A Quote by Xavier Dolan

The problems I have with a flawed script are always revealed in the editing room. — © Xavier Dolan
The problems I have with a flawed script are always revealed in the editing room.
All three parts of filmmaking [writing, shooting, editing] contribute to rhytm. You want the script to be a tight as possible, you want the acting to be as efficient as possible on the set, and you have enough coverage to manipulate the rhythm in the editing room, and then in the editing room you want to find the quickest possible version, even if it's a leisurely paced film. I definitely in filmmaking more and more find writing and directing a means to harvest material for editing. It's all about editing.
There's a lot of films that have relatively rigid road maps because they have a script and others that are less rigid because they have less of a script, like 'Elephant.' The road map becomes more interpretive, maybe, than one with a detailed script. Editing-wise, they all have their problems.
Movies get found in the editing room. The movie that you make is not always necessarily the movie that comes out of the editing room. The trick is to perfect the movie that you have and make it the best version of what you've shot, regardless of what the intent may have been.
The idea that a film is created in the editing room - it's only a certain kind of movie that's made in the editing room and it's not one that I really want to see.
Because the filming process was so organic and there was no script, the film [Dream of Life] was literally telling us what it wanted to be in the editing room.
Even if I loved the script, the director has to be right because it's all about the filmmaker. It's their vision. They're the ones that go back into the editing room and reassemble the film.
If you have script problems and you don't fix them by the time you shoot, your script problems are now 40 feet tall.
Particularly in the final stages I always find that I'm rushed. It's dangerous when you're rushed in the editing stage, most of my early films are flawed in the cutting
Particularly in the final stages I always find that I'm rushed. It's dangerous when you're rushed in the editing stage, most of my early films are flawed in the cutting.
Well, you always discover a lot in the editing room. Particularly the action, because you have to over-shoot a lot and shoot an enormous amount of material because many of the sequences have to be discovered in the editing and manipulation of it.
I love the idea that the editing room is the final time you write. You should still be creatively solving problems even at that point. It's not really until you're locked that you can call it quits.
What you write on the page has nothing to do with when you're on set. When you're on set, it has nothing to do with when you're in the editing room. And when you're in the editing room, it has nothing to do with the final movie. You just have to let it go.
As a young filmmaker, I shot a lot of stuff because I wanted to make sure that I got everything, but now I've gotten much more precise with my shooting. Editing is a whole other layer because then, sometimes you realize characters don't even need to say this or that. It becomes an issue of exposition, and over-explaining something. In the script, I'd reinforce certain things about what I wanted people to know two or three times, but in the editing room, I'd be like, "I only need to say this once, maybe twice."
Whenever I'm doing any film, there's always three different things. There's the script, which is really just a blueprint. And then, you shoot the movie and it's an entirely different experience than you would expect from reading the script. And then, there's the whole post process and the editing, and it becomes something else entirely.
I'm in awe of directors like the Coen brothers who can shoot their script and edit it, and that's the movie. They're not discovering the movie in postproduction. They're editing the script they shot.
I watched a lot of movies from all over the world. The Russians were very good at editing. They were specialists in editing. The Man with a Camera, if you know that movie, is incredible. I still don't understand how it works. It's a movie with no script, no actors and still it works. It's really good. It's really about editing.
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