'Pirates of the Caribbean', Editor, Craig Wood

0:03Jawad MirHow are, how's everything with you?

0:05Craig WoodIt's been really good.

0:07Jawad MirAnd you're ba… based out of London or?

0:10Craig WoodNo, I am in Los Angeles.

0:13Jawad MirWonderful.

0:15Craig WoodYeah. I did a bunch of work before the pandemic in London, but, mostly I'm here in LA. Where are you based, are you in…

0:22Jawad MirBased out of, Toronto, Canada.

0:24Craig WoodToronto.

0:25Jawad MirAnd, how's work been after pandemic?

0:29Craig WoodIt's been fine. I actually worked the whole way through the pandemic. I was working on, Eternals com… coming, and that got extended because of the pandemic, so that was two years on that movie. And, last year I was doing a film for Sony. I am between things right now, so this is a perfect time for something like this.

0:56Jawad MirGood. Good. Well, thank you so much for agreeing to do this, and really looking forward to chatting with you about your work, your career, and just on that note, if you wanna just start off with how did you get started in the editing, side of things and in the business?

1:13Craig WoodOh, well, I started in editing when I was pretty young. I became an assistant editor for feature documentaries at an Australian TV, the government TV channel in Sydney in Australia. And then I started cutting music videos on the side for, the Australian director, Alex Proyas, who was just out of film school. So it was right at the beginning of his career and, he formed a company with, a composer and sound designer, friend, Peter Miller, that made initially music videos. So I started my career cutting music videos for them. We did a very low budget feature film in Australia. Moved on to commercials in Australia, and it was commercials that brought me to America on a sort of one-off basis, and I'd go back to Sydney and then I'd be called back to do another commercial and that's how I met Gore Verbinski on commercials.

2:19Craig WoodBefore he was even directing, he was, the visual effects supervisor for the production company. And once he started directing commercials, he asked me to cut them. And when he got his first feature film, which was Mousehunt for DreamWorks, he asked me to cut that, and the rest is history as they say.

2:44Jawad MirFab… fabulous. And what were some, what are some of the commercials that you have edited, I'm believing, I… I'm assuming that was in the '90s or the e… late '80s that you did that, the commercial work…

2:53Craig WoodIt was, commercials were late '80s and the first half of the '90s. So everything before Mousehunt, which was '97…

3:03Jawad MirRight

3:03Craig Wood... Was commercials and music videos.

3:05Jawad MirAnd some of the commercials that probably stand out to mainstream that you may have done that you…

3:12Craig WoodWell, the one that people always mention is the Budweiser Frogs that…

3:17Jawad MirOh…

3:17Craig Wood... Got the…

3:17Jawad Mir... You did that

3:19Craig WoodYeah.

3:21Jawad MirThat's it

3:21Craig Wood... That pretty well-known. One of the first set of commercials and the job I met Gore on was for the Super Bowl. Do you know the Bud Bowl where the bottles actually play football?

3:34Jawad MirIt rings a bell. This was in the mid…'90s, right?

3:38Craig WoodYeah. They used to do it each year and I did one of those, I think it was '92, and it was a set of four commercials for the Super Bowl.

3:47Jawad MirCool.

3:48Craig WoodYeah. They were all pretty fun things.

3:51Jawad MirI'm sure, I'm sure they were. How did you transition from, I know from e… editing feature narratives to editing feature documentaries is a very difficult process because they're two different beast altogether. You know, with feature narrative you have a script and everything. With feature documentaries, not always the case because story's always changing or you're going in this direction and that direction.

4:15Craig WoodIt's, yeah, while I started as an assistant editor in feature documentaries, I've never actually cut a feature documentary.

4:22Jawad MirOh, you never did.

4:24Craig WoodThat I did more sound work back in those days, and I pretty much immediately went into music videos and commercials

4:33Jawad MirRight

4:33Craig Wood... More narrative-driven stuff actually. A lot of the commercials and the music videos have stories and that sort of, learning curve on telling stories in abbreviated ways serves me very well for a lot of the big action movies.

4:51Jawad MirSure. And when you came on board on Mousehunt, which was I think DreamWorks… ... Third film or second film, one or the other…

5:02Craig WoodI think it was the second.

