Chapter 45 The Meaning of Intuition

Ronald tossed and turned in bed, not sleeping well all night.

Sometimes, judging whether a person is talented in something is to see whether he can quickly find a teacher. Only then you can talk about learning and improvement.

Many people have read books and worked in the industry for many years, but they can't tell who is real and who is fake, so they can't be said to be talented.

Walter Murch is such a master of his craft. His few answers seemed to open a door in front of Ronald, allowing him to peek at the real secrets of the top directors in the movie hall. Then he closed the door again.

Of course, whether he is willing to teach you depends on fate. Walter Murch and Ronald were quite compatible. After a few rounds of questions and answers, Walter asked Ronald to be his assistant.

Originally, he planned to stay in Los Angeles and wait for the fall semester to start before returning to New York to attend college. But when he encountered this rare opportunity to learn side by side with a master, Ronald didn't want to miss it.

After thinking about it all night, he went to consult Roger Corman the next day.

When Roger Corman heard that Walter Murch agreed to let him work at Zoetrope as an assistant editor, he also agreed:

"You may not know that Walter Murch and George Lucas were the two most outstanding students at USC at the time. George's debut film 'THX 1138', was written by Walter.

Later, he entered the field of sound editing. Walter was nominated for an Oscar for Best Sound Effects for Coppola. He did the recording for 'The Godfather', although his name was not signed."

"Coppola admires him very much. If Zoetrope had not been in financial difficulties because of 'Apocalypse Now', Walter would have had the opportunity to be a director last year."

"So do you think I should give up college and go to Zoetrope to study editing?"

"No, no, no, Ronald, that's not what I meant. I think you should go to college."

Roger Corman said solemnly, "Anyone who has the opportunity should try college life. It will change a person's way of thinking and his destiny. You go to school first. Walter always welcomes you to go. You can go to him to learn during your vacation."

Ronald nodded. He was indeed a little too anxious.

"I heard from Mr. Murch that he will come to New World to give a lecture today. Can I sit in?"

Roger Corman stood up and hugged Ronald. "Kid, you are always welcome here."

Walter Murch's lecture was held in the screening room of New World. Ronald arrived early and chose a seat by the aisle. This is where he watched the sample film of "Rock n Roll High School". It was a bit cordial to return to a place full of memories.

Walter Murch is very versatile. He not only edits films but also does sound editing. So the editors and mixers of New World all came to listen to his lecture.

Walter first played a video clip, which was a black-and-white film clip from early Hollywood, about 5 minutes long.

"Has anyone noticed the special feature of this film?"

"It was shot in one take without any editing." An editor answered.

"Yes, in fact, Hitchcock also shot such a movie. His 'Rope' has only 8 shots in the whole movie. Each film is connected by a black screen. Except for a jump cut in the middle, there is no editing in the whole film."

"My question is, if the movie can be shot like this, why does it need editing?"

Walter Murch continued to ask himself and answer.

"There are two reasons. One is the difficulty of shooting. It takes a long time to rehearse. If there is a mistake in one scene, the long shot has to be reshot. Due to cost reasons, Hollywood chose editing instead of long shots."

Walter Murch continued to play another video, which was the opening clip of Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey".

An ape threw a bone into the air, and when it fell, it turned into a long spaceship.

"Another reason is that editing can challenge the limits of human imagination. If we all use Hitchcock's method, then such an imaginative narrative cannot be completed. Millions of years of human evolution history were completed in this throw and drop. You can't find a simpler way of expression than Kubrick."

"This is the power of editing."

Walter Merzi was like an encyclopedic master, talking about film editing, recording, sound editing, etc.

Sometimes, he quoted Beethoven's symphony, sometimes Shakespeare's twenty-four lines, and sometimes the Hong Kong movies to explain various editing and sound editing methods.

Ronald was fascinated.

For example, he said that movies are more like Beethoven in classical music. A major feature of Beethoven's music is the introduction of dynamic range. The music can be very loud at one moment and very soft at another.

Just like the close-up and long shot of a movie lens, you can switch at any time.

For example, when he talked about the use of soundtracks in movies, he didn't tell the audience where the climax of the plot was in advance.

Many editors and sound editors who want to save time will add a scary piece of music when something scary happens. When something happy happens, they will add a cheerful piece of music.

But if you add dangerous music before the characters find the danger, the audience will not be so scared when they really see the danger. Because they have been prompted by the music: there is danger next.

In the "The Godfather", during the classic assassination of Michael Corleone, Walter Murch kept quiet and did not add any background music.

