How many movies you know have won the Oscar for Best Picture?
Now how many movies you know that have won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing?
Most of us would be stumped by the second question. But if you can list out a few a movies for the first question, they would mostly qualify as answers for the second one too. Unknown to most people, those Oscar categories are highly correlated. For 33 years, from 1981 to 2013, every Best Picture movie has at least been nominated in the Best Film Editing category. In more than two-thirds of those years, the same movie has bagged both these awards.
Movie editing is called the invisible art because it improves by subtraction. When we watch a well edited movie, we enjoy every scene, but aren’t aware of what the editor has taken away to leave the essential behind. Therefore, people do not notice good editing. Only bad editing stands out.
Rather than adding to what is already there, what can you take away from your life to be able to enjoy it more?
To write is human, to edit is divine – Stephen King.
Inspriation: Essentialism – Greg McKeown
Related Post: What writers can learn from the movies
