuously from beginning to end—is the editor, along with the director, eventually. This experience of the story in time means that the ...