and is also fascinated by the technology. Jim shoots a lot of material but, unlike a lot of people, he shoots a lot of really good material.
TO: And both The Abyss and Terminator 2 had tremendous visual effects. Can you recall your reactions when you first saw what was being developed?
CB: Astounding! (Both laugh) And ironically, it was my old friend Dennis Muren who was the visual effects supervisor. The water tentacle in The Abyss was mind blowing. The first time I saw the test it was—Oh My God—staggering. But this is Jim and honestly he is the guy who pushes all this—witness Avatar, Titanic, True Lies, and Terminator 2.
TO: True Lies is great because of the balance between action and humor.
CB: He’s very good at the balance between story and character and incredible action sequences. His films are always events and they’re always wonderfully thought out and that’s what’s great about working with him. One of my favorite moments in The Abyss is a scene that Joel Goodman edited. And I thought he did an absolutely brilliant job. And it is the scene between Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Ed Harris where she is essentially drowning. It was so well put together and the choices were staggeringly good.
TO: It is so suspenseful and so hard to watch.
CB: It’s beautifully done. In Terminator 2, I have a fondness for what we called ‘The Canal Chase’, when the bad terminator pursues the boy and Arnold rescues him. I cut that scene and it was all on KEMs and Moviolas and I’m quite proud of that scene.
TO: It’s great.
CB: It’s very satisfying. Now, on True Lies, one of the most complicated sequences I ever worked on was the Harrier sequence when Arnold is trying to rescue his daughter. And that took me weeks and weeks because of the amount of footage, the techniques that were used that Jim devised, and how to blend them seamlessly. It was very challenging so I’m proud of that one area. On Titanic, the concept was that Jim was going to edit the film himself. And he just got too busy. So, I went over to his house and he showed me some footage from his dive to the actual Titanic, which was used for all the R.O.V. exploration. And it was magnificent and stunning material and it was just jaw dropping. It was way beyond your expectation. And that doesn’t happen very often.
TO: Did you realize how successful the film was going to be?
CB: I started getting dailies and immersing myself in the film, but I had no idea how impactful the film was going to be.
TO: What did you start with?
CB: The first scene I was assigned was the ‘Poop Deck Sequence’, which sounded rather benign when I signed up. Well, the poop deck sequence involved the final moments of Rose running to the end of the ship as it’s going down. And she and Jack are clinging to life along with a handful of others as the ship is descending for its final plunge. It was technically very complicated because there were multiple techniques employed and multiple camera crews had shot material. Jim had done the principal photography and stunt work and then there were miniature units, things that had to be composited, and things you had to imagine. And the challenge was to marry all these different techniques and make it seamless.
TO: How much was length an issue in the cutting room?
CB: At one point, Jim and Richard (Harris) and I were discussing the length and I suggested the David Lean approach of putting in an intermission. But Jim felt that there was no way to break it up and he was right.
TO: If you had done that, where was it going to be?
CB: It would have been somewhere near spotting the iceberg. But it wasn’t necessary. Even though it’s a very long film, it’s compelling enough.
TO: Let’s talk about Oscar night.
CB: You don’t want to think about being nominated and you try to dismiss it. And when I heard my name called at the Academy Awards, it was exhilarating. You sort of float to the stage hoping that you don’t blow the acceptance speech!
TO: Are there films that you edited that, for whatever reason, didn’t do as well as they should have and that you feel the reader should revisit?
CB: One of my personal favorites is Jennifer Eight and another is Seraphim Falls. And they both have flaws but the experiences were great.
TO: When you edited Rise of the Planet of the Apes, what was unique to you as a new experience?
CB: That was a new challenge for me and it keeps you going and I learned a great deal on that film. Andy Serkis flat out did a wonderful job. It was his performance that we were trying to harness. I was, initially, stymied because I wondered how in the world I was going to make editorial selections based on the performance. Here is an actor, in a gray suit, with all sorts of reference markers on him, being captured by various cameras. And he is interacting with actors.
TO: So what specifically was challenging about that?
CB: One of the difficulties is that the interaction with Andy Serkis and Freida Pinto, James Franco, and John Lithgow was that they, as actors, responded best performance wise in the shots where Andy Serkis was present. Very often we had to utilize what we call clean plates, where we would shoot the scene again without Andy Serkis in it. And the actors would try to emulate the performance and the physicality of the previous takes that Andy was in. And I found that incredibly difficult to harness his performance and integrate and structure the scenes. And remember, at this point, you’re still watching a cut that has actors interacting with people in gray motion capture suits.
TO: Right, the ape characters aren’t there yet.
CB: Yes, and it was hard for the studio to experience the emotionality that we had gotten used to in the cutting room. Act two was virtually without dialogue. So there were vast passages where we had motion capture actors pretending to be apes. Is the scene working? Is the second act working? It was enormously challenging and I credit the director, Rupert Wyatt, who was able to endure a year of shooting and a year of post-production and being able to overcome the challenges of limited visual information.
TO: Other than the intensive use of motion capture, was this like working on a normal feature?
CB: No, it was, for me, like working on an animated film.
TO: What do you mean?
CB: We had the ability to change not only the performance but also the physicality of how a character would get from A to B in a shot or in a scene. We could alter time and space.
TO: This is an important point you’re making. Because you could also alter the performances of the apes.
CB: Yes, and that’s the first time I’ve ever been able to do that! And it was incredibly educational and challenging. It’s yet another tool in the arsenal.
TO: You’re rewriting yet again.
CB: Yes, exactly. And we did a lot of rewriting.
TO: That’s pretty amazing. What have you learned along the way?
CB: The thing that I didn’t realize initially was what an amazing impact editorial has on a film. How you can truly have a significant impact on reactions and how people perceive the film. Just through the manipulation of imagery, sound, and music. But I think the biggest thing for me was you can significantly alter peoples’ perceptions.
TO:
