Quotes by Walter Murch - Page 1

Sound is a huge influence on peoples' attention.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Attention
Huge
Influence
Sound
Huge Influence
Copy Quote
Every film is a puzzle really, from an editorial point of view.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Film
Point Of View
Views
Editorial
Point
Puzzle
View
Copy Quote
The notion of directing a film is the invention of critics - the whole eloquence of cinema is achieved in the editing room.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Cinema
Editing
Rooms
Copy Quote
When I'm actually assembling a scene, I assemble it as a silent movie. Even if it's a dialog scene, I lip read what people are saying.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Lips
People
Quiet
Scene
Silent
Assemble
Dialog
Lip
Silent Movie
Copy Quote
Writing is a process of discovery of what you really do know. You can't limit yourself in advance to what you know, because you don't know everything you know.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Discovery
Limits
Writing
Copy Quote
Looking at a first assembly is kind of like looking at an overgrown garden. You can't just wade in with a weed whacker; you don't yet know where the stems of the flowers are.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Flower
Garden
Weed
Copy Quote
Film editing is now something almost everyone can do at a simple level and enjoy it, but to take it to a higher level requires the same dedication and persistence that any art form does.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Art
Dedication
Editing
Enjoy
Film
Form
Higher
Higher Level
Persistence
Simple
Now
Almost
Almost Everyone
Everyone
Any
Does
Art Form
Same
Take
Level
Requires
Something
Copy Quote
The word processor is a better tool than a quill pen because you can do so much more with it, but on the other hand, what you have to say and how you say it is the ultimate determination.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Determination
Hands
Tools
Ultimate
Pen
Quill
Copy Quote
By manipulating what you hear and how you hear it - and what other things you don't hear - you can not only help tell the story, you can help the audience get into the mind of the character.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Character
Mind
Stories
Copy Quote
This applies to many film jobs, not just editing: half the job is doing the job, and the other half is finding ways to get along with people and tuning yourself in to the delicacy of the situation.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Jobs
Delicacy
Editing
People
Tuning
Finding
Copy Quote
I was greatly influenced by musique concrete when I was, like, 10. I was completely mesmerized by the idea that you could make music out of sounds. So that's been a constant influence on all my work.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Concrete
Constant
Influence
Mesmerized
All My Work
Greatly
Sounds
Copy Quote
My job as an editor is to gently prod the attention of the audience to look at various parts of the frame. And that - I do that by manipulating how and where I cut and what succession of images I work with.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Attention
Audience
Succession
Various
Job
Work Where Look
Cut
Editor
Look
Frame
Gently
Images
Manipulating
Parts
Prod
Various Parts
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As I've gone through life, I've found that your chances for happiness are increased if you wind up doing something that is a reflection of what you loved most when you were somewhere between nine and eleven years old.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Reflection
Wind
Years
Copy Quote
Film is really the one art form that can effectively use silence. Music and theater can play with silence, but they can't sustain silence without losing energy, whereas film can go into a silent mode and stay there for minutes at a time.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Losing
Minutes
Silence
Silent
Theater
Time Art Music
Art Form
Art Time Music
Effectively
Mode
Sustain
Whereas
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I think every age has a medium that talks to it more eloquently than the others. In the 19th century it was symphonic music and the novel. For various technical and artistic reasons, film became that eloquent medium for the 20th century.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Age
Artistic
Eloquent
Novel
Thinking
Became
Medium
Reasons
Talks
Technical
Copy Quote
You can always make a film somehow. You can beg, borrow, steal the equipment, use credit cards, use your friends' goodwill, wheedle your way into this or that situation. The real problem is, how do you get people to see it once it is made?
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Cards
Credit
Equipment
Goodwill
People
Real
Always Your People
Beg
Borrow
Credit Cards
Situation People Way
Real Problem
Steal
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I believe every editor should stand to edit. That's just my particular soapbox. Some things are so delicate and depend on such fine, delicate work. One frame in one direction or another can make such a difference and it is, in that, like brain surgery.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Brain Surgery
Delicate
Soapbox
Surgery
Work Believe I Believe
Depend
Edit
Editor
Frame
Some Things
Copy Quote
The Conversation' was the first film I edited on a flatbed machine - a KEM editing machine. I've been using Final Cut or the AVID for 12 years now, so I was interested in looking at this film and seeing if I could tell if it had been edited the old way.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Avid
Cutting
Editing
Copy Quote
'The Conversation' was the first film I edited on a flatbed machine - a KEM editing machine. I've been using Final Cut or the AVID for 12 years now, so I was interested in looking at this film and seeing if I could tell if it had been edited the old way.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Avid
Conversation
Edited
If I Could
Final
Final Cut
Copy Quote
I believe that one of the secret engines that allows cinema to work, and have the marvelous power over us that it does, is the fact that for thousands of years we have spent eight hours every night in a 'cinematic' dream-state, and so are familiar with this version of reality.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Cinema
