Adam McLane

The power of editing

The unsung heroes of any book, movie, magazine, or television show are the people behind the scenes who edit and frame a story into something that people will want to watch and talk about.

For instance, take a look at the trailer for the 1988 movie, “A Cry in the Dark.” (You know, the one with Meryl Streep when she says, “A dingo ate my baby!” “the dingo’s got my baby.” [Thanks commenter])

Here is the original trailer, put together by the UK-based company who made the movie, CannonFilms.

Here is the U.S. theatrical release version shown to American audiences, put together by Warner.

The video is probably 90% the same. Same shots, same scenes used. But with a few copy edits, a different voiceover actor, and different background music… the trailer comes across much different.

I bring this up for two reasons.
1. The difference between a lot of things being appropriate for one audience or the other is often times in the minor details.
2. When you watch or read a story be aware that somewhere, someone is editing it to convey a message.

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4 responses to “The power of editing”

  1. Al Ronberg Avatar
    Al Ronberg

    Hey Adam… I had this issues come up with a writing Gig I was hoping to get… I got short-listed to the final 20 out of who knows how many… to get one of the 6 places for the blogging position, I had to write a 200 word blog-post… to cut a long story short, I had to cut my long story short!!! I had written close to 600 words without realising it!

    I think it is REALLY important to stop and smell the roses when you are hoping to communicate something. We have moved (as a society) to the place where we can simply only handle soundbites and 140-character updates… to ramble is to lose an opportunity to reach…

    I think we are in the age of Essence – how we are going to communicate TRUTH by capturing it’s essence is truly a challenge… I guess it is why Don Miller is riding the Narrative wave at the moment by challenging us to write most of the story with the choices we make and the actions we take…

    I hope that you get what I mean – I could try making it shorter?

    Reply
  2. Brian Tristam Williams Avatar
    Brian Tristam Williams

    That was a fairly lucid analysis of the juxtaposition, which I enjoyed. Just one thing: Lindy Chamberlain’s quote is “the dingo’s got my baby” – nothing about “ate,” and also, they chose not to include the word ‘dingo’ in either of the trailers as, I’m guessing, such an odd word was not deemed appropriate for international audiences – people don’t want to think too much, as your previous commenter pointed out. I would be very interested to see how the trailer for Evil Angels (Australian title of this film; based on a well-known book there) was cut for audiences.

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  3. adam mclane Avatar
    adam mclane

    @al- glad you got the gig! And I hear you about the brevity thing. It’s so hard because as a communicator you know you want to take your time to tell a story. But people are so ADD right now, you need to keep it brief. I deal with that on the blog all the time! I’ve learned that if it is going to take too many words, I make a video.

    @brian- thanks for your comment. I changed the quote above. It’s funny how that quote has become part of American pop culture. It’s one of the top three things Americans will say to an Australian for a laugh. (Crocodile Hunter, Crocodile Dundee, Dingo stole my baby) If they have kids, the Wiggles may take precedent.

    As far as the book goes, it looks like it was released in the states as Evil Angels. Here’s the link to Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/EVIL-ANGELS-Dark-Movie-Title/dp/0553272071/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260024558&sr=8-2

    I used the trailer as the point to be made about editing. I suppose the entire story of the Chamberlain case could be a case study in how the media frame’s the story they want. I hadn’t thought about that at first… but it would have been way better!

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  4. Brian Tristam Williams Avatar
    Brian Tristam Williams

    Hey, thanks for the response. Yes, the book was released worldwide as Evil Angels, but was well-known in Australia, so they used that as the film title, to ride on the coat-tails of its popularity, I guess!

    Reply

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