MENU

Disk 1

Introduction

• Presentation of the DVD
• Preamble
• Cinema Now!
• Evaluating the shooting

[DISK 1]
Introduction

Presentation of the DVD

Jean-Pierre Masse, filmmaker
Professor at UQAM
Université du Québec à Montréal

We made a movie called
Werner Nold, filmmaker-editor.

A movie with three parts:
Werner Nold the man, the editor, and, the witness…

He edited fictions, documentaries and animated films.

Through his personal journey,
we discover the NFB from 1960 to 1995.

People told us: This movie is interesting
but we would like a follow-up, an actual editing lesson by Werner.

So we made this DVD which allows us to be more didactic.

With the menu,
you can choose according to your interests.

You can start with fiction,
then jump to documentary.

Since it’s not linear,
you can stop at any time, re-watch clips, etc.

Whenever Werner speaks about editing,
his reflections are illustrated by film clips.

There is no recipe, each movie is unique.
Editing is both science and art.

An ever-evolving art like painting,
like music, like literature.

By the way it is edited, a movie can be dated
from the '60s, the '80s or now.

Every form of art has its basic laws and
that’s what Werner is offering.

Think about it !

Preamble

Master class by Werner Nold
Carrousel international du film of Rimouski

Thank you for coming.

Editing is a lesser-known trade.
An editor is alone in the editing room.

The audience cannot know what happens there.
Let me explain.

First, all the clips that I’m about to present
belong to directors.

I, the editor, am the surrogate mother
and whenever I’m referring to a movie,
I’m referring to my baby.

I’m going to talk about the different relations
I experienced with directors but I’m always going
to talk about my movies because I edited them.

Cinema Now!

10:03:28:04

The movie Zea has a direct relation
with a movie theatre.

Zea shows the collaboration between cameraman,
editor and director.

Be patient, this film lasts 5 minutes.
I will explain how we were able to do it.

Here are a few facts about the shooting.

We used a camera Hy-Cam
with rotating prism…

…capable of recording
5000 frames per second.

A 100mm extension ring allowed
shooting of a 3 mm wide field.

Besides, we also had to take the high
temperature of the subject in account.

The more you want a deep focus, the
more the diaphragm needs to be closed…

so they set it up to F11
and needed 400 000 candle feet.

400 000 candle feet is a
phenomenal amount of lighting.

The only possible solution was the sun.

The sun and a magnifying glass.

With a magnifying glass and the sun?

The glass concentrates the sunlight
directly on the corn seed …

…and it does not just light it, it cooks it.

We also found out that the best oil
to pop corn seeds is the sunflower oil.

A 10-minute film roll at 5000 frames/second...
goes through the camera in 3 seconds.

Therefore, each corn seed must pop
in less than 3 seconds.

If we start shooting at the wrong moment
or if a cloud passes over us…

…there won’t be enough light nor heat
to pop the corn seed.

When I started editing,
I had 30 ten-minute reels to preview.

It takes ten minutes to watch
what took 3 seconds to shoot.

There were lots of unsuccessful corn pops.
People were discouraged with the rushes.

It takes a lot of concentration
to select what can be useful.

I watched all of it.

Sometimes there were no explosions but
I wasn’t just looking for explosions.

Every segment that I kept gave
the movie its dramatic progression.

I was already building this progression
in my clip chute.

What could be used in the beginning of the movie,
I would place on the first nails.

Then I would hang the clips for the middle
on the middle nails.

On the lasts nails, I put all the explosions
and then the popcorn bag.

The movie contains about 200 shots.

The oil drop only lasts 5 frames.

I wanted to make a smooth edit
and to do so I needed music.

Director Jean-Jacques Leduc told me:
I have what you need.

Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis
was very difficult to edit…

…because it’s a double concerto
for strings.

Being longer than our 5-minute movie,
I cut the music to reach the right length.

Then, I placed the first clip, second clip,
and I kept going on with trials and errors.

When I was satisfied, we showed the result
to our producer.

He said: It’s magnificent but
what are you going to do with the music?

I told him:
Ask Neville Mariner how much for the rights ?

Are you crazy?
the rights will cost more that the movie!

I said: Explain it to him, try to bargain
and we will see what he thinks.

We sent him the movie in England,
he watched it and he loved it.

Mariner said: Just pay the musicians and
as for me, I’m not asking for anything.

It cost us $10,000. A true gift.

Zea is the Latin name for corn,
ZEA MAYS EVERTA

Evaluating the shooting

10:15:52:09

The best method is to watch all the takes
in a projection room with the director.

I give him my impressions
as his first spectator.

It shows him my sensibility toward
the subject – or my lack of sensibility.

He would say: Werner, you got it or
you are missing something important.

When Marcel Carrière filmed fictions,
he covered everything.

In a scene around a table
with four characters,…

…he would do a master shot with the
four characters and the reverse angle.

Then he would film a close-up on each,
from beginning to end of the dialog.

Imagine having to work with
all those takes to choose from.

Rushes :
Complete footage of image and sound shooting.

This shot from the first character,
do I insert it now, at the end, in the middle?

Then the second character, beginning,
end, middle? There are four of them.

Then the master shot. Should I show
the four characters together, now or later?

Ti-Mine, Bernie pis la gang
Marcel Carrière, director

Smells like lemon.

It’s a flower.

Hey it stings!

It’s good… real good.

This wine is not sweet enough,
I’ll take another bottle.

My biggest fear is: did I throw away
something important.

Hitchcock would leave an overlap
within a single sentence;

he would not leave you
with a lot of options.

You had to find the best moment within
that sentence to cut to the next shot.

It was relatively easy.

But when the scene is entirely filmed
in every shot, it’s another story.

I never wanted to be present
on the shoot.

Jean Lapointe is a funny guy.

Before we would say Action!,
he would have all the crew laughing.

Right after Cut!, He would tell another joke,
everybody would burst out laughing.

In the editing room the director would
tell me: look how funny it is.

Explain to me what is funny.

We then discovered that it was
the ambiance on the set that was funny…

…not what I had on my screen.

Another example: you’re shooting
on the Metropolitan highway at 7:00 a.m.

You stop traffic, you set the camera
on the crane, it’s wintertime…

it’s minus 30 degrees, the camera
is frozen; you need another one, etc.

In the editing room, the director
is so proud of what he has accomplished.

Try then to eliminate the scene
if it’s useless. He won’t let you.

And that, with my directors, has
always been very hard to negotiate.

When watching the rushes, we get
feelings. A certain shot will touch you.

You choose it.

Six months later, another take
of the same shot will seem better.

It’s not true. You must stick to your
first intuition for the rest of the movie.

That second take will seem better
because it is more fresh in your memory…

…but it won’t be as good
as the first one that touched you.

