Editing Tips from Drive

I noticed a couple things while watching Drive.

[Aside: The film has not received good marks, and I think the biggest reason is that it simply wasn't fun. As an audience we expect more of a Transporter kind of experience when watching a driving movie... not a film where people get their faces kicked in and a love story with an ambiguous ending. We can handle a violent movie if that's what we expect. And I, for one, did not expect that when I fired up this flick.]

1. If you're making a movie about a guy who drives for a living, try to include takes where he demonstrates an ability to park. I realize you, as an editor, can't create takes the crew doesn't shoot. So, if you're directing a movie about a guy who drives for a living, try to get shots that demonstrate he can park.


This Driver Can't Park

2. I really loved one edit in the film. It cut from a shot inside the car to another, very similar shot at a different angle. The edit worked because the scene through the windshield changed dramatically, from trees to a street. But the other major contributing factor to the effective nature of the cut was that your eye tracked with the watch on the actor's wrist.




Effective Edit: Give the Audience Something to Track

This edit could easily have been a jump cut. But by giving the audience something to follow through the edit, the cut was beautiful.

 ~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor