Great! Clear, concise book on film editing and the art/philosophy behind it. Much less "here's how to edit a film," and much more "here's why editors make the decisions they do and why film editing truly is magic." Opened my eyes and made me appreciate the craft way more – I'm constantly noticing when I & others blink now :')

Although a good chunk this book is about the history of editing and most of the rest of it is geared towards editing concerns of larger feature-length productions, there are solid insights on the art and science of editing, which is a goldmine of knowledge, especially for a beginner like me.

Murch digs further to the psychology of the cut, what makes some cuts work and not others, and why a well cut cut feels natural - "It works; but it could easily have been otherwise, since nothing in our day-to-day experience seems to prepare us for such a thing." He breaks down what may seem as a tedious and highly technical process, into simple intuitive actions.

A quick read. Very well written. Amazing how one of the greatest in the field also happens to be a good writer. Would recommend not just for editors, but anyone interested in film. It'd be amazing to know what Murch thinks of cinema now, 20 years later, with all the advancements, the internet and the numerous new formats of media associated with it.

The theatrical/cinematic experience is really born the moment someone says, “Let’s go out.” What is implicit in this phrase is a dissatisfaction with one’s familiar surroundings and the corresponding need to open oneself up in an uncontrolled way to something “other.” And here we have the battle between motion pictures in the home and cinema, for I’ll venture that the true cinematic experience can’t be had in the home, no matter how technically advanced the equipment becomes.

Let’s say that the average age in the audience is twenty-five years. Six hundred times twenty-five equals fifteen thousand years of human experience assembled in that darkness—well over twice the length of recorded human history of hopes, dreams, disappointments, exultation, tragedy. All focused on the same series of images and sounds, all brought there by the urge, however inchoate, to open up and experience as intensely as possible something beyond their ordinary lives.

It's really interesting to see how far cinema has come since the year Murch wrote this book (I read the 2nd edition), and how accurate his predictions were.

Leer un libro que quería leer hace mucho tiempo pero pq me lo pidieron para una clase es una experiencia interesante.

quite interesting but I'm glad I finally finished it

Well written and this is the second edition, although as the author knew would happen, film production has moved on fast.

This tells how an editor makes choices and cuts film - originally a physical cut - and how machines used to be large, noisy and heavy but have moved to be computers.

We are told to bear in mind that seeing a film on a big screen is more immersive than seeing it on a two foot wide screen, and more detail will be seen in a big picture; at the same time, readily available screen time means that people can watch a film over and again, seeing new nuances and character aspects.

This is very interesting for those studying how the mechanics of film making have changed. Analogue to digital. Speed is important in a big budget film. Apparently a question asked when hiring an editor is 'how fast do they work?'

However, some things won't change, such as an orderly process for film editing, backing up copies, choosing a good cut. The author points out that people watching something intently don't blink, but people changing their mind, submitting, or holding conflicting thoughts, blink rapidly. We can blink as we move our line of sight, seeing a different picture as the eye opens. He suggests that we accepted film right from the start because it was like blinking.

I borrowed this book from the Dublin Business School Library. This is an unbiased review.

Siento una profunda admiración y respeto por aquellos artesanos y profesionales que han llegado un nivel tan alto de maestria en su oficio, que les permite hacer filosofía sobre su propio trabajo. Eso requiere una capacidad de abstracción, inteligencia y humildad que no todo el mundo posee... Este libro es un ejemplo de ello.

Mi primer contacto con "In the Blink of an Eye" fue hace unos 20 años. Justo cuando esta segunda edición revisada fue publicada y justo cuando yo empezaba en este mismo oficio de la edición audiovisual. Abandoné el libro a la mitad. Probablemente buscaba un manual de montaje y este libro es todo, menos un manual.

Ahora lo he leído como un libro de reflexiones y de filosofía y ha obrado el milagro de reconciliarme con un oficio por el que había perdido el amor. Impagable servicio mister Walter. Gracias.

Short! Very easy to read! Very easy to digest. A very interesting retrospective on editing and the collaborative process!

It's not a book on how to edit as in what quick keys you should use or how to diagram a scene to keep continuity. It is more a guide to finding your purpose as an editor a reflection about what Walter Murch thinks has been important

Well written and interesting book! I bet Walter Murch gives fascinating lectures. I liked his ideas about editing and vivid comparisons. He shares some useful tips on how to edit a feature film, but this is not a how-to-edit book, it’s philosophy of editing. Enjoyable read nevertheless! I also liked the second part of the book where he compares editing directly on film with digital editing.

Some things were surprising - he says that accessing any part of the material instantly in digital editing is a drawback, because sometimes we think we know what we need, but actually we might be mistaken and there are some material that we neglected just because our initial remark was negative. I liked how he compares editing with speaking a foreign language - we always understand more than we can actually articulate. So every film is a language - it speaks to us, but we can’t always say what we want to say. Sometimes we have to see material again - and then find the missing piece. He says that old editing systems had this advantage - you can’t randomly access the bit of material you want, you have to rewind some chunks of film at higher speed, so you get a glimpse of other scenes. And this process is not a waste of time - it can actually give ideas and help to solve the puzzle. Keeping that in mind I will try to rewatch material as I edit and keep it fresh in my head.

I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in filmmaking and editing in particular.

better than the bible.

They say, once you see how sausage is made, you gain a new perspective on food. Much the same can be said about learning about the process of video or film editing. You never see film and video in the same way again. For example, you discover that scene changes are often four seconds long. Consistently. Four seconds. Then you learn the practice is rooted in the interval of en eye blink (thus the title of the book).
Editing video, whether film or in digital media, is as much a science as it is an art. You begin to become aware of a scene where the sound change precedes a video scene. That's known as a "J" cut and it is used for a specific purpose in the production. You recognize the distinction between 24 fps for film and 30 or 60 frames per second for digital media. and the reason behind the staunch defense of the 24 frame format.
Anyone serious about video production will find this book to be an enlightening view into the intricacies of video editing.

In this book's forward, Francis Ford Coppola identifies Walter Murch as a man with feet planted in both the realm of film practice and film theory, and this is borne out fantastically throughout the text of this book. Murch clearly thinks deeply about his practice of film editing, from both the technical and artistic perspectives, and so this glimpse into his working thoughts and process quickly becomes a sort of phenomenological account of the work of the body creating art as expressed through mechanistic means. The insight that he has to give any film editor, writer, director, or even film viewer is simply incredible. Definitely a must-read book for film theorists, practitioners, and fans.