REVIEW
much of this, not enough of that, you can screw
up the whole thing. I always found in working
with other editors that I needed to edit my own
movies. So that I’ve always done. But then again,
I never had Steve Rivkin, who’s an Oscar-winning
editor [and editor forAlita: Battle Angel].
Did he come with Jim?
I wanted to see how Jim rolls. I wanted to make
it more in the style of Jim. Jim can do every job
too, but he chooses to bring on certain high-
calibre people. He wouldn’t screw around with
the guys I was trying to work with before, the
lower-budget guys. He gets the guys who are
really better than him, otherwise he’ll bulldoze
right through them. So bringing in someone like
Bill Pope, who I’ve always admired. I love doing
scores, but it was out of necessity. When you’re
filming a movie, the first place you pull money
out of when you’re going over on production
is from the music department. So by the time
I finished a movie I’d go to the music department
and go, “Ooh, I’ve got $10 left. Looks like I’m
doing the score again!” I want to work with Hans
Zimmer, but there’s never any money left! So to
be able to have the budget to bring on Junkie
[XL] and Bill Pope [onAlita]... I love learning
from the masters. On this next movie [the
upcomingRed 11], I have to DP again. I couldn’t
find any DPs I wanted to work with and who
were available. I’m back to DPing, I’m back to
being the composer, I’m back to editing. I gotta
go make the movie, I might as well do it. You
work better with them when you know that job,
though. [When] Bill Pope and I are talking
lighting, he won’t talk like he does with any other
director. He’s really appreciative of that, too.
“I’ve never worked with anybody who knows
that much about it.” They’ve done the job
themselves. You get there so much faster. You
have a lot of fun. Same with a composer. I can
talk to Junkie in terms not just about character
and story, which is the main one, but also about
instruments and tonal quality. I did some of the
music. All the bar fight music is mine. I couldn’t
help it. I’ll usually operate a camera. I love
operating a camera. I’m right there in front of
the actors and can give them direction and they
can see that I’m responding and I’m not behind
a monitor. Here, it’s a giant 3D camera system on
a crane, every shot, and there are three operators
for that. The guy who’s operating the camera
direction, the guy who’s operating the crane and
the guy who’s operating the boom of the crane.
So which guy am I going to be? I might as well
sit at the monitors and watch it in 3D and give
them direction. It was such a big show that
I needed to have these other guys for sure. I’d
work with any of those collaborators on other
movies if I could afford ’em!Dig around in the old piggy bank. Editing is
interesting. You’ve got a signature style, using a
lot of dissolves in the frame. Did you change that
approach forAlita, or did you try to impose your
style on the other editors?
It was very collaborative. I would let them take
first swing at it. What was cool was I’ve got my
own editing set-up here in the house. They would
send me the bins, I would open it up and watch
it, I would recut it and send it back. It’s easier to
just do it than to sit there over their shoulder.
They’re in another city, too. I could just recut it
in a few hours, send it back to them and say,
“I see it more as something like this. This was the
idea I had for the pacing of the scene when I shot
it.” Then they can say, “That shot’s a little too
short,” and they cut it and send it back. We
would go back and forth like that. You get there
so much faster than you would if I was in the
room with them saying, “Can you try this? Can
you try that?” It’s like cooking. You just have to
get in there and start messing around with it to
show them what I had in mind.CHRIS HEWITTALITA: BATTLE ANGELIS OUT NOW ON DVD,
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