Lee Smith Article PDF

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Response to an editing article focusing on Lee Smith...

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Paige Bowers Lee Smith Article Lee Smith, like the other editors we’ve read about, had interesting points brought up and discussed. Like other editors he talks about his relationship with directors and who he learned under. It is a very common theme in the editing business to work with the same director frequently, directors if they can form that symbiotic relationship where they find someone who matches their thought process, styles and ideas then they will stick with them. Why not stay with the people you work super well with? If their job is to produce what they like and they do that well, then it's good to keep those people around, they are dependable and loyal and that's always what you need in a colleague. Lee Smith definitely talks about that with him and Christopher Nolan, they have worked together for so long and just seem to understand each other well. Not only do they work well together but they challenge each other. A big point brought up in the article is how Nolan challenged Smith stray away from temporary music to really get the pace of the edit as clean and naturalistic as it possibly could. When editing, music can help you set the tone, or help the editor and director get on the same page as far as mood and pacing but sometimes it may not always be the best approach. It could force something and even screw up the composer of the final score where their music won’t fit as good as it could. Nolan challenged him to try editing without it, get out of his comfort zone and pushed him to do something that in the end created a much better edit. Trying new things and out of the box things is a really great way to get different results and arises a bunch of opportunities than you may not realize when you stick to the same methods for so long. It was nice to read that as a kind of a reminder to give and take from the people you work with and try new things to get the best results you can.

This article has similarities and differences with the past two articles we’ve read. Editors tend to agree on a lot but few things here and there differ on the bigger topics. One that was brought up was more about the director. Sometimes you can have directors who want to be there every step of the way to make sure their vision is being realized, in this article it talks about how Nolan really has a lot of trust in Lee Smith and what he will produce what Christopher Nolan will like. “I don’t look at his cuts,

I don’t look at the assembly, unless he says there’s a

problem,” Nolan acknowledges. “ If he says we’re missing something, I’ll pop in and take a look at it.”. It’s almost like Nolan likes to be surprised by what Smith will produce. It's always so interesting to hear about how directors interact with their editors because it always seems to be slightly different from the next. This article had little bits and pieces of interesting aspects of how Smith and Nolan collaborate and little things that Lee Smith does and it was a short enough article to where it brought up all the necessary points to not make it too wordy and overwhelming. I enjoyed reading this one because of that and even the little details about IMAX were fun to learn about as well because I never really knew much about IMAX. Overall fun to see into both the editor and directors mind in the style and length of the article....