Meeting Mirrione

Film festivals are a great way for people in the filmmaking community to get out there and expand their circle. Great movies and world premieres aside, VIFF hosted a series of workshops at its Film+TV Forum, where I was fortunate to witness Academy award-winning Stephen Mirrione deliver a powerful, engaging presentation on the importance and impact of the editor in the filmmaking process. I have been a big fan of Mirrione's work for many years, so this was a special occasion for me.

Although most folks don't know good editing when they see it– because afterall that's the goal, for them not to see it– a film editor on the other hand has the ability to appreciate and deconstruct all the elements on screen. But at the same time, an editor has to be able to let go of the minutiae and experience the film from a viewer's perspective. So the trick to observing good editing falls somewhere between conscious and subconscious– like recalling a funny line or thinking after the fact about how great the acting was. Good editing should make an impact on your subconscious without being distracting.

Mirrione spoke at length and with great passion about his contributions to the films he has edited, including Swingers, Go, 13 Conversations About One Thing (one of my faves), Traffic, Ocean's 11/12/13, 21 Grams, Babel, and his latest Biutiful, by Inarritu. Stephen showed many specific scenes, even various versions of the same scene, as support for his statements, which were a real treat, because we really got to understand some of his thought process and to what degree he made his mark on the films he worked on.

I first became familiar with Mirrione's work when I saw Traffic, which I embarrassingly caught late on DVD. But this was actually a blessing because in one of the bonus features, Mirrione recounted his process of editing a particular scene, showing his Avid timeline and giving insight into the process of building that scene. At the time, I was cutting my first feature, and I was covering a lot of new theoretical territory; it's a lot different cutting a feature than shorts and event videography. So in the process, often I felt like I was making it up as I went along. So when I watched Mirrione's special feature, I was very encouraged to find out that his techniques and mine were very much alike, some of which is outlined in my "accidental editing" post.

If you are not familiar with Stephen's work, I encourage you to go out and watch/re-watch his films, and this time try to pay attention to the editing in a self-reflective sort of way to better understand how editing affects your experience. You might not enjoy the movie quite as much as a viewer, but it will likely give you an insight into what editors do: keep you from seeing our work, yet reaching you on a subconscious level. And if you are an editor and know exactly what I'm talking about, go rent his movies and enjoy the ride!

(from left) Eliot Piltz, Stephen Mirrione and Mary Frymire at VIFF 2010

Hey Stephen, perhaps we can co-edit Mary's next feature! A kid can dream. And good thing I do.