Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
12
“They Handle the
Equipment Like Pros”
Not only were there differences between our way and the Nava-
jos’ in the act of filming and of learning, and the choice of subjects
and actors in the films, but there were also differences in their
handling of the physical equipment, materials, and processes
involved in filmmaking. We found what seemed to be a remarka-
ble difference in the way they actually worked with machines
such as splicers, rewinds and viewers. They worked so much
faster than we did and with such certainty about what they were
doing that we often thought that they were cutting film apart and
joining pieces at random. For those who have never worked with
film, a short description of a filmmaker’s editing routine might
help to make clear the distinctions we are discussing.
When the rushes (the film as it comes from the processing
laboratory) arrive, the filmmaker normally views them in projec-
tion on a large screen at the proper speed at least three or four
times. He tries to note which cademes he likes, which cademes
“They Handle the Equipment Like Pros” 191
are unusable (out of focus, overexposed, or spoiled in some way),
and which cademes might have some special quality.
He then looks at the film on a table viewer where he can slow
or speed the film through easily. He may make notes of what
cademes are on each roll or about how he intends to use each
cademe. He may cut out the bad shots that he noted during
projection.
After all his cademe footage is assembled-after the entire film
is shot-he cuts up the film cademe by cademe and puts together
a “rough cut,” a string of cademes in rough sequential order. He
doesn’t worry about exact length of edeme, or about the exact
place he will cut. He will often have two or three edemes of the
same thing, because he isn’t sure which one to use, or which one
will go best with other edemes in a final sequence. Like the
painter who tries to cover his canvas so as to get a feel for the
whole thing at the start, the filmmaker makes his rough cut to see
how the film might look if it were all on one reel. He knows that
he will make many changes later. He deliberately does not try to
decide the exact point of a cut, but leaves extra film on each
edeme so it can be cut off later.
When his entire film is assembled in rough cut-at this point
it is often twice as long as it will be in a finished version-he
begins pruning the almost final edemes. Cademes or pieces of
cademe are discarded, and he begins working to find the exact
points at which to join two pieces of film. Whether working on
a Moviola or a simple viewer, he goes through a long process of
running the film back and forth, back and forth, deciding on the
exact frame in each cademe that will join with the next to form
his final edeme.
An editing room presents a scene of intent decision making as
the editor winds the film back and forth, over and over, deciding
the precise frame of the cademe to cut on. A class of beginners
working on their viewers and rewinds looks almost like a ballet,
with arms turning one way and then the other in rhythmic
movements. When the splice for the “fine cut” is finally made, the
192 Through Navajo Eyes
editor usually will run it through several times to check it and
often redo it because he is dissatisfied with the result. For exam-
ple, in a sequence showing a man walking, the cut between a long
shot and a close-up of the feet may not look smooth enough-the
movement of the leg may jump or hesitate if the foot in the long
shot is not exactly in the same place as on the close-up.
When the Navajo began editing, their pattern of activity was
quite different. They seemed to spend no time at all looking at
their rushes. One viewing on the projector seemed enough.
While observing Susie at the viewer, we felt as if she wasn’t
looking at the image at all. She would wind the film through the
viewer and casually take her hands off the rewinds to take hold
of the film. When one lets go of the rewinds while it is turning,
it continues to turn, moving the film through the viewer. We
carefully stop the rewind-and the film in the viewer-at the
correct frame and mark the film with a grease pencil so that we
can cut at the right place. Susie would allow the film to continue
running slowly and would take hold of the strip as it came
through the viewer, lift it up, take her scissors, and cut the film
at some point apparently without looking-all in one smooth,
continuous, and uninterrupted motion.
We (the investigators) were certain that her behavior meant
that cutting on approximately the right frame was all that Susie
was interested in. We could think of no way to ask questions
about it and, at one point, Worth walked over as Susie used the
scissors, grabbed the ends of the film, and asked Susie to describe
the point at which she had cut. Susie calmly described the exact
frame. We did this several times, and each time Susie described
the frame-finally smiling as she did so, knowing that we were
playing a game at which she obviously excelled. At this point in
the project, Worth recorded in his notes that Chalfen seemed
anxious and competitive with the Navajo. He asked Chalfen what
was going on, and Chalfen replied, “How do you expect me to
feel? These guys seem to be editing better than I do.”
If the students were not cutting at random, which at that point
“They Handle the Equipment Like Pros” ‘93
seemed doubtful, they had what seemed to us a very remarkable
ability to perceive and remember individual shots and single
frames of image events.
Johnny also showed similar behavior. At one point he asked
Mike, who had the editing table on the other side of his cubby,
if he could borrow it for an afternoon while Mike was away
shooting. Johnny then set up dual editing tables for working on
one film. He would take one reel of film on one table and another
on the opposite table, jumping from one side of the small space
to the other, cutting film, taking pieces from one reel to the other
a t a speed which again made it seem almost random. Worth tried
the same game with Johnny. H e grabbed a piece of cut film from
one table and then another, asking Johnny to describe the exact
frame he had cut. Johhny could do it but seemed annoyed at
having to stop his work. Our impression was that he was annoyed
because we were slowing down his thinking process.
It is not, in our opinion, that their perception of individual
frames was better, but rather that their ability to perceive a single
“frame” in a motion sequence and to remember it for both short
and long periods was better than ours. Although we were not
prepared at the time to do more extended research in this area,
it is interesting to speculate on what was happening. Was their
ability due to a specialized coding procedure for dealing with
events in motion, or was it due to a highly developed memory?
Asked about it, Johnny Nelson explained, “It’s because we al-
ways have to have the design in our heads.” Both Susie and
Johnny, early in our interviews, expressed several times the no-
tion that making a film was “like weaving,” or “like the way the
Navajo do things.”
This concept, “we have the design in our head,” was expressed
in many ways at various stages of the project. There seemed both
a need to conceptualize filmmaking in some way which legiti-
mized such thinking, and an ability to think about, to plan, the
sequencing of specific images. We felt that for Johnny at least the
need to understand how images were manipulated “in the head”
194 Through Navajo Eyes
h a d to c o m e before he could be entirely comfortable a b o u t doing
i t with his hands on pieces of film. In the second interview with
Johnny, which took place on the d a y after instruction started,
Worth asked him, “Which [part of the previous day’s instruction]
is the most fun so far?”
JOHNNY: T h e most fun I have, let’s see, were handling the camera
-and having instruction on picture taking-like making films
where you have to use your head to make a picture the way you
want it to, or make it the way you feel it should be.
About that picture there [a possible movie that Johnny was talking
about] where . . . you cut out that little pieces from another film
and putting it together and making it more of a-something that’s
real. You know, something that is real and it’s-very hard for me
to explain.
WORTH: Just exactly what do you want to know? I’m not sure
I understand it. What is your question? What do you want to
know?
JOHNNY: Well, the question is, if you put like a picture, if I wanted
to like take a picture of a bird flying and it’ll be flapping its wings
back and forth like that, then I take another picture of some more
birds flying and I take a picture of a crow and put it in the midst
of a bunch of birds flying, will that make it in the wrong place
there-that’s what I’m trying to get in.