5:03Jawad MirYeah. I think Amistad came around the same time, like within a week or two before or after, sorry. But why, when Gore brought you on, how does it work at that, how did it work at that time? Was it the director's pick even back then that this is the editor that I wanna work with?

5:21Craig WoodThe story Gore tells me about that is he'd go into production meetings and he'd have to give up on certain things. They'd say, "We want it this way." And he'd go, "Oh, all right, you can do that, but can I have my editor?" And he would do that repeatedly and eventually they said, "Oh, all right, you can have your editor."

5:42Jawad MirNow that's a…

5:44Craig WoodSo it was, it was Gore that pushed it. He wanted someone on his side doing his first film, and we work, we worked very well together over the years. He's still a, still a very good friend of mine. I pretty much worked on every single one of his films. That's been a wonderful collaboration throughout my career and I've, y… you know, we've learnt to tell these big stories together.

6:14Jawad MirYeah. And Max… and, Mousehunt was something that was, I mean, I w… I was reading up on it. There was, there was a whole argument about would there be a CG mouse or, you know, a real live action mouse, and back and forth. And the film kind of, I think one of the ex… at least from what I've read, I don't know if this is accurate and I was reading a book, and, some of the executives were concerned that it was too kind of like a period piece as opposed to, like, a Home Alone type, you know, more of like a brighter tone, but was much darker. And as a, as an editor, how did you deal with the storytelling, of Mousehunt? Because, you know, film is written twice, once in the scripting stage, three times, scripting, production, and post-production.

7:03Craig WoodThat's absolutely true. The editor kind of gets the final rewrite. Well, I know there was concern about the period-ness of it, which I think has actually made it date really well. Because it's in this sort of timeless period…

7:20Jawad MirYeah

7:20Craig Wood... The film plays well now. I remember there were studio notes that came down, "We don't want people wearing hats all the time." And we…

7:30Jawad MirI read about that

7:31Craig Wood... We didn't want hats.

7:33Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

7:34Craig WoodEven though there are some hats in the film. The film was a lot longer in its first cut, and darker. And the process of getting it to where, what it became, you know, a quite delightful, slightly younger film even though the dark tones make it older at the same time, was losing a lot of that darkness. And Steven Spielberg helped us a lot with that. You know, he, made a bunch of suggestions, a lot of which we took, and are in the film. The previews, you know, previews tell you what an audience wants. I remember our first preview, they didn't laugh so much.

8:25Craig WoodAnd it was about taking a bunch of things out and getting the jokes to be just the right distance apart…

8:31Jawad MirRight

8:31Craig Wood... So that people roll into each joke, and that was a very interesting lesson. Y… you know, the first preview didn't go terrible, but it wasn't what they wanted. And I thought, "Oh, God, my career is over before it's really started." once again, Gore fought for me to stay. A… and our next go at a preview it did so much better. And, you know, we had about four previews, I think, to get it to where it ended up.

9:06Jawad MirGreat. And, you know, the thing with editing is it's, it's all about pacing, whether it's comedy, whether it's horror, whether it's action. And someti… not sometimes, I would say, at least for me, as a storyteller myself and s… someone who has edited, co-edited some of my films, it's all about that feeling that you get, that this is the right thing to do. I don't know why I'm cutting it at this point, but I feel like I have to cut it. Obviously there are other reasons where, you know, you're trying to go up into a close-up mode, depending on what the dialogue is and all that stuff. When you…

9:40Craig WoodThat's right

9:40Jawad Mir... When you're doing that, is it, is it something similar that you go through or is it just something that becomes like second nature that, you know, you're snap going at it?

9:52Craig WoodWell, it's all about feel, isn't it? It's, it's a personal feel.

9:58Jawad MirYeah.

9:58Craig WoodY… that's certainly your first pass on the film, and then you sort of do lose a little perspective 'cause you start to think, "Oh, this is, this is the good pace." And then you, to make that fresh again, that's when you put it in front of an audience for the first time for a preview, and you, it's not so much what the audience says, but it's how you feel about the rhythms while watching it with other people.

