Effects of a Cut: A Fanediting Experiment with 'The Hateful Eight'

This is the discussion thread for Effects of a Cut: A Fanediting Experiment with 'The Hateful Eight'. Post away!

Nice exercise, cuddly. Thanks for sharing!

I think you must go on with the tracks of Carpenter......
Great in that scene!

fanediting class is in session! thanks, courtesanninja, for the exercises.

each of the five videos was different and illustrated the wide potential of editing and remixing.

Thank you all for the kind words. I kinda want to really investigate some horror tracks for my upcoming Hateful Eight edit. Not a lot but it worked better than I thought it would in that clip.

I get the point of the exercises, but I am not sure if the editing itself is all that well executed. 
At the very least, the part where Ruth demands to see paperwork should be retained for continuity purposes. 

Cutting all that material in-between causes a notable continuity error - without re-watching the original scene, I could tell that Kurt Russell's character suddenly had glasses on and Marquis was much closer to him spatially. 

Second, it doesn't work well with Tarantino's intended pacing - numerous scenes are deliberately drawn out, as though the film were a stage play, while information is often repeated. 

Third, it makes Ruth considerably more trusting of Marquis from the start, which is inconsistent with his character and the general theme of distrust.

Neosmith said:

I get the point of the exercises, but I am not sure if the editing itself is all that well executed.

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I disagree.

At the very least, the part where Ruth demands to see paperwork should be retained for continuity purposes. 

Cutting all that material in-between causes a notable continuity error - without re-watching the original scene, I could tell that Kurt Russell's character suddenly had glasses on and Marquis was much closer to him spatially. 

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At the end of the article he mentioned that the editing caused a continuity error. Did you actually read the whole article or just watch the videos?

Second, it doesn't work well with Tarantino's intended pacing - numerous scenes are deliberately drawn out, as though the film were a stage play, while information is often repeated.

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Again, this was covered in the article. Ninja stated clearly that the edits were not necessarily meant to make anything better, just different. Tarantino didn't intend for the film to be fanedited to begin with. In fact, I don't think any director has intended their film to be fanedited.

Third, it makes Ruth considerably more trusting of Marquis from the start, which is inconsistent with his character and the general theme of distrust.

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Context is everything. In the edited scenes, the conversation about the two bounty hunters meeting right months prior was retained. They already knew each other. But the point of the exercise is to show how different the same scene can be by editing it in different ways. Which is exactly what it did.

At the end of the article he mentioned that the editing caused a continuity error. Did you actually read the whole article or just watch the videos?

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I read everything up to the final two paragraphs, so I admittedly missed that point. 

Though, on the other hand, the paragraph doesn't actually specify the error - and the final video actually creates another error - namely, that Ruth refers to Warren as a bounty hunter, even though the moment, where he recognizes who he is, has been removed. 

Again, this was covered in the article. Ninja stated clearly that the edits were not necessarily meant to make anything better, just different. Tarantino didn't intend for the film to be fanedited to begin with. In fact, I don't think any director has intended their film to be fanedited.

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I never state that the idea is to improve the scene. Nor do I state that Tarantino intended the scene to be fanedited - that would be absurd.

What I point out is that the cut here has other effects that are not considered by the editor.  

In this case, the new version of the scene becomes rhythmically distinct from many other scenes, which are deliberately protracted - so cutting this scene in such a way would arguably require revisiting a lot of other sequences in the film for the sake of consistency and pace. 

On a side note, there is actually a film that has been released to the public to be fan edited, which is called The Tracy Fragments. Its director and producer made all the footage shot for the picture available for download, so that fans could make their own versions.

Context is everything. In the edited scenes, the conversation about the two bounty hunters meeting right months prior was retained. They already knew each other. 

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I'm not saying this wasn't retained - but the whole thing with the paperwork establishes that even though Ruth recognizes Marquis, he is still extremely suspicious. He only gradually comes to trust him over the course of this scene - it's almost a mini-character arc - and skipping that beat lessens the character and creates potential consistency issues.  

But the point of the exercise is to show how different the same scene can be by editing it in different ways. Which is exactly what it did.

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I stated upfront that I get the point of the exercise. Does this mean I can't critique the results?