Engines
Every Night
Familiar
Marvelous
Version
Thousands
Thousands Of Years
Copy Quote
Blinking is some way of tabulating - a kind of carriage return, click, or save to disk - that helps the process of 'Okay, now change the subject.' Every time you move your eyes, there's an interruption in the visual field - you go momentarily blind when your eyeballs are moving.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Blind
Disk
Eyeballs
Okay
Process
Return
Visual
Carriage
Click
Every Time
Helps
Interruption
Momentarily
Save
Subject
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There's a big link between trains and film. One of the first filmed objects was a train. The clickety-clack of the projector and the clickety-clack of the train are similar. There is the idea of the voyage - every voyage is a story. I wonder if film would have been invented without the train.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Film
Objects
Wonder
Link
Trains
Similar
Story
Voyage
Copy Quote
Take any writer you want in the 19th century: they wrote with quill pens, dipping a piece of goose feather in ink and writing. And yet we read those novels today, and if we're sensitive to them, we respond to them with an immediacy that is stronger than anything written today on a word processor.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Immediacy
Ink
Pens
Sensitive
Stronger
Respond
Dipping
Feather
Goose
Novels
Piece
Quill
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If you want to freak your cat out, stare at your cat. If you want to reassure your cat, stare at your cat, then very deliberately and very slowly blink. Like that. The cat will also deliberately, slowly blink back at you, and I almost guarantee that she will start to purr. That's a feline reassurance.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Blink
Cat
Freak
Reassurance
Start Your Will
Your Start Will
Deliberately
Start Will Your
Guarantee
Slowly
Stare
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I would be happy if they just gave out nominations and there weren't any Oscars. But winning them is definitely an experience - to get up there and make a speech. Every film is hard work, and a few lucky people do get Oscars for what they do, and it's recognition for all that hard work on a certain level.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Hard Work
Oscars
Recognition
Work Experience Hard Work
Be Happy
Certain Level
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There are many, many nouns for the act of looking - a glance, a glimpse, a peep - but there's no noun for the act of listening. In general, we don't think primarily about sound. So I have a different perspective on the world; I can construct soundscapes that have an effect on people, but they don't know why. It's a sort of subterfuge.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Different Perspective
Listening
Perspective
Sound
Looking
Act
World People I Can
General
Construct
Effect
World Looking People
Glance
World Perspective People
Noun
Primarily
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Every film is hard work, and a few lucky people do get Oscars for what they do, and it's recognition for all that hard work on a certain level. If you didn't do the hard work, you wouldn't be standing there. On the other hand, people do a lot of hard work and don't get Oscars, so it's a mixture of glory and injustice at the same time.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Glory
Hands
Hard Work
Injustice
Oscars
People
Recognition
Standing
Time Work Hard Work
Certain Level
Work Time Hard Work
Work Time People
Mixture
Copy Quote
One of the rules of the road is that if you want to create the sense of silence, it frequently has more pungency if you include the tiniest of sounds. By manipulating what you hear and how you hear it and what other things you don't hear, you can not only help tell the story, you can help the audience get into the mind of the character.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Silence
Frequently
Include
Manipulating
Tiniest
Copy Quote
I re-mastered 'The Conversation' a few years ago for DVD. 'The Conversation' was the first film I edited on a flatbed machine - a KEM editing machine. I've been using Final Cut or the AVID for 12 years now, so I was interested in looking at this film and seeing if I could tell if it had been edited the old way. Truth be told, I couldn't.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Avid
Conversation
Edited
If I Could
Final
Final Cut
Copy Quote
There are two kinds of filmmaking: Hitchcock's (the film is complete in the director's mind) and Coppola's (which thrives on process). For Hitchcock, any variation from the complete internal idea is seen as a defect. The perfection already exists. Coppola's approach is to harvest the random elements that the process throws up, things that were not in his mind when he began.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Ideas
Perfection
Two
Copy Quote
Most of us are searching-consciously or unconsciously- for a degree of internal balance and harmony between ourselves and the outside world, and if we happen to become aware-like Stravinsky- of a volcano within us, we will compensate by urging restraint. By that same token, someone who bore a glacier within them might urge passionate abandon. The danger is, as Bergman points out, that a glacial personality in need of passionate abandon may read Stravinsky and apply restraint instead.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Balance And Harmony
Personality
Volcanoes
Copy Quote
As I've gone through life, I've found that your chances for happiness are increased if you wind up doing something that is a reflection of what you loved most when you were somewhere between nine and eleven years old. [...] At that age, you know enough of the world to have opinions about things, but you're not old enough yet to be overly influenced by the crowd or by what other people are doing or what you think you 'should' be doing. If what you do later on ties into that reservoir in some way, then you are nurturing some essential part of yourself.
Walter Murch / Film Editor
Reflection
Thinking
Years
Copy Quote

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Walter Murch Quotes - Page 1

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