10:25Jawad MirYeah.

10:26Craig WoodAnd it's very informative, that process.

10:30Jawad MirAnd when you were screening Mousehunt, you know, when you're watching, when you're editing a film in front of a screen, it's a totally different pers… perspective as opposed to when you're sitting in a theater watching with an audience, and then you start picking up on things. Like, you don't, the, you see things that you didn't see when you were editing them. And…

10:48Craig WoodThat's absolutely true

10:49Jawad Mir... Right, and that cringiness that comes to you, I mean, comes to a lot of filmmakers, I don't know if it came to you…... As an editor, that, "Oh, shoot," you know? There's that feel, the something is in there, I wonder if the audience picked it up or they didn't pick it up. Did, was there an example like that in any of the films that you've edited? It doesn't have to be Mousehunt.

11:10Craig WoodWell, one very interesting thing which I've used as an example since was in Mousehunt, where we explored at one of the previews taking a scene out early in the film. And I seem to think it was the diner scene where, the brother orders a cheese sandwich.

11:37Jawad MirRight.

11:38Craig WoodAnd at the preview it wasn't until the end of the film, the last scene in the now string cheese factory…

11:48Jawad MirOkay

11:48Craig Wood... Where we realized we've ruined the movie.

11:51Jawad MirOkay.

11:53Craig WoodBecause without that early scene…

11:56Jawad MirThis is…

11:56Craig Wood... The end scene felt completely stupid.

12:00Jawad MirSo that's something you picked up on when you were watching it with the audience?

12:04Craig WoodYou g… you, and it, you had to watch the entire film through with a, with an audience and you get to that scene and you go, "Oh my God, this scene doesn't work anymore."

12:15Jawad MirYeah, no, I bet. And is that... H… connecting to that, how is your editing workflow? Like, do you... When I say workflow, I don't mean technical. I mean, like, you know, do you go thr… like, what's your process? Do you go through a certain amount of time and then you give it a break? Because, you know, obviously it, you become so involved in whether you write or edit, that it's your baby and you don't wanna, you know, everything seems so important at the beginning. But how do you, how do you make yourself distant from the project when you're editing it?

12:46Craig WoodWell, my... The thing I do the most is w… watch large chunks of the movie through. So I'll often start at the beginning of a reel, play it down, and then when something bothers me, I stop, I make an adjustment, and then I go back to the beginning of the movie and watch it all through again, see what that change felt like, and continue watching until something else bothers me. A process of watching all the way from the beginning of a reel, not just from the beginning of a scene. Because, you know, that rhythm is really important to me. It's, I do that even more o… on a lot of the jobs where I come out to come onto the film quite late to help them, you know…

13:42Jawad MirTighten it

13:43Craig Wood... Rethink and tight.

13:44Jawad MirYeah.

13:44Craig WoodThat's certainly what I did on Guardian… the first Guardians of the Galaxy. You know, I did a pass where I'd watch it down, and every time I saw even the slightest little pause that bothered me or, performance hiccup, I'd make an adjustment. And then I'd, I'd go back to the beginning of the reel and can do it all through again. And it's laborious, but that's, it works for me.

14:17Jawad MirWhen a film starts, so we can start talking about The Mexican here, or you can talk about anything, but when a film starts, how involved are you? I know it depends different with editors, different filmmakers. Are you involved on onset cutting dailies, or is it coming to your office, or you have an assistant editor that's doing that? Like, what's the process of that for people who want to get into editing, and h… how do you tackle that?

14:42Craig WoodWell, it's funny how even a lot of crews don't realize the editor starts working the day they start shooting. And sometimes before, you know? Sometimes we're cutting, previews so that they know what to shoot for action scenes. But certainly day one of shooting, we're there, cutting, you know, either near them or maybe remotely, but communicating with the director on a daily basis so that, you know, if they've missed some coverage or just had to move on more quickly and you feel that something is missing, you discuss it with the director and they'll go, "Oh, yes, I should pick that up," and they'll pick it up in a day or so. So that's one of the biggest functions the editor is serving during the shoot, is m… just making sure all the pieces go together and work.

