Tragedy Remembered and Heroism Revealed in United 93
With the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, still reeling in the minds of the families and friends of the victims, the makers of United 93 had a daunting task ahead of them: to deliver the story honestly and accurately while at the same time respecting the memories of those who suffered the most from the events of that fateful day.
The film depicts the real-life drama of United Airlines Flight 93, the last of the four jetliners to be hijacked on 9/11, and the one that passengers attempted to commandeer from the terrorists shortly before it crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. The film takes a real-time approach, covering the events as they unfolded around the country that morning with United 93 and the three other doomed flights.
On an emotional level, the responsibility of bringing this story to the screen made the project especially poignant for the three editors: Clare Douglas, Christopher Rouse, and Richard Pearson, whose work on United 93 earned them an Academy Award nomination for Achievement in Film Editing, an ACE Eddie nomination for Best Edited Feature Film (Dramatic), and a Best Editing award from the British Academy of Film & Television Arts (BAFTA).
"Because of the emotional content of the piece, it was very difficult wading into that material, with 9/11 being so fresh," says Rouse. "You had the feeling that you wanted to be responsible to the event, to the people, to the passengers, to the crew. There was a lot on our shoulders in terms of artistic responsibility."
Pearson adds, "It's the hardest thing I've ever done. Watching the footage of these passengers going through this tragedy brought up emotions I rarely feel while cutting."
"Because of the emotional content of the piece, it was very difficult wading into that material, with 9/11 being so fresh ... There was a lot on our shoulders in terms of artistic responsibility."
- Christopher Rouse, Editor, United 93
Banding Together to Meet the Challenge
To make matters more acute for the editing team, the project imposed technical demands and time constraints that were beyond the scope of most films. Rouse explains, "From a creative and technical standpoint, there were three things that were daunting. First, it was an incredibly compressed schedule - a November shoot for an April release. Second, the 600,000 feet of footage was shot in a vérité style, often with cameras rolling full loads covering multiple takes of a particular setup. And finally, Paul Greengrass, the director, used a working treatment, not a script per se - and much of the film was eight tracks wide with improvised, overlapping dialogue.
To meet this enormous challenge, the editors relied on nine Windows-based Media Composer Adrenaline systems, the first eight of which were tied to an Avid Unity LANshare shared-storage system. Douglas, Rouse, and Pearson each had his or her own Media Composer Adrenaline system, and their respective assistants - Tom Kinnersly, Christopher Bell, and Esther Bailey - also had dedicated workstations.
The seventh Media Composer Adrenaline system was used to handle visual effects
and the eighth was used for Beta tape outputs, EDLs, cut lists, and reference files. The ninth Media Composer Adrenaline system, which had local drives and was not linked to the Avid Unity LANshare network, was used for pulling selects from the huge volume of rushes that the team handled on a daily basis.
"The film could not have been done [without the Avid Unity system] ... There was a second unit that finished in January. The film came out in April, so working with shared storage was absolutely essential."
- Richard Pearson, Editor, United 93
Capturing the Intensity Minute by Minute
This workflow allowed the editors and assistants to manage the huge amounts of footage that resulted from a fluid shoot in which the actors - some of them amateurs who were playing themselves - were encouraged to improvise for long stretches at a time.
"As a result of the film's realistic camera style, Take One might start in one place, then move to another, and then progress freely throughout the scene," explains Rouse. "Take Two of the same slate sometimes had a different look entirely. The footage was very rugged and hard to wrangle in that regard. And because the piece was heavily improvised, from take to take the actors would say different things for the same situation. It was an atypical show in that regard, but what emerged was extremely credible, moving material. But pulling it together and finding the best moments within the footage was a very labor-intensive process."
To help keep track of the video and audio elements, the team used locators to identify every line of dialogue on every channel of audio. "If I needed to find a particular actor who was saying a line on camera, I could call up a locator bin and find exactly where that person said that [line] on camera, which gave me instant access," says Rouse. "Sometimes, we had the assistants break down every single shot of, say, [passenger] Todd Beamer looking left to right and right to left, or every shot of the hijackers walking forwards and backwards."
There were no scene numbers, so elements had to be organized in other ways - for example, by slates, story locations, and dates of shooting. "We might group shots by categories like 'the plane during hijack, the military base, air traffic control, etc.,'" explains Kinnersly.
Keeping Up with Fast-Breaking Events
Once the rough cut was assembled, the editors and assistants found that scrolling through the entire timeline was a huge plus. Pearson says, "Being able to work with the entire sequence, so you could drag the cursor and see everything, was one of the distinct benefits of the [Media Composer] Adrenaline system. It made the editing process more fluid."
The system's speed was also an advantage, as was its ability to handle large volumes of video, audio, and visual effects data without stumbling. "The [Media Composer] Adrenaline was the only system capable of handling the demands of the last part of post, when we were screening 24 tracks and had many more layers and visual effects cut in," says Kinnersly.
The multiple Media Composer Adrenaline systems facilitated the editing task and, according to the editorial team, the Avid Unity LANshare network was downright indispensable in pulling together the whole production in the time required.
"It couldn't have been done any other way," says Pearson, referring to the shared-storage approach. "We couldn't have been passing things around from system to system without [the Avid] Unity [system]. We were working so fast as it was, and there was a second unit that finished in January. The film came out in April, so working with shared storage was absolutely essential."
Kinnersly adds, "With eight systems running at once and lots of visual effects work to add in throughout the schedule, it was essential to be able to work in the same project at the same time. This seems an obvious necessity, but it's something a system like Final Cut Pro cannot do."
Staying Cool in the Heat of the Moment
Given the compressed schedule of the project, screenings were done via digital cuts stored on the Avid Unity LANshare system, according to Kinnersly, who notes that United 93 was edited at Goldcrest Post in London, with sound editing done on Digidesign Pro Tools systems at Soundelux in London. "Cutting and sound work were often done right up to an hour before the screening, so we screened in the cutting room directly to a 38-inch CRT television," he says.
For Rouse, United 93 was a project that highlights the benefits of the Avid end-to-end workflow, and the fact that Avid is the only manufacturer that can provide a total solution to handle complex, high-volume, deadline-intensive productions.
"The Avid system is a fantastic tool," he says. "I worked on an independent film that used Final Cut Pro, and I infinitely prefer Avid. The interface for me is very friendly and very intuitive, and particularly on bigger shows, in terms of handling the amount of footage and the types of things we need to do, Avid is unmatched. And the bigger the number of bodies and systems, the more essential it is to have an Avid workflow."
As a creative editor, Rouse continues to rely on the familiar, professional Avid interface. "In the editorial process, an Avid [system] allows me to consider and react to the material without having to think about what I have to do. Because it's so intuitive, it allows me to execute my ideas more effectively, and the system keeps pace with my creative flow. When you have an idea, you can execute it right away."
Reflecting on the critical and commercial success of United 93, and on the recognition that he and his colleagues received for their editing achievement on the film, Pearson says, "In hindsight, I don't know if I could do it again, it was so difficult emotionally, but I'm really pleased to have had the opportunity to have done it. It was a great group of filmmakers, and I'm proud to have been a part of it."
* CREDITS: Universal Pictures.