On Sunday, Tim Squyres ?81 will walk down the world?s hottest strip of red fabric, maybe bumping into Anne Hathaway or Bradley Cooper as he makes his way into Dolby Theatre for the 85th Academy Awards. One of the five nominees for Best Film Editing, Squyres shaped Life of Pi into the film that has captured hearts, minds and half a billion dollars in box office worldwide, but he isn?t losing any sleep over the attention. Before Sunday?s ceremony and his March 10 visit to present Life of Pi at Cornell Cinema, The Sun spoke with Squyres about the awards season, his long-running collaboration with Ang Lee and how Cornell made him the film editor he is today.
The Sun: Are you enjoying the Oscar publicity?
Tim Squyres: You know, the whole Oscar season is fun, if you don?t get too hung up about winning and losing and all those kinds of things. The nice thing about it is that it?s usually an indication the film was successful, and that?s part of what you do it for ? you want as many people to see your movie as possible, and an awful lot of people have seen Life of Pi. So, the fact that a) a lot of people have seen it and b) a lot of people have really liked it, that?s great and really a validation of what you do. The awards, per se, are not a big deal, but they are an indication of other things, which are really nice.
Sun: To what extent does an editor have to campaign on the awards circuit?
T.S.: I don?t know how you would even do that. There are screenings [for Academy members] where editors, DPs, production designers, writers will go and do Q&A?s after screenings. But, no, there?s not a lot of campaigning. The studios will sometimes run ?For Your Consideration? ads ? sometimes for the whole film, sometimes for individuals ? but that?s out of our hands. All that we do is go to screenings and do interviews and answer questions.
Sun: Are you close with your fellow editing nominees?
T.S.: ? I only knew one of them before this whole thing started, [Zero Dark Thirty co-editor] Dylan Tichenor who I?ve known for years. ... The others I?ve met this awards season. Great guys and talented editors ? I don?t see them as competition at all. They are other editors who I respect and it?s great to hang out with them.
Sun: Moving to Life of Pi, what unique challenges did the 3D visuals present to you, as an editor?
T.S.: Well, 3D is another whole set of variables. ... Either you can shoot a movie in 2D and post-convert it to 3D, or you can shoot it in 3D. Most films shot in 3D [are edited] in 2D. ? We decided, right from the beginning, that we wouldn?t do that. Because neither Ang [Lee] nor I had ever worked in 3D before, we didn?t want to have to be editing in 2D and intellectualize, imagine how it would be in 3D. So we decided to take that step out and work in 3D all the time. Right from the first day of cutting, I was wearing 3D glasses and wore them all day, every day for a few years, practically, while we were finishing the movie.
There are a lot of things you have to do differently in 3D. You perceive things differently. Every dissolve, which usually works fine in 2D, has to be addressed. There are things you have to do in 3D that make it work properly, to make it smooth to watch. ? It was a little tough on the eyes ? there were a lot of headaches ? but it was very interesting, and there?s a lot to learn about 3D. It doesn?t take very long to learn a little of it, but it takes a lot of time to learn all of it; I don?t know if I?ve learned all of it yet. ?
Sun: The visual effects are such an integral part of the movie. It was hard to tell, but apparently, the tiger wasn?t even real most of the time. Does it ever worry you that you are the guy responsible for bringing not only the actors? work to life but also the visual effects work, which is the creation of dozens, if not hundreds of people?
T.S.: Or thousands. [laughs] There were a lot of people. Watch the closing credits and that?s just the tip of the iceberg ? An awful lot of people worked on the visual effects.
There are 23 shots in the film with the real tiger and hundreds with the CG tiger. ... Usually, in editing, you are constrained by the performances that you can get on set. What?s interesting about this film is that that was not true. For one of the main characters, [the tiger] Richard Parker, we could control his performance in post-production. We wanted to make sure that he always behaved like a real tiger. That?s one thing we decided very early on: We would not anthropomorphize him at all. He would look, move, behave, do everything like a real tiger. We had a tiger consultant ... who came in and worked with us and the animators to ensure that his behavior was all real. There were a lot of places where they shot it with one set of blocking in mind and we changed it to something else. It was really nice to have that kind of input and control over the characters? performance ? and we really looked at it as a performance. Obviously, there are huge technical aspects to it, but in talking with the animators, we would speak, largely, in terms of emotion. ?He needs to look more nervous, or more hesitant. More annoyed than straight-out angry.? We talked in those terms, and [the animators] are so talented that they would be able to translate that into pushing pixels around. ? [The experience] was great, it wasn?t daunting at all.
Similarly, one of the challenges of the film was that, for a large portion of the film, all we have to look at is the ocean, the boat, the tiger, the kid, the raft and the sky. It?s the same elements; we don?t have the scene in the shopping mall, or the car chase and all those things. ... It was very important to us to make the ocean and the sky not characters, exactly, but to give them character. Give them variety, keep it realistic but it can be stunningly beautiful, and that?s what people go to see movies for. So we put a lot of effort into making the ocean, the sky and the environment very interesting but also realistic and plausible.
Sun: About that very long stretch of the film with Pi on the raft with the tiger: You?ve shown a talent with large ensemble pieces like Syriana, but here you have that ?classical unity?of place and action. For an editor, do these constraints separate the boys from the men ? so to speak?
T.S.: Well, it?s really great to have different sorts of material. One of the things I have said to people in classes is that it?s really important not to have a personal style. Style has to be appropriate to the footage. In Life of Pi, the kind of editing you would do in Crouching Tiger is not really relevant. It?s very specific material that needs to be handled in a specific way, and it?s about finding the right tone and right kind of pacing ? fast when you need to be fast, but I also enjoy films that take a bit of time, in places. ? You need to be able to recognize what strengths of the material you have are and try to accentuate them. Hopefully, that?s different with every film.