Besides, a shot can loose its value if
we cut too much of it while editing…

…it can loose its nature.

I would ask my assistant to put together
the shots in the order of the scenario.

It allows us to discover the continuity
of the movie.

I would say: I don’t understand the
evolution between these two segments…

…and this character,
where does he come from?

The director would film additional shots
and the story would be understandable.

It’s not possible anymore. The editors
start working the first day of the shoot.

I would hate to edit a movie
if the director wasn’t in the room.

I don’t want him over my shoulder
so he does not lose his objectivity.

I want to impress him.

He is my first audience.

After working 8 hours on a scene,
I don’t know if it’s right anymore.

You could turn around and
ask the producer what he thinks.

Unfortunately people have a tendency
to claim the movies as their own.

Never do that.

In the '70s, we shot too much and ended
up with movies three or four hours long.

Movies like Gone with the Wind that can
hold our interest that long are very rare.

We needed to cut. But cutting a scene
is very complicated.

If a certain character is useless, click,
we cut the scene.

But since he was in previous scenes,
we must cut every reference to him.

Sometimes, it’s impossible and
we are stuck with a useless character.

Balancing the length is very complex.

In the ‘70, we didn’t master fiction
as we do now.

Today, we know from the start
what will be the length of the movie.

It’s way easier.

Drama

Editing drama, in the mind of the psychologist

10:27:17:12

To edit fiction,
you need to be a psychologist.

You need to go back and forth from being
the characters to being the viewers.

When I edit a fiction,
I’m sometimes the talking character…

…sometimes the character who reacts
and sometimes the spectator.

Once upon a hunt
Francis Mankiewicz, director

Good morning.

Do you always work this much ?

No, today I’ll be off at five.

Still it seems like a lot.

It’s not always like this.

This time of year is always busy
because we get so many hunters.

The winter’s quiet.

I took a piece of chicken from the refrigerator last night.
Put it on my bill.

Forget it.

No I want to pay, really.

Otherwise you’ll think I’m a thief.

Well…

Would you like coffee ?

That would be great.

What do you do during the winter ?

Hardly anything. I sometimes work at the grocery store. This place isn’t open.

And at night ?

There’s not much to do but I love it.

I lived in the city once…

…but I really like the country better.

I don’t know whether I’d be happy here
or not.

My wife would be miserable.

But I think I could.
Yea, I think I might like it, really.

It would be nice to come here
for several months.

It’s quiet here. No noise, no screams.

Is the little boy your son ?

Michael, yes.

I have two other boys besides him.
Little devils. Two girls and three sons.

Mike’s not strong.

My wife thought it would be good for him
to come here with me. Fresh air and all.

But aren’t you married ?

No, I’m not the kind of girl
that attracts the men in this place.

Come on.

They’ve got no taste obviously.
I’m serious !

And your wife ?

It’s hard with so many kids to raise.
Always one thing or another.

Her life is not easy.

I don’t make as much money as we need.

And I don’t work at home.

She really gets worn out.
I understand her.

Dad, when do we leave ?

Editing with rhythm I

10:33:10:04

We can’t accelerate the rhythm
within the image.

I discovered it mostly with IXE-13.

People said : This movie is too long.
And we all agreed.

So I said: We are going to shorten it.
And we shortened it physically…

…but psychologically it was still too long.

I’m passing in front of the screen
and I’m walking like this, slowly.

I took that rythm.
If it’s too long, we have to cut it.

Instead of starting from the beginning,
I start in the middle and take three steps.

I shortened the shot by 50% but…
I’m still walking slowly.

A good fiction director…

…knows that as you get closer
to the end of the movie…

you must accelerate the story…

It’s too late for information;
it’s time for drama.

Everything must become
more concise and effective.

If you re-edit a fiction,
if you change the order of the scenes…

…you have to re-edit
every segment that you moved.

If I make a movie about you,
I would start by showing the entire room.

Suppose the conversation we’re having
now takes place at the end of the movie.

I don’t need to show the room again
because the viewer knows you are there.

I can show one character, two characters.
We know it’s in the same room.

The hardest part about editing…

…is to put yourself in the place of a viewer
who hasn’t seen anything yet.

For IXE-13, I tried to speed things up
but it didn’t work out.

Toward the end of the movie,
the rhythm is awful.

We tried to accelerate the rhythm
by adding voice-over.

The narrator says: “she added”,
“she said”.

IXE-13
Jacques Godbout, director

Idiot! get rid of this one!

Just like you got rid of West?
Says Ginette.

Jawohl, my little Ginette,
Says he.

Sometimes life brings you down.
He adds.

Don’t want to.
She says.

Was haben Sie gesagt.
What did you say? He asks.

Shnell !

Drug is right but blood is not right
She claims.

My little Ginette, you’re into it and
you are going to help me.

OK OK.
She approves.

You have your hunting knife?

You want to get my carpet dirty
and do your dirty business?

It makes to much noise!

It’s a two-shot. We can’t cut it.

If I had two cameras on that shot,
I could accelerate but…

…with only one shot with
the two characters in the frame…

I am stuck with the dialog.

So we used this trick to make it better.

Time after time

10:37:15:23

I’ll let you watch the clip and then I’ll explain it.

Stop making noise.

You’ll scare the animals away.

Once upon a hunt
Francis Mankiewicz, director

Damn branches.

He can’t even stand on his own two feet.
Did you hurt yourself ?

No, it was delightful !

The point is to show the long wait
for their prey.

The hunters drink beer, they wait
for The Shimmering beast.

The little boy is fed up, he doesn’t drink;
he’s making his own little war-game.

In the scenario, it’s a little boy
who’s firing once in a while.

I tried to build a drama…

…a premonition that someone
is going to die later on.

Michel Brault did a 360° shot…

…where the little boy is turning around
the camera while firing his gun.

Then he did a second take
and a third in slow motion.

I edited those plans opposing one another
so the boy would seem to fire at himself.

In the scenario, the boy is firing, bang, bang,
so the illusion would have been lost.

When I watch it today,
I think I could have made it shorter.

With my old-pro eyes, I’m thinking:
it’s a bit stretched, dear Werner.

But I have to live with that;
after all, I did that a long time ago.

Most of you were not even born yet!

The viewer is involved in the editing process

10:41:12:13

Two young girls arrive in Quebec City
for the Carnival and meet some friends.

The boy is Louise’s boyfriend.

They go tobogganing in front of
the Château Frontenac.

They’re holding each other
and we can feel their happiness.

Geneviève
Michel Brault, director

Louise doesn’t get up the day after.

Geneviève, the little rascal, meets Bernard
and they go tobogganing together.

I’m always fascinated by what
our imagination can come up with.

What happened during the ride?
Nobody knows. I enjoy that fact.

Many shots were recorded.

