This the third part of ‘film editing and movie editng’ by ‘Michael Robert Johnson’.

Learn to understand actor’s eye-lines and the implications of “crossing the line”.

The basics of this are that if two people are talking to each other, one of them should be looking right-of-frame and the other left-of-frame so that it feels like they are looking at each other. If this is cut wrong – i.e. both characters are looking to the same side of the frame – from the audience’s point of view it will feel like they are stood shoulder-to-shoulder and talking to someone unseen on the other side of the room.

Try to think of it as though you, the audience, are standing directly between the characters as they talk, then take a step backwards so you are not impeding their vision of each other- their “eye-line”. Now, when they talk, it should feel like you are looking back and forth as the conversation progresses. If you now walked across this eye-line, you would have to turn 180 degrees to see the conversation properly, and it is this “crossing the line” that disorientates the audience.

Eye-lines can be a very complex business – if you have four or five actors in a scene you can sometimes have upwards of fifteen, maybe twenty eye-lines going on at one time. Just remember that on general, the audience need to feel like they are staying roughly in the same place as they watch the proceedings

- the more you throw them around, the less they will absorb because they are trying to work out who’s talking to whom instead of listening to what they are saying – sometimes the change is not as obvious as this, but on a sub-conscious level it feels wrong to the audience, throwing them.

When you are editing conversations, do not cut back and forth every time a character finishes speaking. Like real life, a good actor will begin reacting before the end of the lines, taking their cue from a particular word or thought process. It is these rhythms that should dictate the editing, not the dialogue.
Learn how to overlap dialogue, this is the invisible backbone of pacing a scene.

Though equally, don’t feel that you have to cut together a performance at exactly the same pace as it was delivered on set. The speed of different slates – often different takes – is different, and it’s up to you to decide what is the correct speed to carry the scene.

Remember, the disjointed job of film acting is to provide as good a performance on as many takes as possible; it is the director and editor’s job to take these pieces and construct a convincing performance which will complement all the other performances. As many actors fail to realise – THIS ISN’T THEATRE – the final performance is created in the editing room, not on the set.

If you want to look at different ways to edit an actor’s performances, here are a couple of good examples:

The first is the scene in “Heat” in the coffee shop when Pacino and DeNiro face each other. Michael Mann shot this entire sequence with two cameras – one on each actor – and just let the scene roll. Any given point you’re seeing the exact reaction to the line.

The second example is the scene in DeNiro’s living room in “Raging Bull” when he accuses Joe Pesci of sleeping with his wife. This scene was shot with a single camera, first on DeNiro, then on Pesci. The editor Thelma Schoonmaker then had to go through the miles of differing, improvised takes from both angles and construct a piece of drama that looks like it has taken place in real time.
The main difference – on a sub-conscious level for the audience – is that in “Heat” you feel as though you are simply watching – over-hearing – the exchange as it happens. With “Raging Bull”, you are placed much more inside the heads of the characters; the editing allows you, the audience, to see tiny nuances of mood and motivation that even the characters (and to an extent the actors) themselves do not see.