Rian Johnson had fun making a ‘sshole studio cut for ‘new years’ coming out’
When movie directors want “the final edit,” it’s because of the mindset of the asshole studio executive. You’ve heard the news. A filmmaker works tirelessly on their film, but when someone with more authority, and generally artistic integrity, asks and wants the filmmaker to cut the film. “Make it shorter with more testing.” “Make it Tamer to get a better estimate.” “Remove that scene so we don’t get into trouble.” Of course, how often this happens, no one knows, but it is certainly a story that people in the movie business hear and say.
With his new movie, Raise a dead man: knives do not solve the mysterywriter and director Rian Johnson decided to use that man to his advantage. Here’s how he described the film’s “asshole cute studio” at a recent screening of the film, hosted by Collide.
“On this movie, I was really close to the end of the process, and I did something that I hadn’t done before I started doing the whole movie because it was really helpful,” Johnson said. “We were a week away [sound] mixing. So we should be basically locked out. And I was very insecure during the run of the movie, because it’s the longest of the three. I thought, ‘Am I tough enough in the movie? Something precious [I] caught in? “
“And so is my editor Bob [Ducsay] And I went into the test on the weekend, just the two of us, and we made a copy of the movie on the avid, so it was an exercise that we do, “he continued.” It wouldn’t be a real movie. And, basically, we made an asshole studio. And I had a lot of fun. I dress, like, an asshole studio person. I was like, ‘Yeah, why are we in an attacking church? Cut away from this shit! Nobody wants to see that! ‘ And basically anything that could actually come out, we attacked. And we cut, basically, from the movie that you guys are watching, we cut about 30 minutes out of it. “
“And it was really, really cathartic,” Johnson said. “It’s kind of a rage room, kind of. Because … at the end of the editing process, you hate your movies [that] Going in there with a machete, just going into the artists, kind of feels good. But again, it was a big help because, on a small scale, there were a few things that we found that were actually like, ‘Wow, some kind of that would cut well.’ But, of course, for me, you let me know why the things that were there had to be there. Sitting down and looking at it without all the things and feeling, ‘Oh, if you don’t have this, then ultimately, you don’t feel the emotional impact of this.’ That was a big help for me to just be able to take a breath and put most of it back, ‘okay, we can go mix now.’ “
And, trust me, it worked. Raise a dead man it’s fun. In our opinion, the best of the three films. But Johnson had several big revelations to plan. In the same Q & A, he was asked about any scenes that were particularly difficult for him, and he immediately thought about them Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
“When we do The last jedithe first sequence was like a big bomb explosion when things went well, “he said.” That was the thing that was written all over this thing, and I worked on the whole story, we were getting everything. And it was just oil. It didn’t work. And so it’s a re-edited thing that’s been edited and we’ve put it together… Any of you who are film-savvy know, in the editing, the thing where you’re literally in love, ‘wait a minute! Can we take this thing and stick here? ‘ It was that kind of thing. And then when it clicked together and it felt like a LEGO set that was made that way, that was like [deep sigh]. That’s the moment you breathe when you get a performance sequence. So, I don’t know that that’s too difficult [sequence I’ve ever done]but that remembers. “
The last jedi currently streaming on disney. +. Raise a dead man It will hit theaters on November 26 and on Netflix on December 12.
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