I thought: I won’t show the actors;
I will show only the track.

I could cut but I’m not going to.

I will let the ride get to the end,
until the tobbogan comes to a full stop.

It was not easy doing that.

There is no music at all ?

No, there’s only the sound of the sleigh.

When working with directors like Michel Brault,
if you are not bold, he will fire you.

When I showed it to him,
he was fascinated.

I told myself: Good thing I didn’t cut it.

His reaction was like a benediction.

If he had told me that I couldn’t do that,
I would have agreed with him.

Because I wasn’t even sure about it myself.

During editing, I would provoke
the director.

And here is the result of this sleigh ride.

Poor Louise was left by herself.

They filmed when Louise arrives,
sees everything and leaves.

In the cut, we only see Louise when they
kiss each other. How long was she there?

It’s more emotional. The time factor is there,
how long has she been watching?

It hurts more.

Documentary

Editing documentaries, in the mind of the writer

10:48:27:24

With documentaries,
you do your research…

…then you go fishing
and you wait for the miracle.

Nothing tells you how
you should begin your movie.

If we make a documentary about Suroît —
let’s hope they’re not going to build it.

Suroît : Thermic Station project contested by the population.

You film Caillé, President of Hydro-
Quebec, the engineers, the workers, etc.

Who should be first in the movie?
Caillé, the union, the management, who knows?

Usually, I assemble a reel; an interview
with Caillé makes a 10-minutes reel.

I edit that reel, I shorten it,
I cut the repetitions…

and I try to get the essential
without giving it a shape.

I cut it down to 2, 3 minutes
and I place that reel on a shelf.

I will do the same with the union,
the workers, ending up with a few small reels.

Then we tell ourselves:
Something is missing.

And we plan to shoot some more.

Should we ask Montreal citizens, Quebecois,
if they want the Suroît?

Should we shoot something
about the wind turbines…

…and nuclear to compare?

So we shoot that, make small reels and
we start working on the film’s structure.

We discuss a lot. If you start with
an interview saying: No Suroît…

…you can tell right away which angle
the director wants to show.

If you say Caillé is good, nobody knows
if we’re in favor or not of the Suroît.

Usually, it’s easy to find the right way
to place the sequences.

We place them in order and
we watch the results on the screen.

Then we comment: Starting off with Caillé,
it is a bit dumb…

it would be better to start
with the discussion with the citizens against it.

And then, we restructure the movie.
We need to find a first structure for it.

We realize there are some ups and downs.
We need some sort of dramatic effect.

A film can be an investigation
but it also needs to entertain.

We need to create a dramatic effect,
not to dramatize everything.

We can’t start off high and strong
and then not have anything left to say…

…because everything would then
fall apart.

You say: That segment is so great
we are going to try to place it towards the end.

You move it and you see the result.

But you just changed the meaning
of the movie.

You were against the Suroît,
now you seem to agree.

It’s that subtle and complicated.

We work intellectually and
things rarely work intellectually.

We can very well make a movie
that works on the intellectual level but…

…the visual, the emotional and
the perceptual levels contradict your concept.

You have to try again.

I read good research but I rarely see
a movie edited according to the research.

I usually develop at least 5 different structures
before finding the right one.

A movie’s progression is made
through trial and error.

It is a slow process, a maturation of the subject;
a good theory might not work at all.

Documentaries get their shape that way.
It’s amazing to see what switching

two segments can change.
It’s all about what comes before and after.

It’s by trying that you end up
finding the right way.

Games of the XXI Olympiad
Jean-Claude Labrecque, director

The marathon was the central plotline.

It lasts two hours and
we wanted to make a two-hour movie.

The first shot, after the opening ceremony,
is the gunshot…

…and the marathon begins.

I tried to regularly come back
to the marathon…

…but every time it was like
a stop in the film.

It was all edited in that spirit,
but finally rejected.

I prefer working on documentaries
than fictions because…

…I would rather be a writer
than a psychologist.

Editing two documentaries, one fiction,
then two documentaries, one fiction…

…it would have been paradise.

Progression in drama

In the opening shot of With Drums and Trumpets,
a Zouave raises a flag.

This image is very strong and very funny.

Starting that way sets the bar so high…

With Drums and Trumpets
Marcel Carrière, director

...It’s hard to keep that full quality.

What are the distinctive qualities
of a Zouave?

He is a devout Catholic,
responsible, generous and moderate.

What is the main obligation of a Zouave?

Discipline, promptitude and precision
in executing the orders of his superiors.

A dramatic scenario based on that
would never have worked.

Reality goes farther than fiction.
When you start like that, you expect

to see funny things until the end.

One moment !

Take him to Dr. Martel’s infirmary.
He’ll have to be amputated.

To Dr. Beauchamp, hurry !

He is gone…do the necessary.

What a procession!
And here I am doing nothing!

I’m furious, doctor!

Are you in a hurry to get killed?

It’s no fun watching the dead and
the maimed arriving since daybreak.

At the proper moment,
the general will throw in his last reserve.

He has his reasons.

Obscure reasons, I must say.

Patience, Baron! Patience, Baron!
Not all heroes die the same day.

The war was over when they arrived
in Italy. 485 went and 485 came back.

But their play pretends
they had arrived in time.

The play lasts 50 minutes.

I condensed it to 6 minutes.
It was difficult to keep the entire storyline.

To give it prestige, we filmed the play at
Oka Park with smoke, special effects…

Was there an audience to watch the play?

Not at all.
The Zouaves were the audience.

They acted like Zouaves in real life.
In the play, their families recognized them.

Nowadays, a movie like that,
wouldn’t you get sued for libel ?

No, because every participant
signs a release.

A participant might say:
I don’t want to be in the movie.

But he signed and
accepted the conditions.

I am covered. He can always sue us…

… and if he wins,
we cut him from the movie.

Every time we see his face,
I cut and I show something else.

But we showed the movie to the Zouaves
and they liked it; they burst into laughter.

Hey ! this guy is from Quebec !

Hey ! that guy is from Montreal !
It was always a guy from somewhere else.

The movie made us question ourselves.
We had a few ethical problems.

Do we have the right to do that to people?

They were happy to see the movie
but the public, was he laughing…

…at the Zouaves' expense or
was he laughing because of the action?

I liked those Zouaves, I wasn’t laughing
at them, I was laughing with them.

For years, I wore white gloves so the film
would not get dirty in the editing process.

I see this Zouave with my white gloves,
and he manages to tie his own thumb!

Why doesn’t he take them off?
But no, he always puts them back on.

Guy Daò : On the Way (1980)
Georges Dufaux, Director

In China, they made movies
about Quebec…

…and here we made movies about China.

The movie needed to be
in its original Chinese version.

I watched the rushes and
I didn’t understand a thing.

