There's an old saying in the industry that an editor creates three times. The script is the first degree, the shooting is the second degree, and the editing is the third degree. Under the control of a clever editor, a mediocre film may be rejuvenated, and a dull literary film may become suspenseful.

Sometimes editing as needed can subvert a film, or even change the film to another genre, such as cutting a youth film into a thriller as long as there is enough material.

The film is generally edited by this process, sorting, rough cutting, primary cutting, and fine editing.

Zhang Ran looked at the light, quickly pulled the material, selected the required shots, and then sorted the film film according to the development of the story.

Sequencing is really about choosing how the story is narrated and telling the story in the best possible way. Editors, like text editors, just don't use the camera as a word and rephrase the words to form sentences. For example, in the scene where two people are talking in a restaurant, you can first give a panoramic view and tell the audience the environment in which the characters are located, and then give a close-up shot to have a dialogue; you can also give a close-up shot first, explain the characters, tell the audience who is talking to whom, and then give the panorama and explain the environment. Editors combine the same shots into clips in different ways, each creating a different atmosphere and even telling a different story.

Now Zhang Ran is editing a three-minute short film, and he doesn't plan to play any tricks in the order of editing, and goes directly in the normal logical order.

Once the order of the shots is determined, it's time for a rough cut. Zhang Ran picked up the film of the first shot and looked at it carefully, and this time he looked very carefully, looking at it picture by scene, in order to find the best editing point.

The so-called editing point is when the shot is switched. Choosing the editing point is the most important step in editing, and the proper selection of the editing point can make the action of the characters in the whole film continuous, the lens transition is natural and smooth, and the content conforms to the logic of life and the audience's visual appreciation habits. Improper selection of editing points may make the actions of the characters in the film awkward, or the ideograms are repetitive, or the rhythm is delayed, and even make the content of the picture go against the logic of life, making the audience feel incomprehensible.

Zhang Ran usually chooses the editing point mainly to see where the actor blinks, and finds the position where the actor blinks. Because the eyes are the windows of the soul, and the eyelids are the windows of the synchronization of the brain and the mouth. If the actor is good enough, then when they blink, the character's mood is changing, so that they can decide where to cut.

This approach originated from editing master Walter Murch, a USC teacher and editor for The English Patient, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather 3, and a two-time Oscar winner for Best Editing. He wrote his editing method into a book called "In the Blink of an Eye", which is a required textbook for film students at universities in the United Kingdom and the United States.

However, Zhang Ran now directly looks at the film to select the editing point, the picture of the film is only 35 mm, and it is impossible to see whether the character is blinking, so he adopts another selection method, looking at the action of the character, and finding the frame where the character's action begins and ends, so as to choose the appropriate editing point.

The first shot of the film is the push shot, the first picture that appears is the office scene, it is a panoramic shot, and then the camera is pushed forward diagonally, and the male protagonist appears in the shot, and the picture becomes a medium shot, and the camera continues to push forward and becomes a close-up shot, and finally when the male protagonist is in the center of the shot, it becomes a close-up shot.

This shot was shot at the office for about a second, and then pushed forward, it is easier to choose the editing point, and Zhang Ran took the moment the camera pushed forward as the starting editing point.

At the end of the shot, the protagonist is in the center of the shot and makes a deep breath movement, so Zhang Ran uses the frame where the protagonist takes a deep breath as the editing point at the end of this shot.

After determining the editing point of this shot, Zhang Ran marked it with a pen, then put it on the editing table, clicked twice, and cut off the head and tail of the film.

"Blind cut!" Josh Trunk covered his mouth and let out a scream, his eyes full of incredulity.

"How is it possible that Robin can blind cut?" Neil was simply stupid. This is blind cutting, this technology is top in Hollywood, you can get an annual salary of hundreds of thousands in Hollywood with this technology, can you use it to go back to China?

"It's really blind cutting! He really mastered this technique, it's incredible!" Lin Yibin was almost speechless.

Not only them, but even the three judges on the stage were very surprised: "Unbelievable, I actually saw the blind cut, a young man in his twenties actually mastered the blind cut!"

"It's really a blind cut, it's been a magical afternoon!"

"Zhang is only in his twenties, and he has mastered blind cutting, it's incredible!"

Sun Li heard many people exclaiming about blind scissors, so he asked Huang Lei: "What is blind scissors?"

Huang Lei also heard this word for the first time, and shook his head: "I don't know either." ”

This is not because Huang Lei is ignorant, mainly because editing has not been valued by the industry in China for a long time, and many people regard editing as a simple technical job, or even as a puppet to convey the director's intentions. Nortel's directing department did not open an editing major until 2005, and before that, many domestic film and television schools did not have an editing major.

Domestic film awards are dazzling, and there have been no editing awards, lacking recognition and incentives for editors. Therefore, some people think that the overall level of domestic films has a lot to do with the fact that editors have not been valued for a long time.

Bai Yunfei didn't know much about the technical means of the movie, and when he heard the people around him exclaim the blind cut, he asked, "What is the blind cut, is it very powerful?"

"You must have played sniper when you played CS, right?"

"Of course I did!"

"This is the same as the blind sniping of CS, directly watching the film, and then editing, of course, in terms of difficulty, it is much more difficult than blind sniping. The motion picture film is only 35 mm, and the picture is very small, so it is easy to make mistakes. USC teacher Walter Murch is a master of blind clipping, and USC pride. Now some of the newly graduated students from our school have mastered blind scissors, see what else they have to be proud of!" Huang Ming laughed.

When Coppola finished filming "Apocalypse Now", he handed over the footage to editor Walter Murch and asked him to edit it. Apocalypse Now was filmed at 1.25 million feet, or 381,000 meters, and lasted 230 hours. This length absolutely frustrated the editor, it would take more than half a month just to play all the shots once, and it would take at least ** months to cut a film of 2 hours and 25 minutes at a normal rate, but Walter Murch completed the editing in five months, and it was done extremely well.

Afterwards someone asked Walter Murch how he did it, and he said one word - blind cut! Since then, blind cut has become an editor's honor, representing the top level.

When Zhang Ran saw the record of blind cutting in "In the Blink of an Eye", he thought it was interesting, so he found a lot of old movie films to practice. I've been practicing for four or five years now, and although there is still a considerable gap compared to Walter Murch, a real editing wizard, it's still more than enough to cut short films.

Jason on the other side of the stage was also taken aback, blind cut, this guy can blind cut!

However, he was a student of Walter Murch after all, and he knew a lot about blind scissors, so he immediately calmed down. He knows that blind cutting is a very good technique, and he can't do it, but he may not lose this game, blind cutting doesn't look at the playing picture, only looks at the film picture, and it completely depends on the editor's feeling, and it is easy to make mistakes by feeling.

In fact, blind editing does not mean that the editing level of the work is necessarily high, just like drifting is played well, and it is not necessarily a top racer. It's just that those who master blind editing are top editors, and everyone naturally thinks that those who can blind cut are top editors.

But Zhang Ran is an exception, after he saw the record of blind cutting in "In the Blink of an Eye", he thought it was interesting, so he practiced this. I have practiced until now, and after practicing for four or five years, I have a first glimpse of the door. To say that his real editing level is still quite far from that of top editors.

Jason took a breath, calmed down the mood swings caused by the blind cut, and concentrated on editing in more detail. Zhang Ran can cut blindly, and the speed is absolutely unbeatable, and he puts the hope of winning on the last two.

The scenes of the short films edited by Zhang Ran are relatively simple, there are no big scenes, no complex actions, and the selection of editing points is relatively easy, and he quickly cuts all the shots.

At this time, Zhang Ran re-examined the entire short film and felt that there were many shots that could be removed, in fact, he had this feeling when he was sorting, but now this feeling is even stronger. However, if these shots are removed, the length of the short film is not enough, and if he had cut it according to his idea, the cut film would have been a little more than 2 minutes.

The second game of the editing contest is to compare accuracy, and the cut film is closest to winning in three minutes, and it will definitely lose if you cut it according to Zhang Ran's idea, and it is difficult to predict what the result of the third game will be.

After pondering for a few seconds, Zhang Ran made up his mind to follow his own ideas, since he was editing, he should cut out the best effect in his heart, and he couldn't be imprisoned by the competition. So, he picked out the shots that he felt could be omitted and threw them aside.

The editing soon moved on to the fine cut, which no longer focused on the whole film, but on the details of the editing, reinforcing and consolidating the rhythm and structure determined by the initial cut. At this time, the editing was completely calculated in frames, Zhang Ran didn't dare to hold it up, and used the film viewer to check the edited footage. Most of the frames of the shots are jammed and do not need to be modified, except for a few shots that need to be cut.

After all the shots were cut, Zhang Ran stuck the film on the splicer, brushed with glue, and then started the machine to press the film together. When all the shots are connected together, the editing of the film is complete.

Zhang Ran did not play his edited film on the projector, to see how it went, he stood up confidently, walked quickly to the center of the stage, and pressed his red buzzer.

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The timer stopped at 19 minutes and 23 seconds!

This speed is so amazing that Jason Reitman's eight games almost all took 256 points to complete the edit, and Zhang Ran's editing speed is six or seven minutes faster. In terms of editing speed, the two are not at the same level at all!

The audience was stunned, and the entire Royce Auditorium fell silent.

(Thanks to "readers who love novels, 3ktom, sleeping lazy cats, Orfenglin, Trojan Horse Liuniu, and Xiao Yao'er's cute fruits" for the reward.) Ask for collections, ask for recommendations!)