Only after the assassination was the piece of the opera added. In this way, the audience's emotional experience is complete.

"Background music is an amplifier of emotions, not a generator." Walter Murch concluded.

"When it comes to background music, I think music should be worldized."

Worldizing does not mean using music from other countries in the world, but that the music in the movie should feel like what we hear in the real world, and does not use recorded tracks directly.

Walter Merz took the wedding scene at the beginning of "The Godfather" as an example because most people have seen this movie, except poor Ronald.

"When we were shooting the wedding scene, we played music on the spot, so the live sound would record noise, speech, the sound of wind blowing through the microphone, and most importantly, we recorded it more than ten meters away from the performance."

"The human ear is very sensitive. We can easily distinguish a sound source from more than ten meters, several meters, or even a hundred meters away. If we had synthesized the music in the Godfather's wedding directly with the record track, we would have lost most of the real-world information."

"Therefore, I used the live soundtrack and the recorded soundtrack to synthesize at the same time. When the camera was outside, I played more live soundtracks, so when you watch this wedding scene, you will feel like you are there. "

'No wonder the music of "Rock n Roll High School" is a bit strange and lacks the sense of liveliness.'

Ronald thought to himself. After participating in the shooting and post-production of "Rock n Roll High School", listening to Walter Murch's lectures improved his knowledge.

"How can we better determine where a certain shot should be cut? Sometimes it feels the same whether it is cut in the first half-second or the last half-second." An editor asked.

"This is a good question. My answer is to let our intuition tell us where to cut."

Ronald pricked up his ears when he heard Walter Murch say to use your intuition.

"If you stay with a movie for a long time, you will form an intuition. The director's guidance, the actors' performances, and the interactions between the actors will give a movie its own unique rhythm."

"As long as we feel this rhythm, we can use our intuition to find that frame. No matter how many times we press the stop button, the movie will stop at the same frame every time. "

"What?" The editors below started talking to each other with a chuckle.

Is this possible? A movie can play 24 frames of film in one second, and each frame of film is only one-twenty-fourth of a second. If you play the movie at normal speed and press the stop button every time, can you hit the same frame?

"If I don't hit the same frame twice, I know that I haven't formed an intuition yet. I will go back and watch more films until I take these emotions, feelings, and performances into my brain and internalize them as part of my intuition so that I can hit the same frame."

"Then if you want to stop at the same frame every time, is there any trick?" Ronald took the opportunity to ask.

"Hi, hello, Ronald. Yes, I have some tricks to help me achieve this goal. The simplest trick is to edit while standing." Walter said.

Editing while standing? Can you sit? Ronald was a little confused. The editor next to him whispered, "Walter and his team are at the zoetrope, using the West German KEM editing machine, which is a horizontal type, and you have to sit in front of a table to edit."

"Humans evolved from apes, and we are used to standing and walking. When standing, people's intuition reacts the fastest and most accurately. This is the intuition that humans have evolved from millions of years of hunting, so I am used to editing while standing. " 

"The second trick is to imagine yourself watching the film on a big screen. The window of the editing machine is usually very small, and the small picture will create an illusion."

"When it is played on the big screen, the picture will have more details, which will cause the editing points that are established on the small picture to not be established on the big screen."

Walter Murch added: "I usually fold two small people out of paper, one man and one woman, and put them in front of the editing machine screen, so that I can imagine what the picture will be like on the big screen. "

So that's what Walter Murch meant. Intuition is the internalization of various feelings. As long as we are immersed in a world for a long time, we will also make decisions intuitively, and such decisions are often the most in line with the needs of this world.

So, did my intuition come from watching movies in my previous life? How many movies did I watch to naturally have all kinds of intuitive premonitions? Was I a movie fan in my previous life?

After the lecture, Walter Murch called Ronald and handed him a bottle of something.

Ronald took it and saw that it was a bottle of honey.

"This is honey made by the bees that my wife Angie and I raise. This is the best honey, and I give it to you." Walter Murch said with a smile.

"I'm about to leave for Cannes, France. Coppola will continue to revise the movie there. I heard from Roger that you are going to study at New York University in the fall. I will wait for you in San Francisco next summer vacation. "

Ronald hugged Murch excitedly. Murch was born in 1943, just the age of Ronald's uncle.

"Remember to watch more good movies, whether new or old, they are the source of inspiration." Walter Merzi reminded.

The two waved goodbye.

Ronald felt that everything in Los Angeles was over, and there would be no good opportunities for improvement if he stayed there any longer. He should return to Staten Island, New York, to prepare for college life and his photography business in New York.