I needed an interpreter.
Angela had socks of all colors.

Angela translated a few lines.

I said to myself: Shit, she is going to
make me do whatever she wants.

I won’t have any control on the movie.

I need a recorder that will roll in sync
with my Steenbeck, my editing machine.

I went to the NFB’s engineering department.
They told me: Are you crazy?

It’s not easy as pie.
I said: I’m not asking for pie, just do it!

My producer was starting to get angry,
he said: Werner, use a little tape recorder!

I told him he could go…!
I was a little stressed: what if I’m wrong?

After three months I finally got my machine
and I called back my interpreter.

Georges Dufaux shot his movie on 16mm.

I had the original Chinese soundtrack.

After the clap we could roll the two tracks
(image and sound) at the same speed.

Angela translated what they said.

I would place a mark
on the sound and the image.

The engineers invented a device that took
the pulsations from the Steenbeck…

…and send them to the 16mm recorder.

Afterwards, I would take Angela’s translation
and place it on the Steenbeck…

…with a synchronization mark and
I could play the three tracks at the same time.

When we cut the image,
we cut the two audio tracks to keep everything in sync.

Every Monday,
Angela would come to translate dialogs.

She did 2, 3 sequences in one day
and I edited them during the week.

This is Comrade Li.

Please take a seat.

Why not proceed this way.

I suggest: This young woman will draw
the national network from memory.

The other one will reproduce
diagram model no. 3

Both will start at the same time. OK ?

Can you tell us when to begin ?

Start now !

I edited this with music mostly
to make time pass…

Otherwise it would have been too long.

Learning the Chinese railway system
by heart…

…is not that interesting…

Show me please.
She did it in 14 minutes!

The outstanding shot

11:08:48:09

It often happens that you get an outstanding shot and …

…you try it in every sequence
and it doesn’t work.

The movie is over and you tell yourself:
I left it in the basket, it’s impossible!

It’s painful for the editor, the director,
for everybody as a matter of fact.

Jean-Claude Labrecque, Director

This shot was so powerful we had to
place it at the beginning or at the end.

In the middle, it would have stopped
the dramatic progression.

Jean-Claude Labrecque used
a 1000mm lens.

The 1000mm has a compression effect.
The riders advance and they don’t.

It’s risky to start like that
but it is also a challenge.

If I can’t keep up the interest,
I will have to change the montage.

Everything you place in the movie
is never definitive.

You can always place it somewhere else,
except that you have to work harder.

Editing with rhythm II

Closed Circuit

Jean-Claude Labrecque and Bernard Gosselin
did a first cut of 50 minutes.

They didn’t know what to do
with the closed circuit material.

I watched it and I told them: Let me try.

I saw 50 minutes of bicycles, well edited,
but I couldn’t stand seeing more bicycles.

I discovered that the faster shots
are from a fixed camera waiting for the pack.

A few lone cyclists come before the pack
and they go touc, touc, touc, touc…

Then comes the pack
and the camera follows it.

I picked all the shots that go very fast.

If it had been a drama, I would have taken
everything that was before the clap.

I build a drama, a passing dog,
people sitting waiting for the race…

then the touc, touc, touc, touc, touc,
and it ends with the accident.

If I hadn’t had the accident,
I couldn’t have edited it the same way.

Why the shot of the girl kissing the guy?

I was a young cineast and for me,
it’s a dream to be kissed on the podium.

He can see himself winning.
He might be the one who had the accident,
who knows?

It was not a premonition,
but a magic image of the victory.

It’s funny how it is placed.

But it allows us to change
the rhythm of the music too.

It might be strange
But remember, it was made in 1967.

I just wanted to have your impressions.

There are a lot of things that I see here that
I am not necessarily proud of.

But 40 years ago, it took boldness.

But where do you stop your boldness?

Before the kiss, after the kiss,
no kiss at all?

Why the cyclists who are going too fast?

Some things I do instinctively and
I explain them afterwards..

… it might not be the real explanation,
but I needed a winner in there.

If those crazy guys battle for this closed circuit,
there has to be a reason.

It’s not for the accident,
but for the crown.

Today I’m not sure I would take it out,
maybe, probably, but I would regret it…

I would think I have lost my boldness.
And you need to keep your boldness.

You have to go to the edge of
your craziness even if you are wrong.

[DISK 2]
Generalities

The three sound elements

12:00:00:07

1 - Sounds and ambiances

I edited Mario for Jean Beaudin.
A boy goes up a hill on his bike with a basket.

There were 14 sound tracks
for this segment. It is a fiction.

Mario
Jean Beaudin, director

There was one microphone aiming
at the wheel and the gravel,…

…one for the boy’s breathing,
one for the bottles, one in front: 14 tracks!

You tell yourself: It’s too much;
we need to cut some of them off.

Then you fight with the audio guy…
…because he wants to keep them all.

Watch out, it’s heavy!

I find that soundtracks nowadays
are overloaded.

It’s wall to wall, there are no silences anymore,
no quiet moments.

Sometimes it’s fun to be out
in the country, having total silence.

2 – Music

With Trumpets and Drums
Marcel Carrière, director

To make a contrast,
I used music from the Napoleonic era.

Here, the tents are erected
to the rhythm of the music.

When music changes, action changes.

It’s music from the Napoleonic era
that I absolutely wanted.

It was a Folkways record
and we didn’t have the rights for it.

As for Zea,
I absolutely wanted that music.

At the time, there were 4 full-time musicians
working for the NFB.

We had the partition rewritten,
they played it with three, four instruments…

…and we doubled it and doubled it and
it looked like we had a dozen musicians.

3 – Speech: dialogue and commentaries

Many believe that commentaries
are old-style cinema…

…but they can be very beautiful.

Le Pays rêvé
Michel Moreau, director

One day your parents send you
to your uncle and aunt, in Volgré.

It’s a small village,
two paces from Joigny.

But for you, it’s the Orient.
It’s the end of the world.

It’s summer’s long vacations
so you receive two gifts:

Time that can stretch,
slow down and even stop.

and nature…

…like the Lady of the Lake,
will seduce you…

…and bring you to
liberating breakthroughs.

Commentaries are bad when
they repeat what we see on screen.

But if a commentary brings us to a new level,
it can become lyric and splendid.

Punctuation

12:06:18:27

It’s hard to stay sober.

Saying something in one sentence is
more effective than in a three-page text.

We tend to write three pages
because we don’t know how to write.

Writing and editing is a bit similar.

I was editing Massabielle
for Jacques Savoie.

I had written an article for the
Cinematheque’s magazine Copie Zéro.

I left it in my editing room and
Jacques asked me: Do you mind if I read it?

I said: Go ahead ! He read it and said:
It’s fantastic, it’s beautiful, it’s good.

