Plummy Tucker on Destroyer PDF

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Summary

Response to an editing article focusing on Plummy Tucker...

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Paige Bowers

Karyn Kusama’s Destroyer was such an incredible movie to indulge in. I saw it last semester at a free Columbia screening and Karyn Kusama herself was there for a Q+A afterwards, and that itself was such a cool experience. Getting the read the methodology behind the editor was a very cool experience in itself as well. I really enjoyed the movie and seeing it from an editors perspective enhances it just that much more which I find really interesting. Editing is a very broad and yet specific field and so much goes into something that you don’t want to notice, and hearing why and how people made the choices they did is awesome, especially for such a twist movie and flash forward- flashback piece of film. She brought up points here and there that I found not only interesting but helpful. Points like “I’ll ask if they have any references of other material that they think would be useful to me to watch or read or music to listen to, that is informing the way they are thinking about the film. Often I find that’s helpful as far as getting a better picture of what their vision is.”. In the end the movie is the director's vision, it's what the director wants to see and wants to tell so the editors job is to tell that. Of course the editor can add their creative spins add styles to it but in the end its very reliant on what the director wants. So, if the director can give you anything and reference you to anything to give you a clearer vision on what to work on, that can be very beneficial. Especially music, editing is almost like music in itself with pacing, beats and tempo. Its essentially a visual orchestration. Music also just sets a mood for anything it is involved with so it could really be great for setting tone with nothing but a few listens or putting in the background while you edit. “Bill would sit there with Peter and make notes of different lines, or looks or things that

struck him. He would have those notes when he went to screen the footage before cutting the scene. He would go in and mark in and outs with grease pencil on all the pieces of each take that he liked and we would assemble them.” This aspect of the article was quite interesting. It gives you a little peek into what other editors processes are like. What helps them the most when editing and how that passes to assistants or what you can do yourself as a future editor. Little things here and there that help you when you sit in front of a computer or when your given the dailies. Everyone has their own style and if you can find the things that help you most that is pretty cool and something worth sharing like Karyn says here. It must be fascinating apprenticing under master editors like that just to see how their mind works and what you can do to do the best you can from learning from the best in the business. Kayrn said she did it too after she saw Bill Anderson do it, generations gift things to their preceding generations. Plummy Tucker really did a good job with explaining explicitly what it was like working editing and on set. She has worked with Karyn for so long and really to her advantage because after working with someone so long you really know how they work or what they like, you slowly build that sense of trust and creative back and forth. Having someone like that to always work with and go back to is what the industry generally tends to cling to but I can definitely see why for her perspective and explanation....