Thelma Schoonmaker & Scorsese — Film Editing Tips from Goodfellas, Shutter Island, and The Irishman

Editor Thelma Schoonmaker on the art of film editing and working with director Martin Scorsese

How to Edit like Thelma Schoonmaker ►► https://bit.ly/3fN3DX2

Chapters
00:00 The Editing Style of Thelma Schoonmaker
00:51 Roughness & "Bad" Cuts
02:55 Shaping the Concept
04:04 Prioritizing Actor Performance
07:02 "Deadly Pauses"
08:16 Film Editing Tips for Editors

Thelma Schoonmaker is a film editor with a dazzling filmography and a career that spans 6 decades. Her most consistent and fruitful collaboration during those years has been with director Martin Scorsese. To date, they have joined creative forces on over 20+ feature films — making it near impossible to discuss Scorsese’s work without acknowledging Schoonmaker. In this short documentary, Thelma guides us through this working relationship and how some of these directing and film editing decisions get made.

After editing Scorsese’s first feature film, Who’s That Knocking at My Door, Schoonmaker would essentially become his full-time feature editor starting with Raging Bull. What she describes as part of their general approach is an editing style that is less concerned with a polished and perfect construction. Mistakes, bumps, jump cuts — she explains, “A lot of people think editing should be invisible, but we’ve never felt that way.”

For an example of these intentionally imperfect film editing techniques, look no further than The Irishman. As De Niro makes a difficult phone call, two different takes are spliced together with an obvious jump cut in the middle. Another example can be found in Goodfellas during Henry and Karen’s wedding — the violence of the glass being stepped motivates rougher, more jagged edits for the subsequent shots.

In film editing, artisans like Thelma Schoonmaker bring this sense of exploration and imperfection into a style all its own. Like any art form, the art of editing can be less dependent on precision and more focused on performance and emotional truth. If one wants to study the full breadth of film editing tips — the work of film editor Thelma Schoonmaker provides endless lessons.

Special Thanks:
BAFTA Guru ►► http://bit.ly/bft-g
DP/30: The Oral History Of Hollywood ►► http://bit.ly/dp-301, http://bit.ly/dp-302
Making The Cut ►► http://bit.ly/mtc-ts
Behind The Screen Podcast ►► http://bit.ly/bts-p

#FilmTheory #VideoEssay #Editing

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Songs used:
"Nebulous Dream" - Mattia Turzo
"Mannish Boy" - Muddy Waters
"Life is But a Dream" - The Harptones
"Signal to Noise (Gangs of New York Version)" - Peter Gabriel
"Timeline" - Blake Ewing
"On the Nature of Daylight" - Max Richter
"Sirens" - Jordan Critz
"Cry" - Johnnie Ray & The Four Lads
"Theme for The Irishman" - Robbie Robertson
"Daydream in D for Cello" - Eric Kinny

Music by Artlist ► https://utm.io/umJx
Music by Artgrid ► https://utm.io/umJy
Music by Soundstripe ► http://bit.ly/2IXwomF
Music by Music Vine ► http://bit.ly/2IUE0pT
Music by MusicBed ► http://bit.ly/2Fnz9Zq

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