I was proud: a writer, a scriptwriter
was complimenting me on a text I wrote.

He added: Do you mind if I punctuate it?
I said: Go ahead, if it can make it better!

He didn’t change a word but he placed
a comma here, a semicolon there…

…he changed paragraphs.
I read the text and I swear I didn’t recognize it!

It was so easy to read,
it became music.

Today, I still have the feeling
that I didn’t write it.

They are my words, but edited
by a guy who did a fine cut.

He just put commas, and spaces,
breathing at the right moment.

With nothing! No, not with nothing,
it takes the talent of a writer.

How to punctuate a movie

A straight cut is a cut
from a camera to another.

It can also be done with dialogs,

by going from one character to another.

A character goes off screen.

You can cut him when he is still halfway
in the screen and go to the next shot.

You can also let him clear the screen…

…and let the next character
appear in an empty screen.

All the empty screens add up.

An empty screen is 10 frames,
a third of a second.

58 empty screens in a regular movie…

…add up to about 20-30 seconds
at the end of the movie.

The audience will think the movie is long.

Because every time you show an empty screen,
there is a void.

You can cut within an action…

Without going from one step to another.

The cinematic language has evolved.

50 years ago, you couldn’t be here
and be somewhere else right after.

A jump cut is a bad cut.

I film a close-up, I stop the camera
and start back on the same close-up.

Or I cut one sentence in the shot
and I have nothing to put in between.

It jumps !

But there is a way to cut right;
you cut in the action.

You raise your hand and three sentences later,
you do this.

Within the arm’s move, I can cut,
it flows better. It is a cut within the action.

Some people need a mix to be able
to pass from one sequence to another.

When you change locations,
you don’t have to put in a mix.

We often use the fade in
to hide a bad cut.

I really started to associate
the fade in with bad cuts.

So I totally eliminated it from my work
except for rare and specific moments.

Le Steak
Pierre Falardeau, Manon Leriche, directors

A leopard cut is an action started
by someone and finished by somebody else.

Of whales, the Moon and Men
Pierre Perrault et Michel Brault, directors

A woman jumps from the boat and…

…a little girl jumping from a tree
completes the action.

The movies made lately for television
have a lot of talking heads.

What are talking heads?

Talking heads are close-ups of someone
talking to the camera like I’m doing now.

When we have a movie with talking heads,
we say: Phiew, we’ve got archives!

So every time we have a bad cut,
we insert a cutaway to make it work.

But that insert isn’t where it should be.

it is where there is a bad cut…

…not to help the dramatic progression.

And you can feel it.

Sometimes I watch a movie
and I start to anticipate the cuts.

There is a form of music
in the editing of a movie, a rhythm.

I always try to break that rhythm
so no one can anticipate my cuts.

When I first started with the NFB,
we used to work with Moviolas.

It was slow. It took time
to find a particular shot.

Some editors from the old gang
looked at the film…

…and would say: This shot is a number 4.
This one is a number 6.

They gave a grade to every shot.

They would put their filmstrips
in the Moviola…

…then count 1, 2, 3, 4.

The brake was instantaneous !

They cut according to the grade
they gave the shot. It was amazing!

Then another one: 1, 2, 3 cut!

Then they put everything together
and if it wasn’t good, they added a mix.

Those were the '60s.
And that’s what we had to fight against.

In an interview on television, everybody
says the same thing three times …

…to be sure that we understand.

Finding the redundancies
is an obsession for the editor.

The audience gets bored when they hear
the same idea twice.

Werner is actually redundant !

I watch the screen and attach the next
clip where I left off with the previous one.

At the end of the shot,
the center of interest is here.

I find in the next shot the moment where
the center of interest is at the same place

so we don’t have to look here and there.

Otherwise, you have to scan the entire
screen.

On a small television screen it’s tolerable,
but on a big movie screen…

…it gets tiring to always have to move
your head to follow the action.

Pulling the blanket

12:18:57:08

One day, I was editing a movie
about seasons.

I had a sort of color progression
in the clips.

In my basket, I had a color spectrum,
from blue to green, all the way to red…

…to have the progression of the day
ending with a warm red sunset.

Wow ! It was magnificent !

I brought that to the laboratory.

There, the colour timer does
all the color corrections.

He removes the “excess” of blue,
green or red.

So he succeeded – he was a very good
colorist – to make the film totally flat.

An editor says: I have 25 clips;
I have to fit them all in the movie.

It’s very very difficult to resist.

Everyone pulls the blanket his way,
consciously or not.

It gives chopped, chopped editings, even
if the editors are admirable virtuosos.

A virtuoso of the splicer seduces even me.

But we have to simplify things.

If we can express the idea in one shot,
there is no reason to put in a second one.

Making fire with any wood

I edited Geneviève, it was right
after Of Whales, the Moon and Men.

I still had outs of that film in my editing
room.

In the first scene of Geneviève, two girls
are going to the Quebec Carnival.

They are in the train,
looking out the window.

We see images filmed for Of Whales, the
Moon and Men.

Nobody knows it beside you… and me.

I added music from Arthur Lamothe’s
movie Les Bûcherons de la Manouane.

So I took material from other movies that
I used in a totally different context.

Genevieve and Louise live in Montreal.
They go to the Quebec winter Carnival.

Geneviève
Michel Brault, director

Self-censorship

12:23:27:06

Go back to 1963 and
watch a sequence like the rooster.

We were preoccupied by censorship
at the time. It was daring!

Michel Brault and I set it aside.

We made a lot of test screenings and
I was very anxious before them.

I double taped the film to be sure it would
not break in the projector.

I had the laboratory clean my reels.

I had two days off before a screening so,
as a joke, I edited the rooster sequence.

Important people were coming to those
screenings.

Radio-Canada who put money in the
movie, the NFB commissioner…

…and Pierre Juneau, Director of the
French program.

At the screening, when that sequence
came up, everybody laughed.

I was watching my Commissioner
hoping he would not fire me.

Michel Brault didn’t know about it,
nobody knew about it.

I was thinking: I may have gone too far
but when I saw them laughing I said Ouf!

I was still expecting someone to tell me:
It was funny, now take the sequence out.

But no, no one ever asked me
to take it out. It was 1963.

Self-censorship is often stronger
than official censorship.

Of Whales, the moon and men
Pierre Perrault, Michel Brault, directors

We’ve seen it all. The habitants see
everything under the sun.

Terrible.
That’s how animals and nature work.

When the time comes,
there’re only 2 things —

People and roosters —
that are unfettered.

Not a rooster. He does it all year long.

Take my rooster.
He was at it again yesterday.

He mounted 3 hens…

…in the space of 3 minutes !
A jump a minute, for heaven’s sake.

It’s unbelievable!
I always think he’ll run out

But he’s still got it!

