Behind the Seen: How Walter Murch Edited Cold Mountain Using Apple’s Final Cut Pro and What This Means for Cinema

Introduction

I first met Walter Murch at the Saul Zaentz Film Center in Berkeley, California in the mid-1990s when he was editing The English Patient, directed by Anthony Minghella, and I was developing, Dumbarton Bridge, my first feature film as a writer-director. We had a couple of lunches together, he agreed to look at my treatment, and then my screenplay. The idea that someone of Murch’s stature was reading this first-time director’s script was, well, a thrill and a confidence-booster. Nearly a year went by as I struggled to raise independent financing and assemble a filmmaking team. By that time The English Patient was released to great acclaim. I had not been in contact with Walter for quite a while. One very early Saturday morning, just ...