The great thing about working with Ang Lee [is that] we?re not making the same film over and over again; it?s a new challenge every time. Life of Pi was a whole different set of challenges we hadn?t done before. So I?m very glad that Ang doesn?t have a comfort zone of moviemaking that he stays in. I don?t imagine I?d ever have the opportunity to edit a martial arts film, but you just do what is right for the film.
Sun: Another sequence I would like to point out is the ship sinking, which really hit me. It was thrilling, frightening yet had that human element, which makes it deeply sad. For a sequence like that, are you gauging how powerfully it ?hits? you as you watch it over and over again?
T.S.: Yeah. An interesting thing about the sequence is that there?s no music in that scene until he goes underwater to look at the ship. That was a decision I made right from the very beginning, not based on any theory of filmmaking, but because it felt right. A different approach would be that this is an action scene, and [the action] that comes before it should have action music. But that, for some reason, didn?t seem like the right way to do it, so we just relied on sound effects until he goes underwater to see the ship. He sees the ship sinking, and it?s not just a ship sinking, but it?s his family, it?s his whole life. So, then, the music is not about action; it?s about loss. That brings out the emotional aspects of it, which is what we want people to be thinking about. It?s a, technically, very complicated sequence ... but it?s important not to look at it as an action scene and ignore the actors? performances. An action scene usually involves danger of some sort, and that means danger to a character who someone cares about. So it?s always important to stay engaged emotionally [when editing] a scene like that. Our actor, Suraj Sharma, who had never acted before, did a really good job of portraying the different emotions that you?d be going through in a scene like that.
Sun: Your long-time collaborator, Ang Lee, comes across as very humble and soft-spoken in the interviews I have seen of him. How does he hold up in the cutting room, or is he even there with you most of the time?
T.S.: When he?s shooting, he never is in the cutting room; he?s busy shooting. ? But once we finish shooting and screen the assembly [cut], he sits next to me all day, every day until we [finish] the picture. For this film particularly, we did everything together, so, yeah, he?s extremely involved in editing. For a director, when you?re on set, there is a lot to do and a lot of people to wrangle and a lot of stuff that needs to happen in a certain way, and there are procedures, hierarchies and all that. In the editing room, it?s just the two of us. We can do whatever we want. We can goof off all day, if we want to. ... We?re both pretty disciplined and know what we want to accomplish. Temperamentally, we are pretty similar and, in tastes, we are pretty similar, but not completely similar, because if we agreed all of the time, we wouldn?t push each other to make the movie better. You want to right level of push, and we push each other a little bit. We have been working together for many years and he?s a real pleasure to work with. The interesting thing about him is that he motivates and inspires everyone to do his or her best. ... Everyone in the visual effects house always wants to work on his films, just because he inspires people.
Sun: Shifting gears a bit, what?s your stance on the ?film versus digital? debate? Well, financially, there?s not a debate any more.
T.S.: Yes, that debate is settled.
Sun: But do you have thoughts whether you?re losing something with digital filmmaking, or are you all for it?
T.S.: For an editor, it doesn?t particularly matter whether you record on film or digitally. When it gets to me, it?s digital, anyways. The first digital revolution in the film was in post-production ? whether you cut on film or cut digitally ... Then acquiring digitally happened 15, 20 years later. Like the first change, early on, you could make a case of why you should stick to film. But digital cameras have become so good now, and you?re able to shoot in such a wider range of light that a lot of the arguments people gave don?t really apply anymore. The cameras will be getting better. If you?re shooting 3D, you have to shoot digitally; that?s not an option. Ang had never shot a film digitally before, so he was initially reluctant, but the cameras really won him over. The image quality you can get now is very film-like, so I would have a very hard time telling you why we should stay on film. Perhaps a cinematographer could, but the amount of control we have in post is really impressive. There?s a shot we shot as a night shot, and it?s in the movie as a day shot. Now, going ?day for night? is fairly easy but going ?night for day? is much harder, and we were able to go into the shot and pull enough out of it to make it look plausibly like day. If we shot it on film, there is no chance in the world that would have worked.
Sun: I?d like to bring this back to Cornell before we end. You are one of a few acclaimed film editors from this school: Michael R. Miller ?74 being one and [Martin Scorsese?s editor] Thelma Schoonmaker ?61, of course, is the big one.
T.S.: Of course!
Sun: Is this all a coincidence or is there something or someone at Cornell that pushed you toward editing?
T.S.: No, I think it?s a coincidence. ... Thelma was there quite a ways before me, and I don?t think there?s anything about walking through gorges that leads you to be an editor. And I certainly did a lot of walking through gorges. But, no, I think it?s just kind of a fluke that you have consecutive editing nominees.
Sun: Well, how has your education from Cornell translated into what you do now?
T.S.: My education from Cornell was not primarily in film. I was there as a physics major and got my degree in psychology. I think having a technical background is very helpful in editing ? a scientific way of thinking ... A general education is really helpful. If you?re going to be a storyteller, it?s important to know how to use the software, but it?s also important to know some things about life and to have interests outside of filmmaking. When you?re telling stories, you?re trying to communicate with people, and my Cornell education was very helpful in that it was a broad and general education. The film stuff was important, but the other stuff was important, too. The math and science was important, psychology was important, the language was important, everything was important. What?s so important in learning how to be a storyteller is having stories to tell ? understanding nature, understanding culture. That?s where my Cornell education was the most valuable, I think.
Source: http://www.cornellsun.com/section/arts/content/2013/02/22/life-editor-tim-squyres-81
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