Film Editor Suggests Digital Editing Can Negatively Impact Storytelling

By David Tobia
October 17, 2012

Modern editing software can confuse directors by giving them too many choices, argues Academy-Award winning French editor Francoise Bonnot, who has worked with Julie Taymor, Roman Polanksi and Michael Cimino.
Final Cut Pro and Avid allow editors to compile multiple versions of scenes, but Bonnot says this can impede storytelling, as the different versions serve only to confuse the narrative structure of the film.
“Nowadays people who haven’t started out working with film don’t take the time to think about what they’re doing. I refuse to do three, four or five different versions. If you give a director so many choices, often the director loses his way,” she says.
While Bonnot criticizes what she sees as “the American way” of filmmaking, she also questions the French premise that the director has complete power over the editor. “Editing is collaboration,” she explains. “Sometimes you will see a French film where the director has fallen in love with the shot and refuses to cut it.”
She believes editing needs to effectively splice together a sequence of events. “Each sequence has a beginning, middle and end. The trick is to get as late into the sequence as possible rather than lose it completely,” she says.
Bonnot also emphasizes that editing should not draw attention to itself, and that the best editing will not be noticed.

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