Editor Joe Walker on the Mistake New Editors Make

I listened to an interview with Joe Walker, Steve McQueen, and Denis Villeneuve go-to editor, who explained his process working with these two directors, that consists in doing a lot of pre-screenings throughout the whole editing to get a chemical feel of how the audience is reacting, and in working with little footage. (Walker called McQueen and Villeneuve “economical” directors who shoot with a single camera 3 to 4 takes, which already lays out a lot of the groundwork for him.)

Asked about the trap he would warn beginning editors about, Walker mentioned the temptation to overcut and took a very specific example from Shame. If you haven’t seen the film and/or that scene, I can’t recommend you enough to do it. I couldn’t find it available on YouTube but I ended up watching the whole film again and what a lesson in active but silent visual storytelling this film is…

Here is Walker full reply, which, as a filmmaker, I read as: be very clear about each shot you take.