Behind the Seen: How Walter Murch Edited Cold Mountain Using Apple's Final Cut Pro and What This Means for Cinema (Voices That Matter) (Paperback)

by Charles Koppelman (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Cold Mountain, the recent film based on the Charles Frazier novel, is a love story set during the American Civil War. Behind the Seen, being the story of how accomplished film editor Walter Murch (of Apocalypse Now fame), is also a story of love in a time of internal conflict. The difference being that Behind the Seen has to do with how Murch used Final Cut Pro, a software package that runs on any modern Macintosh and costs less than $1000, to edit Cold Mountain and thereby incite debate among professional film editors. Can such a mass-market product, accessible to anyone with a camcorder and a FireWire cable, be a serious tool for professionals? Murch proved that it can.

Behind the Seen deals with the technical accomplishment of using Final Cut Pro to assemble a feature film, but more importantly explains to its readers how shooting and editing work--and how the personalities involved in Cold Mountain worked together. This is a book of nonfiction that you can read from beginning to end; it is a technical book but not in the click-and-drag sense. Rather, it's a story about a creative team and the tools they used to deliver a work of drama. --David Wall

Topics covered: How Cold Mountain was shot and edited, using Final Cut Pro as the principal editing suite.

Product Description
The first volume to reveal the post-production process of a major motion picture (Cold Mountain) edited entirely in Final Cut Pro!

• Offers a rare inside glimpse at the creative process of one of cinema's giants: threetime Academy Award-winning editor Walter Murch.
• Includes anecdotes from the director, edit staff, and producers; photos, emails, and journal entries from Murch; and behind-the-scenes insights.
• Accounts from Apple's Final Cut Pro team about what they think about the future of it in feature films.

As the first software-only desktop nonlinear editing system, Final Cut Pro sat the film industry on its ear when it debuted back in 1999. Now it's shaking things up again as editor Walter Murch, director Anthony Minghella, and a long list of Hollywood heavy-hitters are proving that this under-$1,000 software can (and should) be used to edit a multi-million dollar motion picture! This book tells the story of that endeavor: the decision to use Final Cut Pro, the relationship between the technology and art (and craft) of movie-making, how Final Cut Pro was set up and configured for Cold Mountain, how the software's use affected the work flow, and its implications for the future of filmmaking. More than anything, however, this is Murch's own story of what seemed to many a crazy endeavor-- told through photos, journal entries, email musings, and anecdotes that give readers an inside view of what the film editor does and how this particular film progressed through post-production. The book includes, in his own words, Murch's vision, approach, and thoughts on storytelling as he shapes Cold Mountain under the intense pressures of completing a major studio film.

With Academy Awards for his work on Apocalypse Now and The English Patient, sound and film editor Walter Murch is one of the few universally acknowledged editing masters in cinema. Along with George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, he is one of the founding members of the Northern California cinema community. Author Charles Koppelman has been writing screenplays and directing video and film since the early 1980s, including the independent feature film, Dumbarton Bridge, award-winning documentaries, and commercials.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: New Riders Press (October 31, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735714266
• ISBN-13: 978-0735714267
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 8.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #543,695 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting look at the process , November 15, 2004

By	Thomas E. Quinn Jr. "dulouz" (PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As always, Walter Murch is a facinating individual to observe. I see this book as a companion to The Conversations and In The Blink of an Eye because it has less information on Murch's creative insights while editing, but a great deal of info on ups and downs of post production. This book is very intimate - detailing emails, journals, comments on deaths in the crew's family, weddings, frustrations, triumphs, etc. I expected this book to be a commercial for Apple, but while it knocks Avid in support of FCP, Apple and Steve Jobs come off as completely useless for most of the process. Digital film tree, Sean Cullen, and Walter Murch seem to have willed FCP to the next level when it's maker had little faith. Hopefully, their insights will trickle down to suburban film dreamers through future copies of final cut pro. This book also reminded me that all of this new digital technology is simply a tool, the results of which are not in 'film looks' and whatnot, but in the creativity and experience of the user. A great read with facinating details.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Heroic Early Adopters Unite!, February 2, 2005

By	B. Powell "Pixel Composer" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is Lord of the Rings with Walter Murch as Frodo. Too much of the book is focused on the INCREDIBLY HEROIC undertaking that was using FCP 3 on Cold Mountain. The author goes a little over the top with his love fest for Digital Film Tree. I thought this was going to be an in depth look at how Walter (lord of the edit) uses FCP. As well as in depth info about the editing of Cold Mountain and his editing process. Everyone has technical problems of their own. It isn't that much fun reading about Walter Murch's technical problems. I'm more interested in the creative side. There are too many books like this that focus too heavily on the tools and the technical problems. Though it is fun reading Steve Job's emails. For that it deserves 4 stars. Besides I can't bring myself to disrespect Walter with 3 stars.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed. Not what I expected, April 5, 2006

By	Andrew D. Fraser "the_fraser" (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I picked up this book expecting to get a blow-by-blow account of the editing of Cold Mountain and how Walter Murch translated his film cutting techiniques (that are well explained in either "In the Blink of an Eye" or "The Conversations...") into Final Cut Pro.

Instead the bulk of the book was spent in excruciating detail about the selection of Final Cut Pro as an editing platform. There was much talk of the concerns around using FCP3 to edit a feature-length film project. Likewise there was too much detail about the worries they had about shipping these systems to Romania for the edit. Would they have tech support?!? Would they have enough hard drive space?!? Would it survive customs?!?

There are even copies of e-mails of the order of the system and how grand a moment it was... Sorry, I found the inclusion of this material to be boring. I lost interest well before the edit actually started.

To me it was more a story of how Digital Film Tree (God Bless 'em. They ARE good people.) took a big chance on championing this effort and how they supported Murch and his Assistant Editor to provide the technical knowledge of FCP than it was about the actual Edit of Cold Mountain.

The information IS dated now that FCP is in version 5.1 (as of 4/2006) and that may have tainted my read of the book.