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Walter Murch on the Rule of Six


Jeff Wexler

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I love listening to Walter, huge influence in my life and the approach to movie-making. A little too intellectual for many, too full of himself and his theories for some, but I have really put many of these concepts to use even in our lowly craft of production sound mixing.

 

 

“How do you want the audience to feel? If they are feel­ing what you want them to feel all the way through the film, you’ve done about as much as you can ever do. What they finally remember is not the editing, not the camerawork, not the performances, not even the story—it’s how they felt.” 

 

Read the whole article HERE

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Olle, "THX 1138" originally was the 480 film (Graduate project) at USC film school. It was 12 mins long because that was the maximum length allowed. Lucas directed and Murch edited the film with others. It was a year after school that they made it into a feature.

 

I am also a big fan of the man and his work. My good friend Joe Woo was his assistant editor on many films with Walter. I have given many people his book "In the Blink of an Eye" and think everyone in film should read it at least once. As for his lectures and articles, well,I enjoy the many topics he has covered. Definitely a renaissance man of many interest. I wish he stopped by here once and awhile, but I doubt he'd have much tolerance or time for a lot of the petty BS we engage in at times. 

 

As for the rule of 6, it definitely applies to our world of PSMixing IMO.

CrewC

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He's the Strunk & White of the film world.

 

Cannot edit anymore without eyeing the blinks that occur at each cut, darn sophisticated yet devilishly simple.  

 

The way Murch organizes his 'hierarchy of needs' is equally simple and powerful. Often catch myself obsessing over something lower on the totem pole (screen direction or crossing the line or color issues or my compulsive need to over-explain) to the detriment of story, and have to remind myself to refocus on emotional forward momentum.

 

Though, I will say that one of an editor's greatest friends is the Flop effect (because screen direction still IS important) ;-)

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  • 1 year later...

Olle, "THX 1138" originally was the 480 film (Graduate project) at USC film school. It was 12 mins long because that was the maximum length allowed. Lucas directed and Murch edited the film with others. It was a year after school that they made it into a feature.

This was a fun thing to do during grad school when in the library, checking out all the famous alum's thesis films. If you know a student there, make a day of it.

Saw Murch speak at a local FCP users group, read Blink of an Eye...the cats a Modern Master.

Best,

Steven

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