Here is another anecdote
as saucy as the rooster sequence.

I was recording sounds
for a few sequences of the same film;

Michel Brault told me: Did you know
that porpoises talk underwater ?

How could we manage to record them?
I said: I don’t know.

Michel said: Let’s put the microphone
in a condom and lower it in the water.

I said: good idea. We stopped
at the Pharmacie Livernois in Quebec.

Michel said: Werner, go buy a condom.

For me, in 1963, a protestant, a Calvinist,
buying a condom was not easy.

I screw up my courage, I go in and this
cute girl is at the counter to serve me.

Hmm… I need, hmm… a condom. I turn
red, I want to be somewhere else, to die.

She goes behind her counter,
the condoms were not on display.

She looks at me, I feel she is judging me.
She gives me the condom.

I say: You know, it’s not for me,
it’s for my microphone…

She thought I was even crazier
than I looked.

I left with my condom, put it over the
microphone, and lowered it in the water.

The porpoise never talked.

It saw the microphone and didn’t say:
Take that off you filthy people.

Being “in”

12:29:14:15

Some editors were very “in”, very flashy,
people were jumping on them.

But for an important movie, NFB said: We
can’t take any chances, let’s take Werner.

I wasn’t “in”. Styles just come and go.

A cameraman might have a huge success.

Everybody wants to shoot with him
because he has a different technique…

But if you can’t take chances, you ask
Jean-Claude Labrecque.

Then you are sure it will be good.

Influence and plagiarism

12:29:51:20

I told you I have been influenced by
Robert Enrico’s La Rivière au hibou.

I was really influenced by that movie
but I didn’t plagiarize it.

Plagiarism is a shot someone copies
or steals and then puts in another movie.

Norman McLaren made Pas de deux,
with chronophotography.

Pas de deux
Norman McLaren, director

He worked two or three years
to master this extraordinary technique.

Six months after it hit the theatres,
WonderBra did the same thing.

I found my editing of the Olympic movie
copied in a fiction two or three years later.

They copied the structure, the ending
and the music.

The title was Running,
and it was plagiarism.

Now, I would like to show you
the last segment of the Olympic movie.

Jeux de la XXIe olympiade
Jean-Claude Labrecque, director

Professional relations

With the director

12:34:14:27

Claude Jutra was the only one
who had already a career when we began.

He made his first film at 16.
He was already a doctor at 22.

He taught us the biggest part of our work.

One day Claude watched one of my work
prints and said…

I liked it but this shot X, why is it there?
I said: Which shot?

He described the shot and I said:
It’s not a shot, it’s a sequence .

A sequence? I had so shortened the
sequence, there was only one shot left.

For me it was still a sequence but Claude,
as a new viewer, wondered why this shot.

I had a useless shot in the movie;
I just hadn’t seen it.

I could have rebuilt the sequence, but...

I did the same for Claude Jutra.

When he was near the end of a movie,
I watched it and gave him my comments.

Asking questions forces the filmmaker
to question everything.

We worked this way.

I worked on a lot of movies
with the same directors.

When you are doing a director’s sixth,
seventh movie, you know what he wants.

With Jacques Godbout, I didn’t even sit
the same way as with Marcel Carrière.

A good editor is a chameleon.

My boy-scout nickname shouldn’t have
been Sincere Lama but Chameleon.

Because I absorbed their world.

It might stun you to know that with
Godbout, I would get eczema like he did.

With Georges Dufaux,
I had stomach ulcers like him.

Before working with a director, I should
have asked what he was suffering from!

It was a lot later
that I understood everything.

Jutra had eczema on his face.
I never got rid of Jutra’s illness.

The more you work with a guy, the less
you need to talk, you know his sensibility.

I provoked them too.

When I wasn’t sure about a shot, I cut it
from the movie, without telling anyone.

Sometimes I would even cut off
a whole sequence.

Sometimes the director wouldn’t even
notice.

Or he would say : you dirty rat,
why did you cut my sequence?

I said : Why was it in there in the first
place? And then he had to sell it to me.

A director who wants to keep something
usually becomes a good salesman.

Once I understood why it was there
I agreed with him.

It was from lack of certainty
that I first removed it.

Or he would say: Werner, you’re right,
it’s useless.

I often settled things this way,
to provoke people.

The worst editor is someone
who does exactly what he is told.

He should find another career.
You should be creating when you are
editing.

The first time you edit with a director
is always the hardest…

…because you don’t know what he wants.

Mankiewicz, in his first movie, didn’t know
how to express what he wanted.

He has a good script, I find it interesting
but I don’t know what he wants.

Francis Mankiewicz was very stubborn.

I edited a sequence and he would say:
I don’t really like it…

I said: You will see, you will like it!

Two or three days later, he would say:
Change that a little bit…

I would do some changes and: If you
would just try that, it would be better...

Then I would try and he was right.
He pushed me to the edge.

My relationship with him was very
constructive. But it was hard work.

I always tried to make the director’s
movie.

As long as he had a good idea, I was
always ready to try and do my best.

If you ask me: Do you want to edit my
movie? I ask: What length?

I will edit a one-hour long movie
differently than a two-hour movie.

Even the first cut isn’t done the same
way.

Marc-André Forcier asked me to edit
his movie Kalamazoo.

I told him: Marc-André, I would be happy
to edit your movie.

He brings me the script.
A complicated movie, hard to do.

The NFB asked for some changes. He
writes another script. It wasn’t bad.

He brought me 5 or 6 versions of the
script.

At the end I said: Marc-André, your movie
doesn’t appeal to me anymore.

I saw the script getting screwed up bit by
bit.

When everybody gets involved, when the
producer wants this, the distributor that…

…it’s like a house of card falling apart.

The finished movie isn’t bad but it’s day
and night compared to the first script.

According to you, his first script was
better?

If you take the craziness out of a guy, he
becomes “a good boy” but it’s not him
anymore.

He loses his spontaneity.
Everybody wears him down.

I make jewels for my wife. She prefers
the ones where you can feel the touch of
the hand.

Same thing with a script, there’s pep, it
explodes, there’s madness and passion.

A producer, a distributor, a committee,
they are able to flatten everything out.

At the NFB all the directors could not
make their movies at the same time.

When there was not enough money for
Forcier, they had him work on his script.

They held him three, four years like that.
All he did was rewrite his damn script.

It was before L’eau chaude, l’eau frette?

No, long after.

L’eau chaude, l’eau frette is a great
movie.

He made it in the private industry with a
lot more freedom.

The craziness of L’eau chaude, l’eau frette
was outstanding.

The craziness of Kalamazoo was there in
the first script.

It’s like if they had asked Francis
Mankiewicz to retouch this or that.

At the time, people were afraid
of swearing in movies.

