Last month, Paul Cipywnyk wrote here about plausibility and continuity in novels. But what about in screenwriting? Realistic, plausible details and continuity are equally — sometimes more — important on screen, but it can be challenging to ensure them. Now, it doesn’t matter what you’re writing about or in what …
Genius is a movie about the relationship between writer Thomas Wolfe and editor Maxwell Perkins and is based primarily on A. Scott Berg’s biography, “Max Perkins: Editor of Genius” (Riverhead Trade). Perkins worked for Charles Scribner’s Sons for over 30 years. Like Canada’s Ellen Seligman, Perkins was an exacting editor. …
It’s called Genius, and it stars Colin Firth, Jude Law and Nicole Kidman. Due for release just before Christmas (and award season), the film, touted as “the bio-pic of the year,” is about a book editor. Yup. You read that correctly. An editor. Colin Firth plays Charles Scribner’s Sons fiction …
I was at a film event the other night, and someone asked, “So what do you do for a living?” I, of course, answered, “I’m an editor.” They asked, “What movies have you worked on?” It happens all the time. But the other night, for the first time, someone asked …
Movies are usually shot in location order, not narrative order, which makes physical continuity important. Last week I was watching my favourite crime show, and the female lead wore a blue shirt in an interrogation scene. The camera caught the cop’s dialogue in close up, then cut to a close …
(The first in a series on working as an editor in the film industry.) In 1966, my older sister snuck me into the Windsor Theatre to see an R-rated movie, A Man and Woman, starring Anouk Aimée as a script girl and Jean-Louis Trintignant as a car racer. After that, …