
Why “Whiplash” Won an Oscar for Best Editing - soneca
http://williamdickersonfilmmaker.com/why-whiplash-won-an-oscar-for-best-editing/
======
flashman
Site is down, here's an Internet Archive mirror:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20150520140301/http://williamdick...](http://web.archive.org/web/20150520140301/http://williamdickersonfilmmaker.com/why-
whiplash-won-an-oscar-for-best-editing/)

------
column
This is really trying to find meaning where there is none. "Andrew's life
didn't need editing", wtf. It's just a way to introduce the main character and
his nemesis, that's all there is to it.

The reason it is oscar-worthy is : drums are by definition repetitive, a
character playing drums is mostly static, there are no real dialogs possible
while drums are being played, and the movie overcame all these obstacles.

~~~
morley
One of the problems is that the article ascribes a lot of decisions to the
editor that were actually made by the writer or the director. Which is weird,
because something can't be an editing decision if it had to be shot a certain
way, because editing comes all the way at the end after everything's been
shot.

Of course, writing about film is hard, because it's such a collaborative
medium. It's hard to attribute a decision to a single person, when in
actuality it was probably hinted at in the script, then improved from the
director talking to the actor, or the DP suggesting an experimental camera
angle, or the editor finding an accidental shot that just happens to work for
the scene.

So let's look at whether some of these decisions were born in "writer,"
"director", or "editor" land. I'll pretend that Whiplash wasn't written and
directed by the same guy.

    
    
      However, after rushing to get to the studio, he 
      realizes that he is early — by 3 hours. He was 
      manipulated, leading him, and us, to question: 
      should he trust Fletcher’s version of “time?”
    

This series of cause-and-effect events is the story, which is the purview of
the writer.

    
    
      Andrew re-enters the rehearsal space in slow-motion.
      He gets behind the drums, also shot in slow-motion,
      until Fletcher re-enters the room, which resets the
      film into normal motion. 
    

Again, if you had to shoot it in slomo, it wasn't the editor's decision. It's
hard to say if this would come from writing or directing. The script could say
"he approaches the bench in slow motion," or it could say "he approaches the
bench" and the director intuits that the film should ratchet up the tension.

    
    
      It’s interesting to note that while his drumming is off, 
      the editor chooses to place cuts of Andrew placing 
      band-aids on his hand that are in perfect rhythm with 
      the timing of the ride cymbal –-
    

This does sound like an editing decision. But again, the script could easily
say "He band-aids his hand in rhythm with the cymbals."

If you want to read more about some actual decisions an editor goes through, I
highly recomment In The Blink Of An Eye, written by sound and film editor
Walter Murch. Tony Zhou's Vimeo series Every Frame A Painting is great too,
although it focuses more on directing and cinematography.

------
sharkweek
Interesting article - I am always curious how the psychology behind the edits
subconsciously plays into my understanding of, and feelings toward, character
dynamics.

For those who haven't seen it, Whiplash is my favorite movie of the past
several years. The "third act" is probably the most intense finale I've seen
in quite some time as well.

Highly recommended to anyone, musical background or not.

~~~
bedhead
I am generally a movie curmudgeon with a high bar. I got it as an iTunes
rental for a long flight. iTunes only gives you 24 hours once you press play.
I watched it three times before expiring.

~~~
ectoplasm
What else do you like you as much as this?

~~~
bedhead
Spinal Tap. Point Break. Sneakers. Primer.

~~~
jdfellow
Sneakers is such a great film and so very underrated.

~~~
thorin
If you haven't seen it The Conversation is a brilliant film for a hacker. And
Pi

------
dreamcompiler
I thoroughly despised this movie. To me it felt like a celebration of a
sadistic abuser mind-raping a kid, and never being punished for it. No music
teacher I know would have gotten away with what Fletcher did without going to
jail.

This is not how you teach jazz. This is not how you teach anything.

~~~
estefan
> I thoroughly despised this movie.

You don't have to _like_ movies for them to have been good! You could despise
a character while still thinking the movie was good for _making you_ despise
the character. That's an art.

If they have a strong emotional impact on you, they've "worked" (other than if
they're just crap) because you talk about them, digest them and question their
messages. A ton of great movies explore the darker side of humanity by using
despicable characters; that's the beauty of story.

~~~
talmand
Just because a movie evokes a strong emotional impact doesn't make it good. A
strong emotional response can be highly negative as well.

If the movie is made to create a negative emotional response then I suppose
one can say it succeeded in doing so, but it still doesn't make it good to the
people who view it negatively.

~~~
estefan
Good as in effective at making the audience feel what the screenwriter set out
to make the audience feel, but not necessarily good as in enjoyable.

