John Ottman

WHAT IS EDITING?

This question, I'm convinced, can never be effectively answered. But I diverge here for a little snippet on the craft. Why? Well, I guess it's an opportunity to shed a splinter of light on the monumental importance of a job understood by few. Examples from Valkyrie can perhaps be a rough tutorial on some of it. To most, "editing" implies making something shorter. While that's certainly a facet of the art form, it's only a tiny function of the editor. Without going into an entire dissertation on what an editor actually does, the editor is basically the final story-teller/writer of the film, and his or her duties often expand far beyond just managing footage on a computer, depending on his/her relationship with the director. I often try to sum it up to people by telling them to imagine the position of a magazine or newspaper editor. Among myriad of duties an editor has on his/her shoulders, the bottom line is that the hundreds of thousands, or even millions of feet of footage, is in this poor soul's hands to mold smoothly into an involving story, create great performances, shape the characters, etc. It's really quite impossible to make the process tangible enough to explain. Unfortunately, generations have been weaned on that disclaimer before a TV network airing of a film: "This Film Has Been Edited for Television", reinforcing the misconception that an editor's job is just to "take things out." This is as true as it is that an orchestra plays the score off stage while a scene is shot.

Not Just "Bing Bang Boom"

Valkyrie is a good example of how scenes are often constructed to be longer and far more dramatic than the footage was designed for. We call this "protracting" the action – to make it feel like a lot more is going on than really is. One example, of many, is the scene where Stauffenberg leaves the bomb in the hut to kill Hitler. If you look at the footage in the sequence, it's shot pretty straight-forwardly. It would have been easy to just have Stauffenberg walk into the hut, leave the bomb, walk out, and boom. But this is the moment everyone's waiting for. It needed gravitas and suspense. In such a case, the editor is faced with designing a story within the story based upon what he has, or ... what he wants. Everyone works differently. For me, I write out a sort of script the way I would like to see the scene yif I had my way. (This comes from the days of cutting on film, where there wasn't the ease of just shuffling shots on a computer until something kind of worked. You had to envision the scene ahead of time with the general footage in your memory. I still think it's the best way to keep a "vision" alive in the cutting. This discipline can be agonizing, but it's well worth the effort. It's sort of like the agony a composer goes through writing his themes ahead of time rather than winging it as the score's being written. It's a lot of work, but makes it easier to design a better score.) Anyhow, then I try to manipulate the footage as much as I can to tell the story the way I saw the scene in my head.

When the attempted scene calls for shots that I don't have, the decision is either to make due by revising my mental picture and create as many illusions as I can, and/or create place cards (slugs) describing the shots that I'd like to have, ie, "Close-Up Stauffenberg: Hangs Up Phone." Just how extravagant these "pick-up shots" are depends on what is realistic budget-wise and/or just how impactful the idea may be. In addition to simple inserts for this sequence, I also really wanted some larger pieces. For example, it was never scripted to show Eddie Izzard's character (Felbgeibel) actually making the call to get Stauffenberg out of the hut, nor his reactions to witness Stauffenberg leaving the hut, etc. Not only would this add more suspense, but also the more material I had of another character's simultaneous and nervous actions would help me extend the scene and make it more heart-pounding. So while still in Berlin, we called Izzard back (I don't remember if he flew over from London or the U.S.) for an early morning shoot on a soundstage. We had him for a couple hours before he had to fly to Los Angeles to do a stand up show. As I mentioned, Felgeibel is supposed to call the conference hut to get Stauffenberg out of the meeting. An added benefit to shooting this was a small mis-direct in the sequence by not showing what Felgeibel actually tells the conference hut receptionist. The receptionist answers, "yes, sir" and leaves the room to get Stauffenberg. Eddie holds the phone saying nothing, looking a little duplicitous. When we cut back to the reception desk, I digitally zoomed into the phone receiver left by the receptionist on the desk, – perhaps Felgeibel has betrayed Stauffenberg.

Who knows? Tiny moments like this are yet another page to turn in the over-all suspense. We also shot Izzard reacting to Stauffenberg from a fake "exterior" window built on the soundstage.

I then had him run down a hall of the Wolf's Lair set to use at some point after the bomb goes off so that there would be more parallel action to cut to when Stauffenberg is getting away. (This replaced my slug, "FELGEIBEL RUNS DOWN A HALLWAY". It greatly enhanced the suspense, and also helped us bring Felgeibel into the communications room (as if the hall connected it).

