There are two kinds of filmmaking: Hitchcock's (the film is complete in the director's mind) and Coppola's (which thrives on process). For Hitchcock, any variation from the complete internal idea is seen as a defect. The perfection already exists. Coppola's approach is to harvest the random elements that the process throws up, things that were not in his mind when he began.

Walter Murch

By manipulating what you hear and how you hear it - and what other things you don't hear - you can not only help tell the story, you can help the audience get into the mind of the character.

Walter Murch

stories mind character

Looking at a first assembly is kind of like looking at an overgrown garden. You can't just wade in with a weed whacker; you don't yet know where the stems of the flowers are.

Walter Murch

weed garden flower

The notion of directing a film is the invention of critics - the whole eloquence of cinema is achieved in the editing room.

Walter Murch

cinema editing rooms

Film editing is now something almost everyone can do at a simple level and enjoy it, but to take it to a higher level requires the same dedication and persistence that any art form does.

Walter Murch

persistence simple art

Every film is a puzzle really, from an editorial point of view.

Walter Murch

point-of-view film views

As I've gone through life, I've found that your chances for happiness are increased if you wind up doing something that is a reflection of what you loved most when you were somewhere between nine and eleven years old. [...] At that age, you know enough of the world to have opinions about things, but you're not old enough yet to be overly influenced by the crowd or by what other people are doing or what you think you 'should' be doing. If what you do later on ties into that reservoir in some way, then you are nurturing some essential part of yourself.

Walter Murch

reflection years thinking

This applies to many film jobs, not just editing: half the job is doing the job, and the other half is finding ways to get along with people and tuning yourself in to the delicacy of the situation.

Walter Murch

editing jobs people

Writing is a process of discovery of what you really do know. You can't limit yourself in advance to what you know, because you don't know everything you know.

Walter Murch

limits writing discovery

When I'm actually assembling a scene, I assemble it as a silent movie. Even if it's a dialog scene, I lip read what people are saying.

Walter Murch

lips quiet people

As I've gone through life, I've found that your chances for happiness are increased if you wind up doing something that is a reflection of what you loved most when you were somewhere between nine and eleven years old.

Walter Murch

reflection wind years

You can always make a film somehow. You can beg, borrow, steal the equipment, use credit cards, use your friends' goodwill, wheedle your way into this or that situation. The real problem is, how do you get people to see it once it is made?

Walter Murch

real cards people

I think every age has a medium that talks to it more eloquently than the others. In the 19th century it was symphonic music and the novel. For various technical and artistic reasons, film became that eloquent medium for the 20th century.

Walter Murch

artistic age thinking

The word processor is a better tool than a quill pen because you can do so much more with it, but on the other hand, what you have to say and how you say it is the ultimate determination.

Walter Murch

tools determination hands

Most of us are searching-consciously or unconsciously- for a degree of internal balance and harmony between ourselves and the outside world, and if we happen to become aware-like Stravinsky- of a volcano within us, we will compensate by urging restraint. By that same token, someone who bore a glacier within them might urge passionate abandon. The danger is, as Bergman points out, that a glacial personality in need of passionate abandon may read Stravinsky and apply restraint instead.

Walter Murch

balance-and-harmony volcanoes personality

Every film is hard work, and a few lucky people do get Oscars for what they do, and it's recognition for all that hard work on a certain level. If you didn't do the hard work, you wouldn't be standing there. On the other hand, people do a lot of hard work and don't get Oscars, so it's a mixture of glory and injustice at the same time.

Walter Murch

hard-work hands people

The Conversation' was the first film I edited on a flatbed machine - a KEM editing machine. I've been using Final Cut or the AVID for 12 years now, so I was interested in looking at this film and seeing if I could tell if it had been edited the old way.

Walter Murch

avid cutting editing

My job as an editor is to gently prod the attention of the audience to look at various parts of the frame. And that - I do that by manipulating how and where I cut and what succession of images I work with.

Walter Murch

job look work attention

There are many, many nouns for the act of looking - a glance, a glimpse, a peep - but there's no noun for the act of listening. In general, we don't think primarily about sound. So I have a different perspective on the world; I can construct soundscapes that have an effect on people, but they don't know why. It's a sort of subterfuge.

Walter Murch

looking perspective people world

One of the rules of the road is that if you want to create the sense of silence, it frequently has more pungency if you include the tiniest of sounds. By manipulating what you hear and how you hear it and what other things you don't hear, you can not only help tell the story, you can help the audience get into the mind of the character.

Walter Murch

you silence mind character

I believe that one of the secret engines that allows cinema to work, and have the marvelous power over us that it does, is the fact that for thousands of years we have spent eight hours every night in a 'cinematic' dream-state, and so are familiar with this version of reality.

Walter Murch

power work night believe