Quotes About Editing

Well, Toronto, I consider to be the birthplace of my films. I've made three films and this is the third one to premiere here in the same theater on the same day at the same time - they are my audience. They're the people that I think about while I'm writing, directing, and editing. I specifically make movies for them.

Writing on a computer makes saving what's been written too easy. Pretentious lead sentences are kept, not tossed. Instead of sitting surrounded by crumpled paper, the computerized writer has his mistakes neatly stored in digital memory.

Formulating the proposal is about 80% of the actual time of the process. In the end, the time spent filming, editing and postproduction is a very small proportion of the total time you spend in the production of the film.

Well, the 'Giuliana & Bill' show is a little bit different because Giuliana and I are the executive producers of the show, so certainly we have a lot of control and we have total, I guess if we wanted to, editing power, but I will say, in the seven seasons we've done the show, we've never used our executive producer powers to cut something out.

In editing, it's amazing how you choose the in and out points. What you cut on is everything for creating tension. It's amazing how expanding a shot by five seconds can just ruin the tension.

She read it over one last time, not really satisfied, but it was the truth. Even if it still had some scratch-outs.

[on editing of the films] There is always a question of time, and the director. I've worked with a lot of directors who don't mind my involvement. They appreciated it.

I've never been a big fan of the music-video style of editing movies that crept in the last few decades. I like stuff that's able to take its time.

When my husband first read a draft, he said, "You spend too much time describing the characters' outfits." He was right. I removed much of the clothes talk, but quite a bit remained.

if the way ahead is not clear, time is often the best editor of one's intentions.

I'm so busy writing and editing two books a year that I don't have time for painting anymore.

I don't believe in writer's block. Most of writer's block is having too much time on your hands. My mantra is that you can always edit a bad page; you can't edit a blank page.

For a long time, censors have been cutting my works. This makes me so sad, because many times they will tell me, 'Television won't like, so we have to cut, cut, cut!'

The essence of cinema is editing. It's the combination of what can be extraordinary images of people during emotional moments, or images in a general sense, put together in a kind of alchemy.

I'm proud of the way I rearrange and put things together, like a chef who makes a great meal, or a filmmaker who puts together a story - it's casting, editing, cinematography.

The long version of the play is actually an easier version to follow. In all of the cut versions the intense speeches are cut too close together for the audience and the actors.

every writer needs two selves—the generative self and the editor self.

I revise and revise and revise. Any editor of mine will tell you how crappy my early drafts are. Revisions are about clarifying and evoking feelings in the reader in the same way they were once evoked in me.

I]t is really the ponderous books which I envy. How easy merely to put down everything you think or imagine. No holding back, no telling oneself that this does not belong, or that. No hewing to the line. No cutting. No fear of letting the interest die. No wastebasket. How wonderful. And how dull!

Being sixteen means you have to be a genius conversational editor.

You don't just write something and it's done. You don't just do it. You write parts and you rewrite and you have new ideas and you move stuff. I don't want to talk about the book.

I confess to wincing every so often at a poorly chosen word, a mangled sentence, an expression of emotion that seems indulgent or overly practiced. I have the urge to cut the book by fifty pages or so, possessed as I am with a keener appreciation for brevity.

Beginning a novel is always hard. It feels like going nowhere. I always have to write at least 100 pages that go into the trashcan before it finally begins to work. It's discouraging, but necessary to write those pages. I try to consider them pages -100 to zero of the novel.

It was his habit, when he rewrote anything, to shed himself of all earlier versions. He kept a clean house.