Multiple Oscar winning film editor & sound designer Walter Murchs distinguished 50year career reads like

a best of list of feature films. His work as both editor and sound
designer on classic films such as Apocalypse Now, The Unbearable Lightness of
Being, Ghost, The Godfather II & III, The English Patient and the Talented Mr
Ripley mean his word is virtually gospel when it comes to filmmaking. He has been the
subject of numerous books and documentaries over the years and was also the first

filmmaker awarded an Academy Award for editing on a digital system (Avid). Not one to
rest on his laurels however, Murch is slated to edit Disneys next animated
classic Tomorrowland and he also spends time mentoring with the Rolex Mentors &
Protgs program (pictured above with protg Sara Fgaier).

Murch working with his FCP set-up

Within Murchs book In the blink of an eye: A perspective on film editing he

discusses something he calls the Rule of Six.
Six elements to building the story within the edit, which he describes as a list of
priorities:
What Im suggesting is a list of priorities. If you have to give up something, dont ever
give up emotion before story. Dont give up story before rhythm, dont give up rhythm
before eye-trace, dont give up eye-trace before planarity, and dont give up planarity
before spatial continuity. (i)
These priorities can be used as a formative plan for your edit or a guideline to follow
that ensures your edit keeps your audience invested in the film.
The ideal cut is one that satisfies all the following six criteria at once.

Walter Murch working on the sound design of Apocalype Now.

How will this cut affect the audience emotionally at this particular moment in the
film?

Telling the emotion of the story is the single most important part when it comes to
editing. When we make a cut we need to consider if that edit is true to the emotion of
the story.
Ask yourself does this cut add to that emotion or subtract from it?
It is important to consider if the cut is distracting the audience from the emotion of the
story, Murch believes that emotion is the thing that you should try to preserve at all
costs,
How do you want the audience to feel? If they are feeling what you want them to feel all
the way through the film, youve done about as much as you can ever do. What they
finally remember is not the editing, not the camerawork, not the performances, not even
the storyits how they felt. (i)

Murch working in FCP

Does the edit move the story forward in a meaningful way?

Each cut you make needs to advance the story. Dont let the edit become bogged in
subplot (if it isnt essential) if the scene isnt advancing the story, cut it.
Remember what Faulkner says Kill all your darlings (yes, hes talking about writing but
its also true in filmmaking).
If the story isnt advancing, its confusing or worse boring your audience.

Walter Murch speaking at Sundance

Is the cut at a point that makes rhythmic sense?

Like music, editing must have a beat, a rhythm to it. Timing is everything.
it occurs at a moment that is rhythmically interesting and right'
If the rhythm is off, your edit will look sloppy, a bad cut can be jarring to an
audience. Try to keep the cut tight and interesting.
These top three emotion, story, rhythm are essential to get right.
Now, in practice, you will find that those top three things on the listare extremely
tightly connected. The forces that bind them together are like the bonds between the
protons and neutrons in the nucleus of the atom. Those are, by far, the tightest bonds,
and the forces connecting the lower three grow progressively weaker as you go down
the list.

How does the cut affect the location and movement of the audiences focus in
that particular film?
You should always be aware of where in the frame you want your audience to look, and
cut accordingly. Match the movement from one side of the screen to the other, or for a
transition, matching the frame shape or symbol, e.g. Murch when editing Apocalypse
Now uses the repetition of symbol, from a rotating ceiling fan to helicopters.
Break the screen into four quadrants, and try to keep the movement in one of those
quadrants. For instance, if your character is reaching from the top left quadrant, and his
eyes are focused to the right lower quadrant that is where your audiences focus will
naturally move after the cut.

Remember to edit on the movement

and match the action

Remember to edit on movement and to match the action, keeping the continuity as
close as possible.

Is the axis followed properly?

Make sure your cuts follow the axis (180 line). This will keep the action along its
correct path of motion and maintain the continuity. Looking at your quadrants again, be
sure the movement flows along the same path, for example a car leaving the left side of
frame, would enter again via the right. Sticking to the 180 line (Ill explain this more
below) allows the audience to keep track of the spatial place of characters and objects
in your film.

Using a reverse-angle in the preceding shot would be disconcerting to the audience,

due to crossing the 180 line

Is the cut true to established physical and spacial relationships?

During shooting the 180 rule states that you draw an imaginary in between your
characters and keep the camera on just one side of that line, this is true for editing also.

This rule should always be adhered to, unless you purposely break it. Breaking the 180
line works really well if you want your audience feeling confused, or to disorientate
them.
A great example of which is Stanley Kubricks The Shining, scattered throughout are
reverse-angle wide shots between characters, the freezer door opens from both sides of
frame (from one cut to the next), even the architecture of the set makes no sense with
doorways to rooms that spatially would be somewhere mid-air above stair ways. Even

the managers office (where Jack is interviewed) has a window with a view to outside
despite it being located in the middle of the hotel/set.

Kubrick crossed the 180 line many times through out The Shining
The point is, stick to the 180 rule, and spatially your edit will work, unless
you really want to mess with your audiences minds

Murch likes to edit standing up (copyright Rolex)

Murch states that above all else emotion is the most vital element, beyond that the top
three should really be at the forefront of the edit. He even assigned values to each rule
and its relevant importance.
The values I put after each item are slightly tongue-in-cheek, he writes, but not
completely: Notice that the top two on the list (emotion and story) are worth far more
than the bottom four (rhythm, eye-trace, planarity, spatial continuity, and when you
come right down to it, under most circumstances, the top of the listemotionis worth
more than all five of the things underneath it.
If you find you have to sacrifice [any one] certain of those six things to make a cut,
sacrifice your way up, item by item, from the bottom. (i)