15:46Craig WoodThe editor gets the, obviously the first cut of the movie, so it's my favorite period of a production 'cause the movie is mine for a while.

15:58Jawad MirRight.

16:00Craig WoodThen annoyingly the director finishes shooting, and then he comes and starts telling him what to do.

16:09Jawad MirAnd which leads to my next question, right? You've worked with a lot of filmmakers. Gore, of course, you've worked with on several projects. How... And you, this is not to cause any controversy, it's all, you know, light jokes and humor, is that what does it... How do you feel, when an edit… when a director comes and you're sitting together and, you know, if there's a scene where you really feel this is something that needs to be the way I think. Not ego thing, but just, you know, the feel that you have versus what the director feels. What kind of discussion and ca… or argument do you guys have?

16:44Craig WoodOh. For me, it's not about discussion, I just sulk until I get my way.

16:48Jawad MirOkay. Well, that's great.

16:52Craig WoodNo. It's obviously a colla… you know, a collaborative thing.

16:56Jawad MirLanguage in there.

16:57Craig WoodYou discuss it. If you feel really strongly about it, you just argue your point. The director has the final word, and thanks…

17:10Jawad MirSure. Yeah

17:10Craig Wood... The studio ends up having the final word mostly. It's, it's discuss your ideas and say why you think this is better than that.

17:23Jawad MirSo was there a time on Mexican where that happened? And if so, what scene was it that you may have felt strongly about and it stayed in the film?

17:35Craig WoodFunnily enough, there was one scene, when they were setting all these mouse traps out and then they got trapped in a corner. And there was one part of that scene which was shot, and right from the time it was shot, I went, "This is never going to be in the movie," and I never cut it. I just never cut it. And Gore never made me cut it… 'cause I think he realized it could never be in the movie. So it's not like we missed exploring something. It was just so obvious it couldn't go in the movie.

18:16Jawad MirRight. And w… was there something similar on The Mexican as well, where there was a scene that…

18:24Craig WoodThe Mexican had m… even more of a subplot with, the Ted character, the, you know, the, J.K. Simmons…

18:35Jawad MirRight

18:36Craig Wood... Character, where we showed him actually falling in love and getting married, in Mexico, and that was excised. And, you know, I still feel good that was excised. The f… 'cause The M… The Mexican's a funny beast. I actually think it's aged very well over the years.

19:01Jawad MirYeah.

19:02Craig WoodI think it actually plays better now than it did back then.

19:06Jawad MirYou know, you are so right because I saw it again after a long time, a week ago, and I'm watching it and I'm… I'm feeling, aside from the theme and all that and the subplot, and I'm thinking if this was mo… if this movie was to come out now, it r… its runtime is two hours and two minutes or three minutes with the credits.

19:26Craig WoodIs it? I don't even remember.

19:27Jawad MirYeah. I'm 100% convinced that nowadays because of the type of films that are being made, it'd probably be cut by at least 10 to 15 minutes, for theater running. And that's what I liked about it even though when I watched it last week because now, you know, you look at a different perspective. I don't really go to movie theaters to watch all the movies that are out there as I used to, probably because of time, you know…

19:53Craig WoodYeah

19:53Jawad Mir... Your ta… your taste changes and everything. But I miss those kind of films where it's just, where there's story, you know, where there's characters. And that, one of the things I really loved about The Mexican was the story of, James Gandolfini's character, late J… James Gandolfini and…

20:09Craig WoodYeah. The s… s… strongest relationship…

20:12Jawad MirRight

20:12Craig Wood... His relationship with Julia Roberts…

20:15Jawad MirYeah

20:15Craig Wood... His strongest relationship in the film. It's beautiful.

20:18Jawad MirAnd it was very natural. Like, you could tell there was good chemistry there. And which go… leads me to the next question. Mexican was your second film or third film that you edited?

20:29Craig WoodThird actually. I did another film for DreamWorks in between, not for Gor, called Forces of Nature, with…

20:37Jawad MirOh, you did Forces of Nature too with Sandra Bullock and…

20:39Craig WoodBen Affleck and Sand… Sandra Bullock. Yeah.