~~~
talmand
Saying a movie is good and saying the screenwriter is good at their job is two
different things.

I'm going with the classic definition; good as in "satisfactory in quality,
quantity, or degree" or "of high quality; excellent".

------
knucklesandwich
I really enjoyed this movie, but I also feel like it was a Rorschach test for
sociopathy. What you come away with at the end of this movie kind of says a
lot about you as a person.

~~~
ojbyrne
I felt like it was more of an attempt at justifying sociopathy, or at least
exploring the impulse towards it.

The movie essentially argues that greatness comes from external pressure, from
being pushed beyond your limits.

------
miles932
I loved this movie, and immediately commented to a few movie-buff friends of
mine that I was certain that they'd get an oscar for the sound editing. The
actual movie edit was artful and amazing, but the sound edit.. talk about
meticulous.. every single drum hit?! Called it!
[http://www.nabshow.com/thought-gallery/oscar-winner-ben-
wilk...](http://www.nabshow.com/thought-gallery/oscar-winner-ben-wilkins-
whiplash%E2%80%99s-audio-mix-edit)

~~~
anigbrowl
Sorry to be pedantic, but Whiplash won the Academy award for best sound
_mixing_ ; the award for best sound _editing_ went to American Sniper. Mixing
involves the spatial and tonal quality of the sound; editing the temporal and
semantic quality.

But either way yes, it is very meticulous, and I think you'd be even more
shocked to look at the project files, because each individual sound you hear
in a film often involves multiple layers of sound or multiple treatments of a
single source sound through different mix busses. As a rule of thumb there are
bout 10 edits on the sound track for every cut you see on screen. Thankfully
there are some tools available to partially automate the process, but in the
it requires a huge amount of work and near-endless reserves of patience.

Source: movie sound is what I (mostly) do for a living, though I haven't won
an Acamdemy award for it.

~~~
superdude
"Mixing involves the spatial and tonal quality of the sound; editing the
temporal and semantic quality."

What does that even mean? I thought sound editing was the creation of all the
sounds and sound effects, and mixing was the mixing.

~~~
anigbrowl
The same thing you said, though in a more abstract way. By _temporal_ I mean
where they go on the timeline, and by _semantic_ I mean the content of the
sound. Much of the time what you hear simply matches what you see on the
screen, either from production sound or from a sound effects library or by a
foley artist, eg if you see a glass bottle smash on the floor you will
probably just use a natural sound for that. But then you have to look at what
it means in the context of the story - suppose the bottle is being smashed on
the floor by an alcoholic who has finally decided to fight his addiction? You
migh choose to emphasize that with music, or you might emphasize it by
layering in other sounds from elsewhere in the soundtrack or some purely
expressionistic sound like a heavy lock opening. Also, you'll frequently use
sound to speed up or slow down the action by transitioning into the next scene
before or after the camera cut.

Mixing involves setting the levels of the different sounds, but it also
includes some decisions about how the sound moves, what sort of reverb and
coloration are used ( _spatial_ ) and how it's balanced against the music, how
it's EQed ( _tonal_ ).

Hope that helps.

------
brunorsini
I just recently decided to study film editing a bit deeper. Here are two
classic reads that I highly recommend:

On Film Editing Kindle Edition by Edward Dmytryk ([http://www.amazon.com/Film-
Editing-Edward-Dmytryk-ebook/dp/B...](http://www.amazon.com/Film-Editing-
Edward-Dmytryk-ebook/dp/B00AC1TAHQ))

In the Blink of an Eye Revised 2nd Edition by Walter Murch
([http://www.amazon.com/Blink-Eye-
Revised-2nd/dp/1879505622](http://www.amazon.com/Blink-Eye-
Revised-2nd/dp/1879505622)) (sadly no Kindle version exists for this one yet)

------
azhenley
Cached: [http://goo.gl/6AYpQd](http://goo.gl/6AYpQd)

------
reagency
That article illustrates the maxim that writing about music is like dancing
about architecture

------
paublyrne
Most years the big films which are up for Best Picture and Best Director, are
often nominated for other more niche awards.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was nominated for Best Sound Mixing. And
you have to wonder if it really had far and away better sound editing than
hundreds of other films that year.

------
BuildTheRobots
fyi: Whiplash was originally shot as a 20min short (different lead actor)
which then got it's budget expanded so they could re-shoot and go for a full
length movie. Annoyingly don't have details to hand.

Personally I was absolutely blown away by it...

------
swagv
Well there's a false headline. Oscar winning is the story of people, not of
objective criteria.

~~~
sp332
The article is a story.

