American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 82

I

Cinematographer-Editor Collaboration
More Crucial Than Ever
By Edgar Burcksen, ACE

When digital technologies started to make inroads in cutting
rooms, images were still captured on film. Although editors were
struggling to keep up with the new technology and trying to redefine what our job meant, cinematographers were not affected in a
big way; they still
worked with their
trusted
equipment,
crew and color timers
for theatrical releases,
and for TV projects they
adjusted easily to the
colorists who were at
the dials of the telecine.
Everyone in the imagemaking chain was still
dealing with film negative, and they relied on
well-defined techniques
and standards that were
in place globally for the
processing and printing
of emulsions that were
manufactured in a similar way by companies
such as Kodak and Fujifilm.
By the time cinematographers began to deal with the digital
era of their art, we had been applying our art to digital media via
ever-evolving software applications for several years. When we
edited film negative, our storytelling tools were simple: we selected
shots, measured the length of the film clips, and organized and reorganized them to tell any story in any genre. But in the digital age,
software began to give us an increasing number of tools to manipulate elements that were previously the domain of other departments.
Suddenly, we could instantly flop, flip, speed up, slow down,
dissolve, fade in, fade out, wipe, zoom in, zoom out, reframe, blow
up, size down, key, composite, title, color time, increase or decrease
contrast, and brighten or darken an image. And this was only on the
image side!
Initially, this expansion of our tools and responsibilities only
applied to the work print, or to low-resolution exports from the Avid
that were upgraded to the final in labs, where the negative was still
cut, timed and printed, or post houses that on-lined our work for
broadcast. But now that the software and storage can handle enormous amounts of data, what leaves our cutting room today is often
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June 2013

the final product, especially when we’re working, as I often do, on
independents and documentaries. If history is our guide, then this
trend in the indie world indicates what the majors will encounter in
the not-so-distant future, because innovations and “improvements”
are driven only by the desire to spend less time and money on
productions.
Clearly, when all these new tools and responsibilities were
loaded onto editors’ shoulders, they were lifted from somewhere
else. At first I welcomed
many of the new tools
because they enhanced
my storytelling abilities,
and they mainly were
derived from the field of
opticals and visual
effects. However, some
tools gave me control
over things that previously were controlled
solely by the cinematographer: Camera moves,
zooms, framing, resizing
and, perhaps more
important, color timing,
contrast and brightness
were all put on my
untrained and uneducated eye. I have used
these tools sparingly, but I have used them.
Early this year, I was asked by a good friend, cinematographer
Kees van Oostrum, ASC, to edit a tribute reel for Robby Müller, NSC,
BVK, who was going to be honored with the ASC International
Award. I admire Robby greatly, so I agreed to put together a piece
featuring interviews with directors and cinematographers who had
worked with him or were influenced by him. As I watched interviews
with such heavyweights as Janusz Kaminski; Seamus McGarvey,
ASC, BSC; and Wally Pfister, ASC, BSC, I saw their dedication and
love for what they do, but I also heard the term “storyteller”
mentioned often in respect to their work. I realized that we editors
have appropriated that term ever since Avid popularized it in the
advertising slogan “Tools for Storytellers,” and it occurred to me as
I watched Kees’ interview footage that cinematographers are storytellers as well. As the first artists to capture the narrative, they set the
tone through their use of light, framing and camera moves, all key
components in the dramatization of the story. We editors truly
appreciate the crucial contributions of the cinematographer, and
working with Kees on the Müller tribute gave him and me a rare
opportunity to discuss our jobs, how they have evolved, and how

American Cinematographer

Photo by Branko Burcksen.

Filmmakers’ Forum
American Cinematographer - June 2013

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