The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Part II: Special Effects

The story of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was written by F Scott Fitzgerald a long time ago. Many directors considered making the movie, but it wasn't until recently that the technology was available to produce the story convincingly. Extensive special effects were used, but they were virtually invisible because they were used in the service of the story and not just to announce that the FX guys had a big budget and the smarts to do it!

Did you wonder how they accomplished the remarkable aging effect of taking Brad Pitt from a shrunken old man to a robust 20-something hunk? Well, from a technical standpoint, the Benjamin Button character is a composite of a body actor and a computer-generated (CGI) face. First the body actor delivered temporary dialogue in the scene with other actors. Then, Brad Pitt recorded temporary dialogue that was used for pacing in the rough cut. Once the scenes were edited and were close to the final version, they shot scenes of Brad’s face performing. His performance was then mapped onto a CGI head which was then mapped onto the body actor’s torso.

The only mis-step in the film was in a scene in which Cate Blanchett was telling a fable which was given a movie-within-a-movie look. It was overdone and distracting to the point of interfering with the story. At times, we feel wedding videography filmed in super 8 mm suffers from the same malady. At its best, super 8 mm can convey a sweet, nostalgic timelessness. But too often super 8 mm just looks like shaky, out-of-focus, poorly exposed home movies.

Whether it's in a dramatic feature film or a personal wedding movie, special effects should be used to further the story and not just for their own sake.

On Film Editing

I've been reading a good book lately. A real page turner. Well, at least it is to me. It's "On Film Editing" by the film director Edward Dmytryk, most famous for directing The Caine Mutiny and 50 other movies. He started out as a film editor, and has some insights that are as relevant today as when he wrote the book 25 years ago. Here are some of his pearls of wisdom.

Dmytryk makes a distinction between a cutter and an editor. A cutter is a technician who merely assembles the pieces, mostly in the order they were shot. An editor is a thinking, creative person who carefully juxtaposes cuts to obtain the greatest audience involvement, to allow the viewer to be caught up in the mood, to arouse the viewer's own emotional responses. And a good editor senses the viewer's attention span, holding a shot long enough to deliver its desired effect, but never so long that interest fades, and never repeatng a clever shot.

Dmytryk notes:

o Film is the most dynamic of all the arts and is the most popular art form in the world.
o The development of film technique has been primarily the development of editing.
o Without film editing, the best movie would be only a photographed stage play.
o Film editing is the art of filmmaking.
o By means of a "cut", a filmmaker can fly through space and time, and can intensify emotions.
o A film's first viewing should evoke an emotional reaction.
o Substance first, then form.
o Reactions are essential to a good movie. Cause and effect, action and reaction.
o The "human situation" is what good films are all about and technical skill counts for nothing if it is used only to make films which have little to do with humanity.

An editor...

o ...Improves a film by eliminating redundancies, by creative manipulation of the film's pace and the timing of reactions.
o The finer the editor's technique, the less noticeable is his contribution.

Here are some movies that are beautifully edited. Through careful arrangement of images and sounds, they create strong emotions such as joy or sadness, desire or revulsion, compassion or anger, confidence or fear, triumph or despair. And they make you feel that way every time you watch them. They make you care.

Amadeus
Apollo 13
Citizen Kane
The Color Purple
Crash
E.T.
Field of Dreams
The Godfather
High Noon
It's a Wonderful Life
Jaws
Joy Luck Club
Mr. Holland's Opus
Ordinary People
Rainman
Rear Window
Seabiscuit
The Verdict
You've Got Mail

Editing Oscar Award Winning Movies

Here is a 7-minute video of the 5 Academy Award nominees for Best Editing. Mark Helfrich, who edited Rambo, Predator, Rush Hour, Family Man, X-Men and 30 more movies, gives incisive commentary on the style of each of the nominees and why they were chosen.

Excellent editing is a series of decisions. One key decision is the length of the individual clips. In the Bourne Ultimatum the clips were unusually short (1-2 sec), creating a tense, edgy feeling. In No Country for Old Men, the clips were rather long (7-8 sec) and also led to an almost unbearable tension. In There Will Be Blood, the unflinching camera stays on a static shot of Daniel Day Lewis for an unheard of 25 seconds, cuts away for 6 seconds, then returns for another 25 seconds. The editing does not allow you to look away. It compels you to be involved.

The key is to know which length of cut should be used in different parts of a movie and to understand the impact of that decision. During a particularly emotional vow or toast, we tend towards longer edits to capture the passion and intensity. And when the intensity is boiling just under the surface, and is expressed in a very subtle way, it's even more important to "hold the gaze" and not cut away or it would dilute the impact.

During a fast dancing piece, 1-second cuts (or faster) convey the high level of energy. As Mark Helfrich says, "Imagine having to sift through all your footage to find that perfect 1-second part of the take and stringing these 1-second shots end-to-end to create a fantastic story. A great amount of effort goes into it...and the results are fantastic." Exactly.

Another decision is whether to tell the story in a linear or non-linear way. In Into the Wild, the story was told in a very non-linear way, jumping from the present to the past and back again. Actor Hal Holbrook credits his Supporting Actor nomination to the editing on this film.

Another decision is which 'take' to choose. Good editing can put together the best of each take. How does this apply to us, since we don't direct on the wedding day or ask for a second take? We still have 2 or 3 or 4 camera angles on certain scenes and need to select the angle which is most flattering and which tells the story the best.

Another decision is whether or not to use music. In No Country for Old Men at the moment of greatest intensity, there is no music, just the sounds the protagonist would hear. And because there is no music, each sound is intensified.