Originally we filmed a creepy shot of Hitler emerging from the smoke after the bomb goes off as Felgeibel calls the conspirators in Berlin to tell them what's happened. (As was scripted.) He has a horrified reaction as he sees Hitler limp out of the hut.

But later we decided it best to not see Hitler emerging at all, and instead have the call from Felgeibel be garbled on the other end – thus placing the audience in the same uncertainty as the characters.

To end the sequence, I held on Stauffenberg in the car as long as I possibly could to personalize the success of what he thought he accomplished. Then by dropping out the sound and scoring it with emotional music instead of "get-away" music, the gravity of both the feat for his country and himself is felt.

My, What Beautiful Hands You Have

Picks-ups can be asked for during shooting if the editor can already see the need. The editor's always getting calls from the producer: "Can we tear down the set? Have you cut the scene?? Do we need anything??" Many times these calls come before you've barely had a chance to get the scene assembled, let alone receive the footage in order to make the determination to "strike" a set. Therefore some of the pick-ups are decided upon months later as the cut comes together and the editor and filmmakers fine-tune the story. To shoot these pick-ups, a specific day(s) is set aside, and pieces of the original sets are re-constructed in a soundstage. Backtracking to another scene – when Stauffenberg and his assistant Haeften assemble the bombs in the back room of the Wolf's Lair offices, the shots of their hands were shot frenetically, sort of in a roving camera. In the cut it wasn't entirely clear that they A) were making two bombs, and B) that Haeften ends up putting his bomb in his case when they're interrupted. So, I put in slugs that we'd shoot later. One was: "CLOSE UP HAEFTEN PUSHES PIN INTO HIS BOMB. CAMERA PANS LEFT TO STAUFFENBERG'S HAND ON HIS BOMB." When Haeften has to leave the room and stand outside staring at the other officer, I placed another card: INSERT: HAEFTEN SQUEEZES HIS BAG, HANDS SHAKING." This would help reinforce that he has the other bomb in his bag. When you finally go shoot these shots, of course, you don't always have the actor. Tom was always available even for the most mundane inserts, but the actor who played Haeften (the endearing Jamie Parker) was in London. No need to fly him out for a couple hand shots. So Bryan stood in for Jamie's hands. Not the best hand match in the world, but in the context of the scene, it was seamless.

Yes! An Ear

Of course, it's always preferable and rewarding to find ways of manipulating material to avoid shooting picks ups – and it often results in something far more interesting: In another moment of the hut scene I wanted it to look like Stauffenberg was aware of the call off-screen and bring our attention to the faint ringing he was hearing from the other room. I remembered a problematic extreme close-up of Tom's face for another part of the scene. While they were adjusting the camera and focus, Tom inadvertently turned his head, exposing his ear for a second. An ear shot! That's what I wanted. So I digitally slowed down and reversed this shot to look as though it was specifically designed to show him "hearing" the phone – by reversing it, it began on his ear, then moved toward his face – which, of course, added style and another page in the story.

In this same scene, to reinforce the geography of Stauffenberg and Hitler's spacial relationship to one another, I wanted to show Stauffenberg lowering himself to set down the briefcase with Hitler in the background. He only did this in a close up angle. But we had him in a wider shot coming back up after moving the briefcase later in the scene. By reversing the shot it looked like he was putting the briefcase down, thus allowing us to see his proximity to Hitler earlier in the scene.

Tap Tap Tap

When Stauffenberg actually leaves the hut, it was all about organizing the cuts from inside to outside in order to extend his walk as tensely as possible. To all of this, I added a subliminal heartbeat getting more rapid, and of course, the score. The final moment before the bomb goes off was a trick as well. Rather than just have it go off, I was looking for a way to create a pregnant moment before it exploded. – We all know it's going to blow. But not being sure when adds to the tension. I remembered another camera repositioning moment as it was aimed on the wide shot of the conference room and swung to the right, "off the set" toward the windows. I thought it would be a great way for one final "swing back" into the room if I reversed the shot and slowed it down to look like a purposeful "reveal" from the windows into the room again. I had saved a brief grab of "Hitler's" fingers tapping the map from earlier in the scene. As his hand come down in a wide shot, I cut all the sound to the scene, cutting to a close-up of the tapping fingers and recorded the sound of tapping paper. To extend even more, I then showed the back of him (slowed down and zoomed into), then again cut to his fingers tapping on the table. BOOM! It really helped the "I-know-this-thing's-gonna-go-off-any-second" feeling.

