On the Nature of Film Editing

Murch’s book is structured as short essays, each of which touches on some aspect of film editing theory or practice. This makes for a convenient format for comparison and it’s striking to see how much of Murch’s approach to editing is analogous to certain design processes or principles. In recognizing these similarities, there may be insight to be gained from Murch’s experience on how we might approach design.

Here are a few of the parallels that I recognized:

Cutting out the “bad bits"

Because, in a certain sense, editing is cutting out the bad bits, the tough question is, What makes a bad bit?… The goal of a home movie is usually pretty simple: an unrestructured record of events in continuous time. The goal of narrative films is much more complicated because of the fragmented time structure and the need to indicate internal states of being, and so it becomes proportionately more complicated to identify what is a “bad bit.” And what is bad in one film may be good in another. In fact, one way of looking at the process of making a film is to think of it as the search to identify what—for the particular film you are working on—is a uniquely “bad bit.” (p.10-11)

Here we see Murch’s recognition that the process of editing is is less about absolute notions of good and bad, and more about appropriateness to the context and goals of the film. I think this is similar in the design process, which has just as much to do with problem framing as problem solving. As Murch puts it, the process “is not so much a putting together as it is a discovery of a path.” (p.4)

Continuity/discontinuity

What we do seem to have difficulty accepting are the kind of displacements that are neither subtle nor total… The new shot in this case is different enough to signal that something has changed, but not different enough to make us re-evaluate its context… (p.6-7)

Often in design we want to create an experience that feels continuous, one that achieves a sense of flow. Murch’s note on the displacement in a film created by a cut reminds us that it’s not necessarily an interruption which breaks the feeling of continuity. Humans are able to accept a change of context. The key is that the shift is signalled clearly and purposefully.

Less is more

The underlying principle: Always try to do the most with the least—with the emphasis on try. You may not always succeed, but attempt to produce the greatest effect in the viewer’s mind by the least number of things on screen… Past a certain point, the more effort you put into wealth of detail, the more you encourage the audience to become spectators rather than participants. (p.15)

There is an obvious correlation with the “less is more” design maxim here, but there is a fascinating difference in the way Murch puts it. His concern is not so much about aesthetics of form, but about participation of the audience. For him, you have to put the right balance of detail into the product in order to leave space for people to fully engage in it.

Recognition over recall

Murch compares the “linear access” nature of some editing machines to the “random access” of others. One lays out rolls of footage for the editor to take away from, where the other requires the editor to pick individual shots for use. Murch notes that the serendipitous discovery allowed by linear access systems is absent from random access systems:

That’s a drawback for me because your choices can then only be as good as you requests, and sometimes that is not enough. There is a higher level that comes through recognition: You may not be able to articulate what you want, but you can recognize it when you see it. (p.46)

We use the idea of “recognition over recall” when we design interfaces that make options visible to a user, rather than forcing them to ask for it directly. Murch reminds us that it also comes into play during a working process. It is a big part of why designers will surround themselves with artifacts of the design process as they work.