Chaos Cinema and the Avid

Chaos Cinema and the Rise of the Avid



The second part explores the way in which dialogue scenes have also been affected, but also points out the benefits of chaos cinema if used for a specific purpose, using the example of Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker (2009).






























> IndieWire essay on Chaos Cinema
> David Bordwell on ‘intensified continuity’
> Find out more about non-linear editing systems at Wikipedia

6 thoughts on “Chaos Cinema and the Rise of the Avid”

  1. As one who trained on film, cutting on a Steenbeck and marking up with a chinagraph, I learned first to spend time watching the rushes intently before making a single cut. Working with editors who have only used non-linear systems, it’s extraordinary how many of them just start straight into chopping shots up before they’ve spent any time at all viewing them. This is at least partly to do with the greater time pressure everybody’s under, but mostly (I feel) it’s to do with bad habits inculcated by ease of use.

  2. In the late 90’s my old editor Helga Borsche in Munich would bet that she does a feature film edit on a Steenbeck or a KEM as fast as I would cut it on an Avid System. Checking her day schedule, finishing time, etc. she seemed to be right. The ease of use of digital nonlinear systems brought in lots of workhabits which actually slow down the finishing process. For example the amount of material brought in the editing is multiplied, the number of editing versions is multiplied. Working on 35 our first rough cut would have been always nearby the finished version of the film.

  3. Do you think that the new editing technology necessitates the “chaos cinema” aesthetic, or is something like a neo-classical style of composition possible with it?

  4. I think digital editing is just a tool that can be used for cutting in many different ways. The analogy I’d use is that the AVID and Final Cut Pro systems are like cars that the post-MTV generation have driven too fast (especially when it comes to action). But this certainly doesn’t mean that they can’t be used for slower or perhaps imaginative styles of editing.

  5. Those first person video games, which were not played by those directors in their formative years, and obviously not by the writer of the article, offer very few cuts, and total geographic consistency. It’s the opposite of chaos cinema. What a thoughtless comment!

Leave a Reply