A trusted editor also shouldn't feel inhibited by the script's dialog. In the case of the hut sequence, there was an officer spouting gibberish to Hitler about the state of the troops, etc. There was coverage of him saying the material on camera – although most of it was played off screen. But when the scene was extended, I needed him to say more stuff to fill the space – the gibberish had to drone on. In cases like this I would write and record myself spouting temporary dialog to be off screen. When the scene was finally in shape, the new lines had to be inserted in such a way that I could editorially return to the general's face as he finished up a sentence. Later, the writers would fine tune or replace my dialog, and then we'd ADR the actor saying the old and new dialog to be seamless. The same process occurs when adding lines for actors behind their backs, etc. I usually try to do my best impression of the actors until we get them to replace my voice. I did a great Bill Nighy, but my Tom impression was always lacking.

An editor may have no idea what he ate for lunch, but he's gotta have a good memory of all that footage, down to the most insignificant camera bobble or glass on a table. A minor example (again, among many) comes to mind: There's a little moment when Fromm (Tom Wilkinson) is confronted by Mertz (Christian Berkel) and Olbricht (Bill Nighy) in his office, telling Fromm that Hitler is dead. I remembered some footage from an earlier scene where Fromm's assistant is sitting outside Fromm's office looking behind himself hearing Fromm being chewed out by a general. So during this later confrontation in Fromm's office, I cut to the assistant as if he were overhearing this crucial information. Unfortunately, the door behind him was closed, and in the current scene, the door was supposed to be open. So my wiz-bang assistants digitally superimposed an open office door blurred out behind him to imply he was hearing this conversation. (These temporary digital "fixes" - rashes of them - then get refined later by the visual effects department.)

Additional moments like this simply add to the character's motivations and underlying logic of the story. Since this character ends up freeing Fromm, I wanted to imply he knew more than was scripted. So the editor's job is also to find as many ways as possible to enhance character believability and their actions.

Another weird example is when Stauffenberg and Olbricht first come to Fromme's office. After a ballsy comment from Stauffenberg, Olbricht give him a funny look, but his look only occurred in a wide shot of the two of them, and unfortunately during his look, Tom began his next line. I wanted a pause. So in the Avid, we replaced Tom's head from another part of the scene where he's just looking forward.

Another digital trick was added later to the Africa scene to reinforce that the military division in Africa was German.  What originally started out as a simple crane shot introducing the troops, later became a close-up on a cgi German flag, digitally racking focus from the flag to the wide shot of the troops as it cranes down. Again, a little visual effects touch that one would never expect to be there.

Films are chocked full of seemless tricks like this, and even now when I watch the film, I will have forgotten about many of them myself.

Whoops

Happenstance can also be the filmmaker's best friend. In The Usual Suspects, the actors got giddy in the line-up scene, so I integrated the "bloopers" within the scripted material to give the scene a realistic feel. In Valkyrie, there was a moment where Tom - only able to use one hand – could not get the "ticking" bomb in the bag. Out of context it was funny he couldn't get it in, but I realized that in the scene it would be an agonizing moment for the audience. I stretched it out as long as I could and then used a close shot of him from another take where his elbow hits the table. By making his elbow hitting the table a "bang" sound, this became a little tense moment.

Adding Meaning to Death

The final execution scene in the film was another example of how editing can "poeticize" an otherwise grim scene ... (I could spend seven pages on this one sequence, but I'll spare you.) By intercutting key dialog that the characters had said in the film and "scripting out" the shots to tell a visual and aural story, (and scored with an emotional piece of music) a simple execution becomes a poignant and oddly "heroic" emotional sequence. The sequence was supposed to end with Stauffenberg's lifeless face and then crane up to see Berlin once again being bombed at night. But it felt unsatisfyingly cold and less personal to Stauffenberg. So I had no way to end the scene for the longest time. Having the ending unresolved ate away at me for a couple weeks until I sat myself down and asked myself what may be going through Stauffenberg's mind at the very end. That would, of course, be his wife and family. There was a scene earlier in the film made into a sort of flashback where Stauffenberg says goodbye to Nina, who has the children in the car. In that scene she looks at Stauffenberg, kisses him, smiles, runs to the car and drives off. It hit me that this would be the perfect symbolic image to end the movie with. So for earlier in the film, I cut out the ending of the scene where she walks away to the car. In the execution I resumed the scene as she smiles, runs away and drives off. As the car goes into the distance, Stauffenberg looks down in the foreground. I slowed down the shot so that his looking down took on the feel of bowing his head, becoming the last image of the movie....