20:42Jawad MirHow was… speaking of that, like, you know, you have two big stars at the time, Ben Affleck, Sandra Bullock, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts. As an editor and a new editor, was that ever… not that you were dealing with them directly. I mean, Gore was obviously. But was that ever, like, a weird feeling that here you are editing these two, you know, four actors that you've sort of seen in the last five, six years, explode in the art… in the world of cinema?

21:09Craig WoodI don't think it changed anything. It was cool at the time. It was, you know, I felt very lucky.

21:16Jawad MirYeah.

21:17Craig WoodBut it didn't change anything. It, you know, I say the same thing about, you know, big budget movies with lots of action. It just doesn't change anything, the cost and you still make the same choice. You're seeing a piece of film, and you're judging its worth.

21:36Jawad MirAnd how do you make a decision to choose a film, besides being on Gore's film? You know, because you started off with him. Like, what's, what's a… is it just something like a job comes and you, like, something connects with you and you're like, "Okay, let's do it," or?

21:51Craig WoodYeah, there's some of that. It's, it's certainly what's available and on offer at a particular time 'cause I, you know, I don't just go out there and say, "I wanna do that."

22:03Jawad MirYeah.

22:04Craig WoodBut maybe some editors are able to do that more than I've been able to do that. But obviously you read a script and say, "Is that for me?" so that's the first aspect of making a choice. And then it's about talking to the director and thin… and deciding if you feel like, there's a connection between the two of you…

22:28Jawad MirRight

22:29Craig Wood... 'cause that relationship becomes very close on a…

22:32Jawad Mir100%. 100%. And I have to tell you, of all the films that you've edited that I have seen, to this day, The Ring is… I haven't seen it in a while, but I remember seeing it several times when it came out. It's one of the creepiest movies…

22:51Craig WoodYeah

22:52Jawad Mir... You know?

22:53Craig WoodIt's, it's one of the films I cite as m… my favorite films of the ones I've done. It strangely has dated.

23:03Jawad MirYou think so?

23:03Craig WoodBecause of its technology. It, you know, it's about watching a videotape…

23:10Jawad MirThat's true. That's true

23:12Craig Wood... That, you know, seven days later, you're dead. And it just feels like a b… beast of its time much more than The Mexican does.

23:22Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. You're right. I think I'm looking at it from my own standpoint as opposed to the new generation who don't have a clue about what a VHS, let alone audio cassette is.

23:32Craig WoodRight. But, you know, I'm very proud of the film. You know, I, on that one, I always have a lot to do with the sound on films, but on that one I had a particularly large amount to do with the sound. I was working very closely with the sound designer who was providing me throughout the cut with the sounds that we ended up using in the film. So it was being sound designed by me and the sound editor as we cut the film.

24:04Jawad MirThat's, that's, that's really cool. So you are heavily involved in sound designing as well?

24:09Craig WoodAlways. Always. You know, I just have a passion for it. But I, you know, besides that, I think it's an important part of the storytelling.

24:20Jawad MirYeah.

24:21Craig WoodAnd the ideas should be, should be part of the cut. You know, the big sound ideas. You know, there's, there's one I'm particularly proud of in The Mexican. And I personally came up with it during the editor's cut a… and Gore loved it and we maintained it. But at the end of each of the, you know, the hand-cranked flashbacks, it finishes with the town, clock chiming. There's a chime, bell that chimes…

24:57Jawad MirYeah

24:57Craig Wood... Four, three or four times at the end of each of those. A… and I put it in a… as a sort of constant bring us back…

25:07Jawad MirYeah

25:07Craig Wood... To reality thing. And then I got to cut the final three-way show… showdown, which parallels the flashback in, with…

25:18Jawad MirRight

25:18Craig Wood... Julia and Brad. And Julia fires the gun at Nayman and the ring falls…

25:27Jawad MirYeah

25:28Craig Wood... Piece of the gun, which is a ring, falls to the ground in slow motion and the moment it hits the ground, it's the sound of the chime.

25:38Jawad MirYeah.

25:38Craig WoodThe town clock.

25:40Jawad MirIt…

25:41Craig WoodAnd I was so excited when I came up with that.

25:44Jawad MirI was shaking.

