Most with the Least

• You can never judge the quality of a sound mix simply by counting the number of tracks it took to produce it

• The quality of a sound mix depends on:

  • The initial choices that were made

  • The quality of the sounds

  • How capable the blend of those sounds was of exciting emotions hidden in the hearts of the audience

The underlying principle: Always try to do the most with the least—with an 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 the screen. Why? Because you want to do only what is necessary to engage the imagination of the audience—the suggestion is always more effective than exposition. Past a certain point, the more effort you put into a wealth of detail, the more you encourage the audience to become spectators rather than participants

• The same principle applies to all the various crafts of filmmaking:

  • Acting

  • Art direction

  • Photography

  • Music

  • Costume

  • Others

  • Editing

• You would never say that a certain film was well-edited because it had more cuts in it

• Frequently, it takes more work and discernment to decide where not to cut—don’t feel you have to cut just because you are being paid to. You are being paid to make decisions, and as far as whether to cut or not, the editor is actually making twenty-four decisions a second

• If the editor doesn’t have the confidence to let people themselves occasionally choose what they want to look at or to leave things to their imagination, then he is pursuing a goal (complete control) that in the end is self-defeating. People will eventually feel constrained and then resentful from the constant pressure of his hand on the backs of their necks

• The film is cut for practical reasons and the film is cut because cutting—that sudden disruption of reality—can be an effective tool in itself. So, if the goal is as few cuts as possible when you have to make a cut, what is it that makes it a good one?