December, 2004
Behind the
Seen
How Walter
Murch edited Cold Mountain
Using Apple's Final Cut Pro and What This Means for Cinema
Published by New Riders Press
Written by Charles Koppelman
ISBN 0-7357-1426-6
List price: $39.95, Street price $27.19
360 pages
Purchase
in the lafcpug Store
Review By Ken
Stone
I love a good book but alas, over the past four years, almost
all of the books that I have read were technical books, mostly
about FCP. Well, okay, this book is about FCP too, but it's not
a 'tech book', it's an adventure story of brave souls who strike
out into new territory, beyond the cutting edge, beyond the point
of reason. This book tells the story of a journey, a journey
on a road never traveled before. It is a suspenseful story filled
with twists, turns and obstacles, the outcome, not always certain.
It's a thriller but don't look for this book in the Fiction section
at your local book store. Let me explain.
In 2002, Walter Murch, three time Academy
Award-winning editor, (Apocalypse Now for Sound editing and The
English Patient for both Sound editing and for Film editing),
accepted the job as Editor on the movie 'Cold mountain', written
and directed by Anthony Minghella (The English Patient, and The
Talented Mr. Ripley). This arrangement would not be unusual except
for the fact that Walter Murch planned to edit this eighty million
dollar production using Apple's Final Cut Pro video editing software
and FCP had never been used in a movie of this size before. Oh,
and just to keep things interesting, the movie was being shot
and much of it edited in Romania.
Behind the Seen was written by author
and director Charles Koppelman (the independent feature film
Dumbarton Bridge and award-winning documentaries). It is obvious
that Charles is a story teller as this book is laid out like
a 'mystery/thriller' movie. The book starts out near the end
of the story where we see the precarious position our heros are
in. Then we are moved to the start of the story with the knowledge
that this truly is an adventure story.
The 'Behind the Seen' story really is
a web of subplots with twists and turns, and a cast of major
players from both the film industry and Apple Computer (Steve
Jobs and the FCP team). It is told to us, not only as narration,
but with numerous interviews, photos, journals and emails between
the different parties, which add to the depth of the story and
give the reader real insight into Walter Murch's efforts to cut
Cold Mountain on Final Cut Pro and the seemingly insurmountable
problems that he faced. Charles Koppelman tells the story, not
as an observer, but more as a participant. This has the effect
of putting the reader into the story, very much like we were
there, during the unfolding of this saga.
As I said, I love a good book and this
book is, as they say, a page turner. As this story lives in our
FCP universe, it makes everything very personal and very real.
Enjoy,
--ken
Review copyright © www.kenstone.net
2004
Available for purchase in the lafcpug Store
This article first
appeared on www.kenstone.net and is reprinted here
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