25:45Craig Wood'Cause I went, "This is genius."

25:48Jawad MirAnd I, and I loved the way the ending of the film was pretty much... Like, you know, i… in the ba… in the flashback story how the love didn't come together and they both died, and it kinda came parallel to how, what's gonna happen between Brad Pitt's character, you know, J… Jerry and Sam, and it worked out. So that was really well... That was really good. And I, one of the things I really loved about ti… I mean, it was like a very minute thing, but I picked up on it. There was a scene when, James Gandolfini's character is, follows, Julia… Sam's character, and then they're all drinking from the cup, and there's that straw.

26:27Craig WoodEveryone…

26:28Jawad MirYeah

26:28Craig Wood... Slurping. Yeah

26:29Jawad Mir... Whi… which I thought was really neat. So I love…

26:33Craig WoodGore obviously had that idea when he was shooting, o… otherwise he wouldn't have had everyone drinking from different…

26:38Jawad MirRight

26:39Craig Wood... You know, the Black hitman was sipping coffee, Gandolfini was slurping from something, Julia was drinking Tab. And you could have them all doing it at the same time while those Boo… Boots Are Made for Walking is playing a… as source, scource, as we call it.

26:59Jawad MirRight.

26:59Craig WoodScore source. It was a tricky scene to put together 'cause that all had to work with the song, and be narrative, and have the action beats and all of those things together. So…

27:13Jawad MirYeah

27:13Craig Wood... You know, that's an example of learning stuff from music video editing.

27:19Jawad MirYeah. And another scene that I really liked, was kinda like, the opposite of Romeo and Juliet balcony scene where Brad, you know, where Jerry and Sam are fighting, arguing from the balcony.

27:32Craig WoodOh.

27:32Jawad MirAnd I thought that was r… it really cut well. And, you know, as an editor myself, I always look a little too much into things, as I shouldn't. But, you know, you're looking at it and I'm, I… I'm just trying to see coverage, like how the coverage was done and how it was sort of put out in the, in the final output. And I really loved when you came onto the wide shot, like from bottom up facing with, you know, Sam's character at the top and Jerry at the bottom, and that's when you see a giant distance between them, that this is what their relationship has become.

28:03Craig WoodThat's kind of symbolic, yeah.

28:06Jawad MirYeah.

28:06Craig WoodIt's al… it's always the interesting trick with where to put the wide shot.

28:10Jawad MirYeah.

28:11Craig WoodYou know, the easy place is the establishing at the beginning or at the end. But to decide on an emotional moment within a scene where you're, you're actually saying something about the relationship…

28:26Jawad MirYeah

28:27Craig Wood... With th… that dynamic, that's more interesting. That's the better place to put the wide shot.

28:34Jawad MirAnd people don't notice that, right? Like, I think audiences become a little bit more educated now, but still it's like if you watch any of, any film out there, you know, depe… and it has a really well put together scene, a lot of it has to do obviously with performances and music, if there is any sound effects. But it's also the coverage and the editing, or no editing. That's another way of, you know, the invisible editing where,.. I was... I don't know if you've seen the movie The Post with Tom Hanks and, Meryl Streep, Steven Spielberg's directed one. Came out four or five years ago.

29:09Craig WoodI, yes, I have. Yes.

29:10Jawad MirSo the opening, so the open… I was listening to Spielberg's interview. The opening shot of that where they're in a restaurant, he had shot, he had done a lot of coverage. But then in the post, they decided to leave it to a master shot pretty much for a good five, six minutes. And…

29:25Craig WoodIt's really interesting when that happens

29:28Jawad Mir... And it's amazing that really draws you in and the environment that they're in where there's a, you know, a waiter walking in the background and somebody getting up. It just immerses you that you're really there. I'm not saying that coverage is bad, but sometimes depending on the scene and the message that you're trying to send to the audience, it really draws you in and immerses you in.

29:50Craig WoodSa… sadly, coverage often becomes necessary when you're shortening a scene.

29:55Jawad MirI know.

29:56Craig WoodSo it's a good thing to have.

29:58Jawad MirYeah.

