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FilmSkool — a free film school

The Spielberg Oner

A look at Spielberg's stealth mastery of the long take, and why choosing NOT to cut can be just as powerful a storytelling decision as cutting. Great counterpoint for editors obsessed with pace.

Every Frame a Painting · 5 min · Intermediate · EDT · Editing · 2014

What you take away

Blocking and camera movement can do an editor's job before the footage ever reaches the timeline.

Watch it

Filed under

The films of Steven Spielberg

Famous long takes

Touch of Evil (1958)

Books on editing

The cutting room

Samsung 990 PRO 4TB NVMe — The scratch disk a grade runs off
Crucial T705 2TB — PCIe 5.0 scratch disk — the fastest consumer NVMe
Dell UltraSharp U2723QE — The sensible 4K second monitor
Apple Mac mini M4 — The cheapest Mac that cuts 4K without complaint
Blackmagic DeckLink 8K Pro — Clean video out to a reference monitor
Samsung T9 portable SSD 2TB — Record to it, cut off it, post it

More Editing

Edgar Wright - How to Do Visual Comedy — Every Frame a Painting · 7m · Intermediate
Jackie Chan - How to Do Action Comedy — Every Frame a Painting · 7m · Intermediate
DUNKIRK: Editing the Suspense Snowball — This Guy Edits · 16m · Intermediate
The Book Every Editor Has to Read — Walter Murch and In the Blink of an Eye — StudioBinder · 15m · Intermediate
The Visual Comedy of ISLE OF DOGS | Criterion x Every Frame a Painting — CRITERION and Every Frame a Painting · 11m · Advanced
Elliptical Editing in Vagabond - Film Art video essay — CRITERION · 4m · Advanced
Pacing in Film Editing: Techniques Every High-End Editor Must Know — Inside The Edit · 13m · Intermediate
Post Production Sound for Film — How to Make Your Movie Sound Great — StudioBinder · 25m · Intermediate
Editor Joseph Krings Breaks Down a Scene from Captain Fantastic — Metrograph · 18m · Advanced
Parasite's Perfect Montage — Nerdwriter1 · 8m · Advanced
Andor - One Way Out Editor In-Depth Scene Break Down — Jonny Elwyn · 43m · Advanced
How Editors Cut the Same Scene in 2 Completely Different Ways — Inside The Edit · 11m · Intermediate

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