So we couldn’t have made Francis’ movie
because it swears a lot in it.

It’s within the people, this way to express
ourselves, to say things.

What you’re saying is important, Werner.
NFB liked the first script of Kalamazoo,

but they didn’t have the money.
So they told Marc-André: You keep
working on it.

Three years later, they didn’t have the
conscience to say: Shoot the first version.

Was that how it happened?

That’s the way I see it, knowing the NFB
as I do.

As a former member of the program
committee, I went through that kind of
thing.

When Jean Beaudin saw he couldn’t shoot
his movie, he said: Go to hell ! And he
left.

Denys Arcand left the NFB.

A lot of directors left.
They wanted to make fiction films.

Many had made documentaries and they
wanted to go further in their career.

Everybody gets tempted, at some point,
by fiction, so was I.

With the cameraman

12:45:49:13

When I was told:
Werner, do you want to edit this movie?

I did not ask who directed it,
I asked who shot it.

Some cameramen are easy to edit,
others can’t be edited.

Michel Brault was good with
a shoulder-held camera…

…because he knew when not to.

60% of Michel’s footage was shot
using a tripod.

People say Michel Brault only shoots with
shoulder held cameras. It’s false.

You cannot shoot buildings for one hour,
it moves and becomes annoying.

Michel Brault understood that.

Some cameramen know where to cut
and it gives the editor a chance.

I had an extraordinary experience
with Jean-Pierre Lachapelle.

He always let the characters out of the
frame so I could cut where I wanted.

Then he makes 3-4 movies with someone
else. I watch my footage.

Every time he finishes a shot,
he places his hand in front of the lens.

He doesn’t leave me any choice.

He had bad experiences with editors who
thought he waited too long before cutting.

So we had a discussion. Then he resumed
shooting as he had before.

When we watched George Dufaux’s
rushes, we were in despair.

I’ll try to demonstrate it for you.

Georges is like an oak tree with a camera
on his shoulder. An oak with a shoulder!

He frames someone, listens hard.

When the person is done talking,
he moves and shoots someone else.

He is solid as a rock.
He always moves between two sentences.

So before I started to edit,
I found the trick.

I took all the shit out, all the shifting
and the stabilizing of the camera.

Then, it was as if it was shot with
three cameras! He was moving so fast.

It’s the most perfect camera work
for a documentary editor.

Martin Leclerc is crazy with a camera.
He is always filming.

During set-ups, Martin is shooting.

What he shoots has nothing to do
with the movie, in principle.

But it gives me lots of footage
that I can use.

Michel Moreau was getting ready
and Martin was filming.

It allowed me to create an atmosphere.

I used what he shot.

Le Pays rêvé
Michel Moreau, director

This place is sacred for me.

There, behind my father’s window,
I became a documentary filmmaker.

But now nostalgia hits me at full speed.

The ghastly hearse brought faithful
citizens toward a supposed better world.

We knew the name of every dog
in the neighborhood…

…but now, human relations
are fading away.

The National 7 crossroad
is even more deserted since the highway.

But the gendarme’s ghost is there,
devoted to his post.

Ha ha, traffic is not a joke. Alas!
People don’t even look at ghosts anymore.

Suddenly comes from the left,
abbot Vuliès…

nicknamed the Red Vicar…

…whose thoughts are as progressive
as his long strides.

I suspect that every immigrant possesses,
like me, deep in his memory…

…a little corner of land that he loved.

Here’s a typical case. Martin took all the
images on the village square…

…while Michel Moreau was setting up
in the hardware store.

Martin was shooting the butcher going in,
then out and the dog in the window.

On my side, I cut the butcher shot
in two…

…I tried to create a village atmosphere
and there’s the result.

But without Martin Leclerc’s help,
I would have never got those shots.

They are all stolen shots.

With the assistant editor

12:52:04:06

My assistant-editor is my first viewer.

Michelle Guérin, Louise Surprenant,
Dominique Fortin, François Labonté,
Marie Hamelin, Suzanne Allard,
Gérald Vanzier, Alain Sauvé,
Claude Langlois, Anne-Marie Whiteside
Anne Ardouin et Bruce Murchison

Their responsibility is to keep control
of the material.

My assistants taught me
to verbalize what I did.

The first time an assistant asked me:
Why did you do this that way?

I answered: Because!
It was not a good answer.

It’s an intuition, it’s a premonition;
my instinct.

They forced me to verbalize what I did.
So I passed on my knowledge

Conclusion

Technological evolution

This scissor was made at the NFB to edit

Of Whales, the Moon and Men.

When we used the hot splicer…

...we scraped the film,

...put acetone-based cement,

…hot-pressed it,

…and we had a solid splice.

When we wanted to change
the location of a shot…

…since we can’t undo the splice,
we had to cut a frame off each shot.

Michel Brault said: Let’s find a way
to cut between two frames.

With perforated splicing tape like this one,

but transparent,...

we can take it off…

…and put the shot elsewhere
without loosing a frame.

I used to keep 15 frames at each end of a
shot to be sure to be able to move it.

After watching the movie 58 times with 15
extra frames, you get used to the bad cut.

Six months later I would watch the movie:
How come this cut was not well edited ?

It’s too long ! It was frustrating.
The scissor fixed all this.

In 1964, Jean-Claude Labrecque went
to Italy to make a movie about Antonioni.

He brought me back an Italian splicer.

It cuts between two frames with
a guillotine that perforates scotch tape.

It was like a miracle. I could take the shot
off and put it back anywhere in the film.

I paid $80 from my pocket for that splicer.
I was in heaven!

Let me introduce you to the Moviola.

This recent one is green.
In the twenties it was black.

The one from the twenties had optical
sound and this one has magnetic sound.

It was possible to edit the picture with or
without the soundtrack.

This one also has an optical soundtrack.
Thus we can cut in a final copy.

It is noisy because of the sprocket drive.

The Moviola worked at 24 frames/second…

…and at high speed at 36 frames/second.

We had to decide where to cut pretty fast
because going backwards was very slow.

I had my first Steenbeck at the NFB
in 1970.

This is 35mm...

...and this is 16mm.

You can have sound on 35 or 16mm
magnetic tape.

You simply change the rollers.

This is 35mm...

...and this is 16mm.

This is a viewer with a magnifying glass to
look at details.

The Steenbeck was so fast.

By the time I took a decision, I had to go
back. I had to learn to decide faster.

The transition between the Moviola
and the Steenbeck is the same as…

…between the Steenbeck and digital.

That’s evolution.

And I go further back. I began editing
with an optical track.

You could see the sound
on the side of the frame;

At the far right,
there were two audio tracks.

Here’s the beep
at the beginning of the movie.

When magnetic came, the editors yelled:
it’s nonsense, we can’t see the sound!