What is the critique? All I got from it is that the continuity error that I pointed out bugged you. It was one scene in one day, the editing is rough. But when you say that these cuts cause character beats to be missed and this changes the rest of the movie, you are basically restating the point of the whole exercise. In the last video, there is no error that I caught. I would assume the Hangman would understand that a dude with a couple dead bodies is a bounty hunter.

Saying that it'll create continuity errors with the rest of the movie kinda misses the point of the exercise, though.

Regardless, I appreciate your watching and giving your opinion.

I really enjoyed this piece and hope that we'll see more of this sort of article on the site regularly. I think there's a lot of material out there that can cover technical details, but there's not so much about understanding things like mood and pace.

I'd also be interested in seeing/reading bits from editors discussing how they accomplish specific things in their edits. I'm not sure how easy or time-consuming those pieces might be to prepare, though...

Neosmith said:

I stated upfront that I get the point of the exercise. Does this mean I can't critique the results?

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Of course you can critique the results. For me to suggest otherwise would be as absurd as Tarantino intending his films to be fanedited.

You did state that you understood the point of the exercises, but your critique seems to be based on things that were addressed in the article, like the fact that it's just one fanedited scene, not a whole fanedited film, and the fact that a continuity error came up from the specific choices made. To me this says that you didn't actually understand the point of the exercise, which was to show how a few cuts can make a scene feel very different. It's all about pacing, tone, and emphasis. The point was not to show how the film should have or even could have gone. 

Maybe you did/do understand and you just didn't like the exercise or thought it unnecessary or something. In a full film, I agree the things you pointed out would need to be considered. Cuts like this would affect the film as a whole (as ninja pointed this out in the article). I still don't think that means the exercise was poorly executed.

That One Guy said:

I really enjoyed this piece and hope that we'll see more of this sort of article on the site regularly. I think there's a lot of material out there that can cover technical details, but there's not so much about understanding things like mood and pace.

I'd also be interested in seeing/reading bits from editors discussing how they accomplish specific things in their edits. I'm not sure how easy or time-consuming those pieces might be to prepare, though...

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I do intend to start working on something with 'The Hateful Eight' after I finish up NBK. I'll keep that idea in mind as I go through. It'd be as simple as exporting video of the passes and writing it up later. Great idea!

Yay, more thought provoking/educational stuff! I'm liking this direction for the articles. Things that help people look at their editing in a different way will always be valuable.

I really liked this article as it does highlight how subtle changes make not-so-subtle outcomes.  I find on the versions with added music that the edit would be even better served with more removal of dialog.  The music tends to sell the scene better making the dialog nearly redundant when it comes to setting a tone and a feeling between the characters.

For example, on the last version, here are the following lines that can be removed, allowing the music to sell the scene.
-"real trustin' fellow....not so much"
-"put em down"
-"c'mon ahead"
-"now come forward"
-"that's far enough"
-"I sure hate to interrupt....while I think"

thecuddlyninja said:

What is the critique? All I got from it is that the continuity error that I pointed out bugged you. It was one scene in one day, the editing is rough. But when you say that these cuts cause character beats to be missed and this changes the rest of the movie, you are basically restating the point of the whole exercise. In the last video, there is no error that I caught. I would assume the Hangman would understand that a dude with a couple dead bodies is a bounty hunter.
 
Saying that it'll create continuity errors with the rest of the movie kinda misses the point of the exercise, though.
 
Regardless, I appreciate your watching and giving your opinion.

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I apologize in terms of how my response came off - I think it's definitely a good idea to have such an exercise. [Plus, I wrote that when I was under-the-weather and not very well focused, so maybe that affected how I perceived things.]
 
I think what bothered me actually was that re-editing the scene, to me anyway, had many more effects than the ones you specifically discuss.

Neosmith said:

I think what bothered me actually was that re-editing the scene, to me anyway, had many more effects than the ones you specifically discuss.

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It's all good. More discussion of the macro effects of those cuts could have been mentioned. I was trying to keep it contained to the scene for demonstrative purposes but since editing really is all about how the whole movie changes, I think that's a good point.

Thanks cuddly, a great lesson in context editing And I too particularly loved the John Carpenter inclusion!