Montage - 127 Hours (2010) 

Split Screen - Requiem for a Dream (2000)

Dissolves - Psycho (1960)

Because of how technical the film itself was (the air, land and sea segments) Smith and other crew/people unrelated to the film watched the edited film every friday to check if it was understandable; and every friday they would inuit new ideas and restructure it. During these weekly checks they could see where they went wrong, and how such a little point in the film could derail it completely; they could also see what small change they needed to make it stronger. 

His biggest challenge was making sure  that the audience could keep track of what was going on within the film, especially because of the segmentation. There was a part of the film where the audience are supposed to get an emotional release, and it had to be at a specific point, otherwise you would not get the rush. Smith and Nolan tested it. He wanted it to be so much more real, so they had to keep the suspense up constantly, and they couldn’t let it drop. Smith also had to go at the music differently than other films as the cameras picked up too much noise. Normal he would edit the music into the sequence as he went, but he had to practically go about it as a silent film, then add the music after.

The restaurant scene in The Godfather has no music, and half of the scene is in italian - this was a decision made by the other editors, and because of the lack of sound in the scene, Murch proposed that they add the sounds of trains in the background at certain points, each increasing in volume as the tension of the scene grew. He made this decision based on his own knowledge of the area, as the railway was very loud and would shake the ground. Since the Godfather is a mafia based crime thriller, growing the tension here is important to make the viewer feel a sense of dread. Conventions of a crime drama are alcohol, illegal substances, weaponry, police, robberies; the protagonist is usually male, and there tends of be a scene that involves an event, like a party or a auction etc. The restaurant scene has alcohol exchanged between characters to show that they are tough and a hidden gun that is used to kill. 

One of the men in the scene had been tasked with shooting two other men, and he enters but doesn’t actually kill them, he talks with them for a short period of time beforehand. As they talk, the camera zooms in on the shooters face and a train in the background screeches as if the brakes are on or it’s turning a corner. The screech grows loud as it zooms, and the shooter kills the men at close range. The sound stops after the gun has been fired. Music and sound is always important to any piece of television or film; without sound, the scene would feel flat and wouldn’t have the same impact. The loud and scrap screech of the train can make the viewer feel the thrill of the scene.

He follows the rule of six, which is the priority order of editing to him. The highest is emotion; as the viewers will focus on the actor the most when watching a film. Murch believes that emotion “is the thing that you should try to preserve at all costs.”  The second is the story, the plot needs to progress to keep the audience interested in it. The third is the rhythm, the timing. If the rhythm of the editing is off, then the audience can be thrown off and become confused. A bad cut can disorientate the viewers. The top three are the most vital; Murch described them acting like “protons and neutrons”. The other three are eye tracing, 2D placement on screen, and the 3D space.

Fields was responsible for Jaws’ most famous scare - the severed, decaying head. The angle and position of the shot is because of Spielberg, but the decision to use the lengthy shot and the music overall did belong of Fields. An actual scream is a part of the soundtrack in that sequence. It’s obviously a jump scare, but since the music lasts so long, you can’t tell exactly when it’s going to happen. What makes this better than typical horror film jumpscare is the long build up; it makes you doubt that there is even going to be a jumpscare, because it seems so obvious.

When Hooper is arguing to inject the shark to try and kill it, the film cuts to the trio building the cage. Spielberg and Fields are aware that they have not got time to listen to Brody’s argument, so they have a sequence of shortcuts of them building it. This skips a boring and unnecessary part of story, especially when they have to fit in the rest of the action/horror scenes with the shark animatronics. Not wasting time on the argument and construction of the cage allows for the film to be paced well during the second half, which the filmmakers can use to build suspense later. 

Sometime during the 1970s, at the height of the influence, Fields said that editing should be invisible. She always let the director lead her, even when she was so popular, leaving it to the director’s image, as it should be. A lesser editor would have taken control to take credit for everything. Her goal was to help the crew and make the film the best it could be.