FILM EDITING…
THE WAY IT USED TO BE DONE

Almost every film made in Hollywood from the mid-1920’s until the mid 1990’s — the seven-decade-long simmering summer of the studio system, encompassing the arrival of sound, Technicolor, 3-D, Cinemascope and Smell-O-Rama — was edited on a Moviola.

Join acclaimed film editor Walter Murch (nine Academy Award nominations and three wins, ACE Career Achievement award), and esteemed film director Mike Leigh (seven Academy Award nominations, Cannes Palme d’Or winner, BAFTA Film Academy Fellowship) in a unique new documentary project which tells the story of Moviola editing.

Moviola editing as you will see was highly external — every aspect of the process was a broad physical gesture in space and time. A bin is physically a bin, a splice is physically a splice, and you have to physically rewind using muscle power to get from the end of a reel back to the beginning.

Writer: Walter Murch  |  Producer, Director, Editor: Howard Berry (US 2024) 70 min.