Filmmaker Bio: Walter Murch
Walter Murch is one of cinema’s great master when it comes to the art of editing and the author of a book used across the globe, “In the Blink of An Eye”, as a bible/textbook for film students. Walter Murch was born in New York and found a love for recording sound very early and would eventually attend Johns Hopkins University for liberal arts. After graduating he then moved his collegiate career out west where filmmakers went to dream. There Murch found himself among the new idealistic crop of future Hollywood elite filmmakers while he attended USC film school, names like Lucas, Millius and Coppola. The friendships and networks he created while there would eventually have him landing at American Zoetrope, the production company founded by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas. Murch would work on many of Coppola’s finest films and many other films that would go on to be classics including my one of the best films ever made Apocalypse Now. An innovator and trailblazer Murch has left his mark on more than the films he has worked on by the contribution of the book mentioned above as well as when the film was still edited on film a technique to hide the splice of the knife. On top of these contributions, Murch has left his name in the history books as the only editor to win an Academy Award for 4 different films edited on 4 different systems (Moviola, KEM flatbed, Avid, and Final Cut). Murch took his turn behind the camera as well when he directed the movie “Return to Oz” in 1985 and though this film did not gain any acclaim it is still part of his career. The film did not make the impact he wanted so Murch returned to his first love sound and editing.
Walter Murch is known for his “Rule of Six”, the six key things to telling a story through editing. These six keys emotion, story, rhythm, eye-trace, the two-dimensional plane of the screen, and three-dimensional space of action are what makes up a great cut. Above all Murch touts the importance of emotion and story because if an edit does not illicit an emotion or further the story then there is no reason for that cut. I can not suggest enough if you are a filmmaker, even if you are not doing the editing, that you pick up his book and thumb through the pages of editing theory that brought this artist such critical acclaim. Murch is a man of many talents and a plethora of knowledge and surely he has inspired many early filmmakers to follow their dreams. Walter Murch is possibly the best editor in film history but as usual, you know that’s only my geekin’ opinion.
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