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Cut to Black

Cut the opening last

Ann Collins (#12) says the opening is the last piece to settle, and the ending is the easier one: ask the subjects how the story changed them, and the answer is usually the ending. Chad Herschberger (#13) describes 78/52 as the opposite of an A-to-B arc, with four buckets of material and a rewind device that keeps returning to the shower scene.

Jonathan Rosenbaum's essay on F for Fake (#11) is the case where the seams are the subject: a misspelled word in the credits that the eye reads past, outtakes reused, a Picasso episode co-written by Oja Kodar.

A video to make: cut a short documentary in the order you would normally trust, then re-cut it with the ending fixed first and the opening written last. Show both, and ask which one the viewer believes more.

By Raz Rotenberg, made with AI

More from Cut to Black

  • Ann Collins (#12) says the opening is cut last and the ending is the easier part, found by asking subjects how the story changed them. Two editors this week describe endings found a different way.

    Nels Bangerter (#53, Dick Johnson Is Dead) says the fake funeral was the first thing shot, and the team realized "it could end as well as beginning there." Gabriel Rhodes (#54, Time) closes on a sequence played in reverse, with the mother returning, chosen so she is not shown too rosily. …

  • Two films that put the cut on screen. Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera (#6) has no intertitles, no actors and no story; a day in Soviet cities is assembled entirely in the edit. Jonathan Rosenbaum's essay on F for Fake (#11) reads Welles's film as a documentary about fakery, one that hides small tells for a second viewing: a misspelled word in the credits, outtakes reused. …

  • Buckets and two structures

    Chad Herschberger (#13) describes cutting 78/52 from four buckets of material instead of an A-to-B arc, with interviews marked for the best takes and spread out so no single voice lectures. The editors of Fantastic Machine (#27) describe two structures running at once, a historical one from 1828 and an associative one, both found in the edit and tuned by screening for audiences. …

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