With optical sound, you see exactly where
the silence is, it’s easy to cut, tchlack!

With magnetic, you have to find
the silence, it’s not easy.

You had to spot it, often on only two
frames. We had to get used to that too.

There was a lot of manual labor
in the editing process at that time.

Synchronizing sound and picture.

Both tracks need to have the same length
to keep in sync.

This synchronizer measures the length of
the film.

If we cut the image track,...

...we have to cut the same length on the
soundtrack to keep in sync.

But while we were manipulating,
we had time to think about the movie.

Today, we have dictionaries
in the computer.

We browse for the word Present
and the definition appears.

With AVID it’s the same thing;

you look for a shot,
it’s numbered or labeled.

Your shot appears.
It’s like magic and it’s so fast.

I had my bin and
I would look for the word Present.

I looked through the shots
and found another shot.

Ah, this one might be better than
the one I was looking for.

Then I would try it and
Ah! That’s what I need.

So the manual aspect is extremely
gratifying and important for me.

Every time there’s a technological
breakthrough, people complain.

The older they are, the more they
complain.

When I edited sound myself,
I would go to the mix.

For a half-hour long movie,
I had a half-hour 16mm roll film.

I had 16 soundtracks and
we would put them on machines…

…and play the 16 soundtracks
in sync at the same time.

We split the movie into ten-minute rolls.

You had two mixers, one for sound effects
and the other one for dialog and music.

We played a roll and
the 16 corresponding sound tracks.

The guys were stressed. At the ninth
minute, a sound came on too loud.

We would stop, rewind everything,

...put it on the start mark and start back
hoping it will work this time.

Whenever there was an error, we had to
start over till we were satisfied.

The ideal editing

13:06:41:22

The ideal editing would be
to have a movie without any cut!

I always try to hide the editing
interventions so no one will see them.

I rarely succeed but once in a while I do.
Erasing my editing is my goal.

A humility lesson

Norman McLaren knocks on my door.

Norman, who was our God, tells me:

Werner, I have a problem with a cut.
Could you try to make it better ?

Here’s my chance to show McLaren
how good I am!

I worked a lot and I couldn’t do better
than him. A real humility trip!

Pas de deux
Norman McLaren, director

Norman said: If we can’t do better,
we’ll have to live with it.

From that moment on,
I have always accepted my bad cuts.

The last word

13:08:18:02

I have never saved a movie.

I made bad movies pass as good
but never as grand movies.

When some one gives me a piece of shit,
I can remove a certain part of the odor.

I don’t go further than that but it’s more
acceptable when it doesn’t smell bad.

Even odorless and color-free,
a bad movie is still a bad movie.

Saving a movie can be done only
if you film more material and add it in.

If the movie is bad because
something important is missing...

...filming this important scene
and adding it in might save the movie.

But it’s not really saving the movie,
it’s redoing parts of the movie.

You’re not just editing,
you’re co-directing in a way.

If I had to make an editor pass a test, I
would ask him: Show me your last movie.

If it’s not bad, I would say: Show me your
wastebasket. What did he throw away?

A young assistant was in a hurry to do
something, so I gave him a sequence to
edit.

He edits the sequence, I watch it and then
I use the outs to re-edit the sequence.

Now compare what I did with the outs.

You see how much reflexion and he
rejected good shots...

...because he was unable to do
a sensitive reading of the footage.

The reading of the rushes takes a lot
of intelligence and sensibility.

What an extraordinary life
when you master a trade that you like.

Each movie is a new challenge...

...whether it’s human relations, the film
itself or the subject you have to master.

I edited around 120 movies.
But only 10 or 12 of these I like. It’s 10%.

Americans probably make 500 movies per
year. 10% of 500 movies is 50 movies.

Do you think there are 50 good American
movies every year? I’m not so sure.

Aim for 10% and
you’re already setting the bar high.

On a hundred directors, 10% might be
outstanding and 90% only shoot movies.

What are the qualities required
to become a good editor?

One hundred times over,
try to improve your work.

Keep a fresh viewpoint.

Do not edit your own movie
but the movie.

And a bit of passion won’t hurt you!

And… I have nothing more to tell you,
that’s it, folks!

CREDITS

EDITING ACCORDING TO WERNER
NOLD

Direction and Editing
Jean-Pierre Masse

Image and Sound
Jean-Pierre Masse
Cindy Tremblay
Mathieu Tardif

Original score
Éric Asswad

Sound editing and mix
Claude Chevalier

On-line editing
Sylvain Desbiens

Translation
Régis Dufour

Subtitles
Lucette Lupien

Consultant for the subtitles
Dorothy Todd Hénaut
Régis Dufour

Titles, graphic design and DVD authoring
Martin Viau

NFB Coordinator
Martin Dubé

NFB films and excerpts

60 cycles
Jean-Claude Labrecque

Avec tambours et trompettes
Marcel Carrière

Geneviève
Michel Brault
with Geneviève Bujold, Louise Marleau, Bernard Arcand

Gui Daò, sur la voie
de Georges Dufaux

IXE-13
Jacques Godbout
with Luce Guilbeault, Marc Laurendeau
Marcel Saint-Germain, Diane Arcand

Jeux de la XXIe Olympiade
Jean-Claude Labrecque

Mario
Jean Beaudin
with Francis Reddy

Pas de deux
Norman McLaren

Le Pays rêvé
Michel Moreau

Of whales, the Moon and Men
Pierre Perrault and Michel Brault

Le Steak
Pierre Falardeau and Manon Leriche

Once upon a Hunt
Francis Mankiewicz
with Marcel Sabourin, Pierre Dufresne
Guy l'Écuyer, Frédérique Collin and Olivier
l'Écuyer

Ti-Mine, Bernie pis la gang
Marcel Carrière
with Jean Lapointe, Marcel Sabourin
Louise Saint-Pierre

Zea
André and Jean-Jacques Leduc

The content of this master class and dvd
was prepared with the collaboration of
Lucette Lupien

Stills
National Film Board of Canada

Many thanks to
Martin Dubé
Sayedali Rawji
and
Jacques Bérubé
Marie-Noëlle Clermont
Louise Dupré
Jean-Pierre Gariépy
Claude Lord
Bernard Lutz
Sophie Quévillon

The master class was organized by
Gabriel Anctil
Programmer of the Carrousel international
du film de Rimouski
and presented at the Paraloeil Mediatic
Arts Center

Production
Le Conifère têtu

With the collaboration of
The National Film Board of Canada
Aide au cinéma indépendant Canada
(ACIC)
Pierre Lapointe, Producer
Marie-Christine Guité, Coordinator

And with the assistance of the
Comité de la recherche et de la création
de la faculté de Communications de
l’UQAM

Distribution : National Film Board of
Canada

© 2009 Production Le Conifère têtu