29:59Craig WoodBut it's beautiful when you can play things in held takes. And of course, Steven Spielberg is a master at that. He…

30:06Jawad MirYeah

30:06Craig Wood... Designs oners so beautifully.

30:11Jawad MirYeah. And is there an editor that you've always sort of looked up to? I mean, Walter M… Murhch is obviously the main one that we always look up to, but yourself, that you…

30:22Craig WoodFrom Walter Murch has always been god.

30:26Jawad MirYeah.

30:26Craig WoodBut Ann Coates is a major hero of mine. I did get to meet her years ago when I was doing, w… after I'd finished, Pirates of the Caribbean, the first Pirates of the Caribbean. She was at our table at the ACE Awards and I got to talk to her and that was... She's a wacky person. She was a wacky person…... And loved her so much, and I just love her editorial style. I like to think... Well, I aspire to that. I'm… I really love Dody Dorn's style as well. Th… there's a particular style of cutting that I like, and there's a formality to the cutting that those two editors and Walter Murch does…

31:16Jawad MirRight

31:16Craig Wood... That really appeals to me.

31:18Jawad MirWell, Ann has done some incredible stuff like, you know, obviously Lawrence of Arabia, you know, being the primary one. But i… in her, in the '90s, I mean, she did films like Out of Sight with George Clooney…

31:30Craig WoodOut of Sight and Erin Brockovich…

31:32Jawad MirYeah

31:32Craig Wood... Sort of back to back. And they're beautifully cut.

31:36Jawad MirYeah.

31:36Craig WoodThey're, they're totally what... The style of the cutting is something that I really love. She, in Out of Sight, she did a lot of, you know, radical jump cuts…

31:49Jawad MirYeah

31:49Craig Wood... But they're very different to the way other people seem to do jump cuts. I think they're beautiful…

31:56Jawad MirYeah

31:56Craig Wood... And a lot of people's jump cuts are not.

31:59Jawad MirFair enough. And in terms of, The Mexican, what was the process of that in terms of dailies as well as the screenings that took place, and how much did you have to cut, if anything, or change?

32:18Craig WoodWell, even the way we ended up, I think both Gore and I felt the film was too long. So it was a process of what can be taken out and not spoil it, 'cause there's, there's a lot of parallel stuff which, is, symbolic and, you know, key to why it functions. So, and the length is part of why I like it better now than I did back then, 'cause I was super aware of the length…

32:53Craig Wood... And I think probably if I knew then what I know now, I could have made it shorter.

33:00Jawad MirYeah.

33:00Craig WoodIt's all a process of learning, but, you know, it's what I told you about losing part of the, Ted character's side story.

33:10Jawad MirYeah.

33:10Craig WoodWe had to let certain things go, that were there for a reason. There was part of the backstory, the side story of, Gandolfini falling in love with the guy from the, diner. There was a whole scene where,.. What's the actor's name? I can't…

33:39Jawad MirWhich one?

33:41Craig WoodThe love interest for Gandolfini.

33:44Jawad MirI'm not sure. He looked very familiar. I was watching it last week and I…

33:49Craig WoodYeah, he's been in a bunch of... He's a very good actor.

33:53Jawad MirI'm just trying to look it up, if I can find it.

33:59Craig WoodAnyway, there was a scene where he did drag in a club in Vegas, and we took that out.

34:08Jawad MirOh, okay. Okay.

34:09Craig WoodIt gave the film some more scope. There was a lot of aspects of it that we really liked. But it didn't move the story along in a nice solid fashion.

34:25Jawad MirRight. His name was, m… his name is Michael Kerekes. Is that how you pronounce it?

34:31Craig WoodKerekes, I think it is.

34:33Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

34:33Craig WoodYes. You know, that side romance that, yeah, is important to the film but we prefer… we ended up preferring seeing it more through, Julia's eyes, her watching this happen… ... Rather than seeing it…

34:53Jawad MirSure

34:53Craig Wood... Through them.

34:54Jawad MirNow, had it, had Mexican been a miniseries, do you think those scenes that were cut out, you know, into, like, 30-minute episodes times five or times six, do you think they would work if that was the case?

35:10Craig WoodHard to say. I've never cut a miniseries, so, I don't know how I would've approached that. Obviously more time is more time.

