The Quiet Art of Editing Enhances the Powerfully Affecting Changeling

Director Clint Eastwood’s most recent films - the award-winning Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, and Letters from Iwo Jima - have all been dramatic powerhouses. Changeling, his latest, is another quietly remarkable stunner.

The film stars Angelina Jolie as Christine Collins, a single working woman whose son is kidnapped. Four months later the police return a boy to her, but Christine immediately knows that the boy is not her son. Still, the police persuade her to keep him. The story follows her wrenching quest for answers amid a web of lies designed to keep her from uncovering the truth about the identity of the boy in her home and her real son’s whereabouts. Her search continues over a period of several years during which she endures psychological and physical torments that few people could endure.

“It’s amazing that a woman actually went through what she did,” says editor Joel Cox about the film, which is based on a true story. “Every sequence brings something new, an unwinding of the story that reveals each new piece of information a bit at a time.”

Cox and co-editor Gary Roach enjoyed finding just the right balance between the mystery and the drama inherent in the film. They edited each scene on its own merits as if it were a puzzle piece that the audience must carefully examine to incrementally create a larger meaning to the story. “With emotional films, it is all about holding and feeling these moments. You want the audience to feel what the character feels. Basically, [as an editor,] you are the audience. You want to feel as if you don’t know what is coming next. It’s like reading a book … you don’t know what’s on the next page until you turn the page,” says Cox.

“Clint is a jazz person; it’s a very free form of music. He likes editing like that too - to just open up and let it flow.”
- Joel Cox, Editor, Changeling

A Creative Riff

The film, which is set in Los Angeles in 1928, required some significant work to re-create the era. In addition to period sets and costumes, approximately 150 effects shots were needed to manipulate the landscape to include the Red Car trolley that ran through Los Angeles in the late 1920s, complete with tracks in the ground and wires overhead. “There is one shot that makes an almost 180 degree pan around [on the street]. There was a lot of work involved to fill that in and make it look real,” says Roach. Using an Avid Media Composer system, the editing team had access to the system’s built-in visual effects tools, such as the AniMatte feature for compositing and the Paint tool, to help visualize these intricate sequences for the most realistic temp effects.

A total of three Media Composer systems, connected to an Avid Unity MediaNetwork shared-storage solution, helped Cox, Roach, and first assistant editor Blu Murray give Eastwood the most complete cuts for review. With both Cox and Roach working simultaneously, the rough cut was completed about a week after shooting ended.

Cox, who has worked with Eastwood for 34 years, and Roach, who was Cox’s longtime assistant before stepping up to co-editing duties, have developed an organic method for sharing the editing. And the streamlined Avid editing and shared-storage workflow helps enable them to easily share media and scenes in a way that suits their creative storytelling style. Roach explains, “There’s really no rhyme or reason to [which scenes we cut]. We work on whatever scenes are available. We just cut away. Every scene he finishes I look at; he does the same with mine. Sometimes we make suggestions about each other’s scenes and then we wait to see what Clint has to say.”

While the editing of Eastwood’s films often involves straight cuts to enhance performance, one flashback sequence gave Roach a chance to experiment with rapid cuts to underscore a particularly violent sequence. He explains, “Clint shot a bunch of material  a swinging axe, blood flying. I wasn’t sure where he wanted to go with it. We ended up creating this whole flashback sequence, which started with a kid tapping a ruler on his leg in a police station. This reminded another character at the station of a violent incident from his past. We pushed into the kid’s eyes and then launched into a pretty violent flashback sequence with lots of quick cuts where we see and hear the ruler tapping and then see and hear an axe chopping and blood in the air. After Clint saw the scene, he decided to just shorten it up a bit by getting rid of one or two quick shots of the axe.”

The freedom for creative experimentation is fully supported by the Avid systems, which Cox and Roach have used for years. Their cuts typically incorporate an extensive soundtrack based on a score composed by Eastwood. “He just sits down and writes the pieces even before production begins,” says Cox about Eastwood’s scoring process. “You can almost see the film by listening to the music. Most composers like to write to film, but Clint is a jazz person; it’s a very free form of music. He likes editing like that too  to just open up and let it flow.”

The sound work was overseen by supervising sound editors Alan Murray and Bub Asman, using Digidesign Pro Tools digital audio workstations for various audio processes. The easy interoperability between the Avid editing systems and the Pro Tools audio systems made for a smooth audio-video workflow that helped streamline the post process, enabling the filmmaking team to worry less about the technical aspects of post and more about creative decision making.

“What we experienced as editors at Cannes … the response we got. You could sense that people were totally into the film.”
- Gary Roach, Editor, Changeling

Bringing Out the Best

The film’s artistry received accolades when it premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival in May. “I could never have imagined what kind of response there would be at Cannes,” says Roach, who attended the festival for the first time. “The standing ovation for Clint and Angelina went on for about 10 minutes; it was non-stop. The film was very well received.”

Now, the rest of the world has the opportunity to experience the film first-hand. “It’s a unique story - a true story. It’s amazing that it wasn’t written before now,” says Cox. “But it is the performances that are truly remarkable. Angelina Jolie is absolutely superb in this role. It has to be one of the best performances she’s given.”

With no small thanks to Cox and Roach, the performances of Jolie, along with John Malkovich, Jeffrey Donovan, and Amy Ryan, truly shine. And that, says Roach is its own reward: “What we experienced as editors at Cannes … the response we got. You could sense that people were totally into the film and that felt really great.”

CREDITS: Courtesy of Universal Pictures