CHAPTER 33
THE ROUGH CUTS
You get to contribute so significantly in the editing room because you shape the movie and the performances … You help the director bring all the hard work of those who made the film to fruition. You give their work rhythm and pace and sometimes adjust the structure to make the film work—to make it start to flow up there on the screen.1
—Thelma Schoonmaker
After you’ve reviewed all the footage, created the first assembly, thoroughly critiqued the film’s basic structure, and more or less determined the best takes to use for each scene, you can begin the rough cut process. A rough cut is a version of the film in which the full range of material and storytelling techniques are used to implement the ...
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