It’s set to be a box office smash! It might also be in 3D, but we don’t know just yet! We have our very own Ridley Scott directing this English piece of Nottinghamshire history.. He steels from the rich and gives to the poor, uses bow and arrows to hunt his victims and in modern day language, he’s called a terrorist! Yes you have guessed it. It’s Robin Hood.
The title role has been taken by Russell Crowe and our main man, Pietro Scalia has done a fantastic job of editing this wonderful trailer.
I’m excited because hollywood is putting out a remake of this British classic myth and it’s directed by a brit. Not only that he’s (Ridley) a complete northerner! So what’s my point? He is down to earth, a bit hard and takes his time over what he wants to achieve but then achieves it with complete dedication and focus.
I’m almost convinced he has actually meet Robin Hood and has been seen with him in Sherwood forest.
The budget is a lovely $130,000,000, not bad for small change! It’s important to realise that Ridley has the same crew with him as his other films, such as Gladiator and Body of Lies.
It struck me how lucky I am as I gently stroll through the private members bar on the 2nd floor of the Bafta HQ in Piccadilly. Like the lens of a video camera I pan around the room, shiftily glancing at anyone who will catch or exchange a glimpse of my intuitive stare. I have a great sense of familiarity in here; it reminds me of an old public school library with everybody I have ever seen on telly in it. The room smells of dusty wood and the hollow clap of leather heels can be heard as people walk on the floor. Anyone who walks in the room checks everybody out to see if they recognise someone . It’s like an old school club, except this is for the elite film club of the world: THE BRITISH ACADEMY OF FILM AND TELEVISION. Both young and old mingle together with the mutual understanding of how much they need each other, for inspiration, education, debate, exploration, excitement, development and a general feeling that anything can be achieved in this room! Well, this is exactly why I am here. Tonight, Ladies and Gentlemen I’m having an evening with video editor Pietro Scalia. For those who don’t know him, (why should you, he’s not a public face) He may need a little introduction. Pietro has edited some of the biggest movies in Hollywood. G.I Jane, The Quick and the Dead, Good will Hunting, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and one of my all time greats American Gangster. I, for one, will be truly mesmerized tonight to study the method of his approach to video editing and will be listening to his every word on what he has to say.
It’s 8pm on Friday 24th of July 2009 and we are in the Princess Anne theatre, this is a very well attended evening, I’m not exactly sure who anybody is but you get the feeling that we have some of the most well thought of UK film community in the house.. Everybody is extremely excited and switched on to what Pietro has to say. Most attendees are networking and smiling at one other, as if this was a great networking opportunity for actors, directors, and screenwriters alike. It springs to my attention that the noise levels are quite high and there are two cameras either side of the theatre. We are silenced by the Chair of the film committee who presents tonight’s host Mark Salisbury.
Pietro is currently editing Robin Hood and it’s for this reason he’s in London. He takes us through some of his film clips and then we have a Q&A session.
It’s difficult to describe how much passion Pietro shows for his films as he takes us on a journey of his film clips and discusses them in a way that only a major Hollywood film editor can, with absolute brilliant dedication and commitment to his craft. Firstly he takes us through “JFK” then Good Will Hunting and Gladiator.
He discusses the different editing styles, why he has edited them in the way, what goes into a scene and the structure of how he has built them up with the material he has to work from. He walks us through how to use quick edits to build up a scene so the viewer understands the sequence of events and slow cutting to focus on the characters and meaning of a scene. Lastly, in Gladiators he reveals his secrets and tells us how he uses different parts of the rushes and special grading effects to create a new scene to fit into the existing feature film.
For example, JFK is a documentary in which he had to mix yards of different footage from archive film. He then shows us how he created dramatic impact using both sound and pictures to imprint the seriousness of this movie thus leaving a lasting effect on the viewer. It’s a very difficult film to produce as it’s such a controversial piece of history. Getting this right has no wrongs. It’s all open to interpretation.
In Good Will Hunting he shows us a diagram of “the park” scene where Robin Williams is talking to Matt Damon, addressing the fact that Matt doesn’t listen to others and he’s just a kid and does not really relate to people. We learn that the camera uses inner circular shots which rotate round to reveal that Matt Damon is listening to Robin. Robin’s speech leaves an emotional effect on Matt. This is when Pietro’s editing skills truly come into their own because he understands that this scene is about “listening” and Pietro realises that not cutting into the scene and using the camera work to express the scene has a better relationship with both the actors and the viewers. This enables the audience to understand the importance of what the scene is about.
Pietro briefly discusses his Gladiator film and how he used CGI effects to re-create a scene. It was extremely unfortunate that Oliver Reed had died during the making of this film. In order to provide meaning to a scene which was not filmed, they used doubles, other parts of the film and CGI to compensate. To this end my hat had to be taken off and I felt once again my knowledge of final cut pro and approach to editing was still very much in its infancy. What I had learned in this session was that Pietro was a master manipulator and thinks swiftly around situations in order to achieve meaning to a scene which will make sense to the viewer.
Pietro has an impeccable pulse on what the public wants and his deep comprehension of relationships between characters, script, directors and most importantly, the audience, is like a rising sun in a desert. Pietro’s core message is how to advance film language and make it entertaining, he realizes that film is constantly evolving and as a commercial editor it’s his job to marry the two together.
Pietro delivered a warm, very well planned insight to his approach and in total appreciation the crowd applauded for about 10 mins.
We ran out of time during this session as clearly Pietro had a lot to say and in a packed theatre where time is meaningless and pictures are passion, all we want is to sit quietly and listen to what the master at work has to say, hanging on his every word. It was a very intense session and a complete education into the world of his understanding of the inner workings of Hollywood movies, and how huge teams of people get big film business done!
As Disney would say, “That’s all folks” until next time, were off to the Bafta members bar to rub shoulders with the international film elite and mull over the geniuses’ approach to editing, in awe!
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