Editor's Guild & Visual Effects Society

The seaon barrels forward waiting for no man! ACE (American Cinema Editors) have announced their nominees and it's the talented cutters who worked on Best Picture hopefuls. Like Pamela Martin here, who so beautifully responded to David O. Russell's squirrely rhythms and caught indelible acting moments with precision.

Pamela Martin at work on The Fighter

Editing (Dramatic)

• Tariq Anwar for The King's Speech
• Pamela Martin for The Fighter
• Lee Smith for Inception
  
• Angus Wall & Kirk Baxter for The Social Network
• Andrew Weisblum for Black Swan

The snubs of note here, in terms of the Oscar race -- which is a different discussion than pure category worth since each awards season reminds us that Hollywood only makes ten movies each calendar year and they're brilliant in ALL categories -- are 127 Hours and True Grit. This is especially bad news for 127 Hours since Danny Boyle's films are nothing if not edited if you know what I mean. One could immediately assume that it's going to fall from the Best Picture list but then Winter's Bone hasn't scored with any guilds so... who knows? Both have obsessed fans and thus #1 votes. So maybe it'll be The Town that can't rally or something we assume is safe that isn't? True Grit? I'm still worried about The Kids Are All Right but that's probably just because it's so high up my own top ten list.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE...
More Editing honors to come. ACE, like many guilds, has several categories including Comedy (a far worthier list than the Globes came up with). So there's a few more to cover. Plus: Visual Effects.

Susan Littenberg for "Easy A"Editing (Comedic)

• Jonathan Amos & Paul Machliss for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
• Chris Lebenzon for Alice in Wonderland
• Susan Littenberg for Easy A
• Michael Parker for Made in Dagenham
• Jeffrey M Werner for The Kids Are All Right

Why isn't this the Golden Globe Comedy list? [Yes, we'll be live-blogging both the BFCA tonight and the Globes this weekend] Seriously now. I still can't get over their temporary bout of insanity this year. This grouping would have been MUCH more respectable, even with the Burton film being the mandatory "it made a bajillion dollars!" entry.

Editing (Animated Feature)

• Maryann Brandon & Darren T Holmes for How To Train Your Dragon
• Gregory Perler & Pam Zeigenhagen for Despicable Me
• Ken Schretzmann & Lee Unkrich  for Toy Story 3

I'm really starting to worry that that's the Oscar lineup for Animated Film. I liked Despicable Me well enough but Tangled and The Illusionist deserve that 3rd spot. As I said in my honorable mention rundown, they're nothing alike but let's group them together anyway. Tie!

Editing (Documentary)

• Chad Beck & Adam Bolt for Inside Job
• Jay Cassidy, Greg Finton & Kim Roberts for Waiting for "Superman"
• Tom Fulford & Chris King for Exit Through the Gift Shop

Yes, these were the only 3 documentaries made this year. (If you'd like to see the TV awards, Deadline has those too.)

And now a few words on the Visual Effects Society nominations which I never got around to talking about earlier this week.

Angelina is not the only visual effect in "Salt"

Visual Effects in a Visual Effects Driven Feature

• Inception
• Iron Man 2
• Tron Legacy
• Alice in Wonderland
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 1

These were the same films I'd already predicted for Oscar -- though again I weep for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World which actually understands that visual effects can be more than just spectacle and actually add to the film's character.

Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Feature

• Black Swan
• Green Zone
• Hereafter
• Robin Hood
• Salt
  

I love the title of this award but I think the absence of (nearly) all of these from the Academy's own "finalist" list in the visual effects category only goes to show you how questionable the "best" judgments are each year. Clue: If a motion picture has gorgeous special effects which support the entire vision of a movie isn't it more worthy of honors than adequate special effects that are the whole raison d'etre of the lame movies that contain them? Think it over voters.

Outstanding Animation in an Animated Feature
It sounds redundant but it's not since animated elements are now often in live-action features as well. Ah the "magic" of CGI.

• How To Train Your Dragon
• Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole
• Tangled
• Toy Story 3
• Shrek Forever After

Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Feature
See what I mean?

• "Dobby" Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
• "Kitty Galore" Cats vs. Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore
• "Kreacher" Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
• "Reepicheep" The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Features

• "Digger" The Legends of Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole
• "Minions" Despicable Me
• "Rapunzel" Tangled
• "Toothless" How to Train Your Dragon

 If "Toothless" does not win this prize, it'd rather be like The Social Network not getting a Best Picture nomination. That'd just be so... wrong. You know I love Rapunzel but seriously why could they not nail down her hair conceptually? In some scenes it's like 1,000 yards long and in others merely 20. Is it prehensile or not? Or is it only prehensile within split ends and not when it's closer to her saucer-eyed face? It's as confused about itself as Rapunzel is about leaving the tower!

Your thoughts on Editing and Visual Effects?

Comments

[Drew C]

As much as I think the ACE Eddie list for dramatic film is a good one, I can't help but feel one of those will be knocked out of the race. Is "The King's Speech" really edited that well? Especially comparatively to something like "127 Hours," "The Town," or even "Shutter Island"?

[chasgoose]

Actually, The King's Speech had some pretty tight editing. For a Oscar-bait movie they employ some pretty interesting editing techniques and the film feels slightly elevated from similar prestige pictures. There's enough there to warrant a nomination. Yes Shutter Island was better, but Thelma Schoonmaker is the greatest editor of all time so duh.

Also totally agree with you on the comedy nominees, Scott Pilgrim will hopefully win this (but I sincerely doubt it). Whatever you think about the film itself (I personally had issues with the script), the editing was AMAZING. In a perfect world it would be the front-runner for an Oscar, but as such it's not getting nominated.

[Volvagia]

Nail hit on head. They were trying to stuff everything they could into 110 minutes. Now, I understand a fast movie, but after having seen it, I think It's like trying to do Lawrence of Arabia in a similar time frame. (To compare, the shortest it got cut to was 3 hrs, 7 minutes. A far cry, in cinema terms, to Pilgrim's length. No sense of cinematic pacing, even though the previous two would seem to show Wright understood the pacing. Local Hero was a well stuffed movie of almost the exact same length. Scott Pilgrim went too fast, even in old screw ball terms.) Wright had ambition, but the end result seemed to have little sense of cinematic pacing. Hopefully his next will have less plot per minute.

[Ryan]

i'm genuinely shocked Jon Harris's visceral pace--ranging from kinetic to calm while using triptychs--was snubbed by the freaking EDITORS guild.

And while it may be a longshot, i'm crossing my fingers for the editors of HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON; i mean, even TOY STORY 3 fans have admitted the editing was far superior