But getting the execution scene to this point was a job that started long before it was finally edited. Much of the original footage was destroyed in a bad chemical bath in a photo lab in Germany. The execution location is holy ground, as it was the actual place the conspirators were executed. Therefore, getting the permission to shoot there was a highly controversial and difficult task. So when we saw the dailies come back looking grainy, dark and pulsating with a foggy haze, it was, well ... just another day on Valkyrie. Fortunately we got the location back again (a BIG deal), and because I had spent so much time in the editing room trying to salvage what was undamaged in order to come up with a temporary scene, it gave us the opportunity to get more shots we probably would have had to shoot as pick-ups months later. I had all my slugs ready to go. I'll never forget that reshoot night. Here was our final chance to get the scene, knowing we could never come back to this location again. There was already a palpable and emotional weight on everyone's shoulders not only because of the nature of the scene, but because we had until dawn to get what we needed. Tensions were high. It was freezing – (ironically the execution actually took place on a summer night), yet I was on the hot seat, being looked at with that question – "Are we getting it all?" We eeked out the shots all the way until we could hear the church bells ringing and this otherworldly sound of morning birds. Seconds later the night was gone, and we had to stop in the nick of time. It was pretty miserable, and reminded me of why I like staying away from the "glamour" of the set.

The Jerry Maguire Sequence

Conveying an army taking control of a government is an esoteric notion that's impossible to visualize. Knowing this, the idea (I forgot who's – I think Tom's) was to shoot a menagerie of shots of Stauffenberg on the telephone keeping the coup together in a bustling office that would be intercut with random second unit footage of soldiers. This would help aid the audience's understanding of what was happening on a broad scale. Filmmakers have to be able to quickly refer to sequences in a film, so we called this the "Jerry Maguire sequence"; and later making sense of all the helter skelter, non-continuity footage was enough for me to consider taking up heavy drinking. I remember being faced with hours of random shots and mumbo jumbo lines, and exclaiming out loud, what the **** am I gonna do with all this?!" And soon I realized one more element was necessary to clarify the events: I needed personnel in Stauffenberg's office marking off the secured sections of Berlin on maps to help clarify what they were accomplishing. The only way to effectively design this massive montage was to actually shoot the missing map material instead of inserting cards. So I had my assistants get a video camera. In the editing room, we put up a big phony map of Berlin.

I got the production to send the uniforms used in the film, and had my assistants Dylan, Andrew and Nolan suit up, gave them clip boards and pens, and shot a bunch of frenetic footage of them marking off areas as they criss-crossed the shot, thus helping to create the "busy" office. (Dylan was a perfect fit in Tom's actual uniform from the execution scene – squib holes and all.)

Dylan	Nolan	Dylan and Andrew at an effects review

We laughed that three Jews were playing German army personnel. Months later we replaced the shots that I videotaped with real shots on a set with other actors and a real map – although Nolan was back and ended up in the scene. This time they used crayons, which seemed odd, but according to the German consultant on the set, this is the way they would do it.

The finished map shots as they appear in the film

In the end, with sound design, music, adding titles over the exterior shots of city sections being taken over, and some added lines, you really got the feeling that the conspirators might just pull it off; It allowed the drama of the coup attempt to be protracted and played out as a major sequence, rather than just a beat in the story. Of course, if you really look at it, it's basically Tom on the phone, guys marking a map, and soldiers storming buildings.

I've barely scratched the surface. Let's just say film editing is more than the tap dance number the academy did one year at the Oscars to explain editing to the world. UGH.

(Tidbit: In the opening scene with Tom in the tent, an officer walks up and says, "Colonel Stauffenberg, Sir. The general will be here in four hours." That amazing audio performance was yours truly.)