From the very beginning, Murphy was always aware that all film shooting served the purpose of editing. When filming, he had to consider post-production editing.
For any film, story continuity is crucial. If the director has an editing mindset during shooting, it will make post-production much smoother and save a lot of trouble.
This editing mindset during shooting, or shooting for editing, can be incredibly helpful in post-production.
As a director, Murphy had this editing awareness while shooting. For example, he knew how to shoot and what materials to shoot to ensure they could be fully utilized during post-production.
Films are works of craftsmanship, and shots and editing are their defining characteristics.
From this perspective, if a film can impress the audience deeply with a particular shot, excluding the plot and characters, it can be considered a success.
Frankly, this is one of the greatest prides of filmmaking.
Of course, this doesn't mean that using aerial shots, dolly zooms, and other techniques automatically makes a shot good. Shots are a language, and when using this language, it must align with the film's story, scenes, tone, and other factors.
Sometimes, a film requires complex shooting techniques, while other times, keeping the camera still can produce a great shot.
Every excellent shot is built on careful consideration, with sufficient motivation and reasons. As long as the shot fully displays the film's intended content, it's a good shot.
"For me, real cinematography starts brewing before the shooting begins, with the composition and language of the shots already considered in my mind."
In mid-October, the filming ended smoothly. Murphy accepted an interview with a media outlet under 20th Century Fox, saying, "Today, when we watch those great films in history and the great shots they present, without exception, they are the painstaking results of directors and cinematographers racking their brains. Great shots are like fleeting meteors; only by dedicating everything can you catch them."
He added, "Dreams aren't just about having dreams and daring to dream, but also about dreaming and thinking through the process."
After filming, Murphy didn't rest but immediately plunged into post-production. Due to Jodie Griffith's health issues, Murphy decided to handle the editing himself.
There were only a few shots in this film that needed special effects, aside from necessary color grading, the focus was primarily on editing.
Shots are the foundation of editing, and editing is the rebirth of shots.
Godard once said that shots mark the beginning of film creation, and editing is like dressing up. When raw footage is placed before the editor, the editor is like the world's greatest magician, presenting the audience with a beautiful transformation from ugly duckling to swan.
How to shoot and connect shots largely depends on what the director wants to convey. Whether it's a highly tense action scene or a tender romantic moment, the director wants to emphasize the protagonist's facial expressions and actions? Think about what's most important and when to express that important part.
For example, is a small item in the protagonist's hand or an inadvertent glance worth capturing?
Once editing begins, different lengths of shots can reveal that one or two brilliant moments can change the entire film's feel.
Murphy started by editing the aerial shots for the film's opening scene. After watching all the footage again, he quickly determined the editing method.
Murphy used a long shot of downtown Los Angeles as the first shot, gave it an introduction, then cut to a black-and-white medium shot, and finally a black-and-white close-up centered on Chinatown.
After editing, he felt something was missing, so he added a shot of a rundown slum, thus explaining the chaotic background of the story—Los Angeles's most chaotic area—in just a few short shots.
In this opening sequence, there would be no characters, but in the subsequent shots, Murphy would directly introduce Diego Ross as the protagonist, making these shots character-centered.
Likewise, before editing, Murphy needed to watch the related footage again carefully.
How to organize and select materials is not what a good editor truly does. To do good editing, you need to master one point: knowing when to cut.
Murphy didn't edit according to so-called "knowledge" but rather immersed himself in the film, feeling it with his heart.
This was not a commercial film, and the usual editing methods didn't suit such a serious personal biography film.
From the scene shots, Murphy pulled out all of Robert Downey Jr.'s shots, placing the edit point on his eyes. Since this was a flashback, the eyes were the key to editing. Eyes express emotion better than anything else in the frame.
This was especially evident when working with excellent actors who knew how to express emotions with their eyes rather than relying solely on body language.
To achieve the effect of "having a lot to say but no lines," the protagonist didn't need to speak. Instead, by connecting his eyes to the scene he was looking at during editing, you knew what he was thinking without any dialogue.
Additionally, for close-ups showing emotions, Murphy gave a few seconds, a typical art film editing technique, meaning the shots and editing gave the protagonist's emotions some time.
Audiences often feel a connection with the characters because there's enough time to notice the actors' expressions before they speak, and also their expressions after speaking. Murphy had to grasp how long to give this emotion. In many scenes reflecting the protagonist's emotions, he gave Robert Downey Jr. a continuous four-second "one-shot" to express inner complexity and struggle.
To show Diego Ross's struggle when facing choices, Murphy edited five shots with lengths of 4 seconds 15 frames, 4 seconds 9 frames, 3 seconds 6 frames, 2 seconds 17 frames, and 1 second 23 frames, creating a stacking and slow-motion effect. With increasingly shorter times leading to a climax, the emotion peaked, and after the five shots, he deliberately extended the shots longer each time, gradually easing the emotion.
This editing segment, Murphy spent 15 seconds pushing to a climax and then took twice as long to return to calm, giving the audience time to feel Diego Ross's emotions.
In this editing, Murphy controlled 70% of the rhythm. Unlike his previous fast-paced films, this film's pace was significantly slower. Only when there were many physical actions did the editing pace quicken, while for walking and everyday street scenes, the pace closely resembled natural life.
Of course, he also used some editing techniques, such as extending seemingly insignificant shots when the plot was urgent. The moment before the tension peaked was when it was time to cut.
Editing is a profession heavily reliant on talent. Without sufficient talent, one might become a good editor through hard work, but becoming a master is almost impossible.
Murphy had some talent in this area.
He constructed the entire film's story through editing with six elements, listed in order: emotion, story, rhythm, visual tracking, spatial continuity, and two-dimensional plane.
Murphy treated these priorities as a mode and editing plan to ensure the film didn't have editing issues.
Among them, the top three were the most important: emotion, story, rhythm. These three were indispensable, and through years of practical experience, Murphy could see they were closely connected and played a significant role.
Although he was the film's director, Murphy tried to keep an objective stance during editing, not considering himself the director but a viewer, genuinely feeling the rhythm, details, and whether the scenes were engaging.
Some films suit certain methods, and they must be edited accordingly. For most commercial films, the best editing makes the audience overlook the editing's existence. However, for this niche film, it had to highlight a different kind of editing presence.
This is why Murphy invested so much effort in the editing.
After completing the rough cut of the entire film, Murphy didn't relax but reviewed the entire film, searching for unnecessary shots and cutting them out. Removing these shots would make the film more fluid.
Spending an entire month, just before Thanksgiving, Murphy finally finished the film's editing and produced an official trailer for 20th Century Fox's marketing department.
Due to the limited budget, marketing, and distribution for this film were also limited. For instance, there was only one trailer instead of the usual three or four.
As Thanksgiving approached in late November, Murphy still had voiceovers, music, and sound editing to complete. However, he temporarily set aside post-production work, bringing in a costume designer to prepare suitable attire for himself and Gal Gadot for the upcoming film premiere.
Directed by Seth Rogen, starring the Stanton Party, and distributed by 20th Century Fox, "This Is the End" was set to release in over 3,700 theaters in North America on the weekend before Thanksgiving.
This sci-fi horror comedy, featuring many Hollywood stars playing themselves, had garnered significant media attention before its release. 20th Century Fox specially prepared a grand global premiere for the film at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.
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