35:24Jawad MirYeah.

35:25Craig WoodBut whether it would still not have moved the story forward properly, I…

35:29Jawad MirNo, that's, that's... You don't think it would have moved the story forward?

35:32Craig WoodI don't think so.

35:33Jawad MirNo. Okay. And when you were... One of the things that I really... I'm, I'm kind of going back and forth now. Obviously you cut Pirates of the Caribbean too. W… did you cut all of them or you just…

35:47Craig WoodOne, two, and three.

35:49Jawad MirOne, two, three.

35:49Craig WoodI didn't cut all of them, but I cut the first three. I cut the trilogy, not the other two.

35:54Jawad MirTrilogy. How many are there? Are there five now? Were there five?

35:56Craig WoodFive.

35:56Jawad MirAre there five? Yeah.

35:58Craig WoodYeah.

35:58Jawad MirAnd how was working on Pirates of the Caribbean different than anything else you may have done? I... Because I feel that Pirates of the Caribbean had more effects, visual effects, than all the other stuff that, at least the DreamWorks stuff that you did. Maybe I'm wrong. And how was, how was that, working on a complete different project with visual effects, with a lot of different aspects?

36:23Craig WoodWell, for… fortunately, with my background in music video and commercials, I sort of always felt comfortable with visual effects. So it wasn't any sort of shock to my system and, you know, Curse of the Black Pearl, the first Pirates, Gore always tries to do as much in camera as he possibly can.

36:53Craig WoodHe is a stickler for keeping the visual effects honest.

36:58Jawad MirYeah.

36:58Craig WoodLike in Pirates 2, Dead Man's Chest, the big fight, sword fight in the wheel…

37:07Jawad MirRight

37:07Craig Wood... Rolled through the jungle, a lot of that was physically done. There were very little, you know, there'd be paint outs of rigs and things like that. But, it was physical effects that we had as dailies, which obviously makes it a lot easier to cut. E… even some of the, what became fully CG characters like Davy Jones…

37:32Jawad MirYeah

37:32Craig Wood... There was Bill Nighy in a gray suit with dots all over it actually performing in the scene. So you would cut it like you would cut, you would cut a drama scene, and then the effects work would be done on top of it.

37:48Jawad MirAnd the fact that you did three Pirates films, does it become sometime... I… is it something that you wanna, you revisit happily? Or is it something that you wanna, you wanna do different things? W… w… what was like doing like, you know, Pirates of the Caribbean three times? Was it enjoyable in a sense that you're revisiting these characters? I'm not talking about the workload, I'm just talking about, you know, from a standpoint of a storyteller or audience member.

38:13Craig WoodIt was lovely to be able to see that story arc through, because there's a consistency in the first three films that aren't in the other two.

38:23Jawad MirI haven't even seen the last two.

38:26Craig WoodRight. And it was a, it's a big story. And, you know, people forget it's not Jack Sparrow's story, it's Elizabeth Swann's story.

38:38Jawad MirYeah.

38:39Craig WoodIt's the story of her dreaming about being a pirate and becoming the pirate king by the third film.

38:45Jawad MirYeah.

38:46Craig WoodAnd I think that's a big part of why the film was s… as successful. Certainly, people love Johnny, but he didn't carry the movie. That's not what carried the story.

38:59Jawad MirRight.

38:59Craig WoodAnd the story about a strong woman is significant.

39:04Jawad MirBut it's, it's funny that at the time, that was never shown in any of the trailers or it was never talked about, at least to my knowledge. I mean, it w… i… if it was, if it was to come out now, I mean, it would be all over, you know…

39:18Craig WoodThat's true

39:18Jawad Mir... News and everything.

39:20Craig WoodThe world has changed.

39:21Jawad MirYeah. So it was never…

39:22Craig WoodWe were ahead of the curve on that.

39:25Jawad Mir100%.

39:26Craig WoodI can't speak for the publicity department, but…

39:29Jawad MirYeah

39:29Craig Wood... But certainly, we were aware of what we were doing.

39:33Jawad MirOn any of the films that you have worked, was there... And I'm not, again, I'm, I'm not looking for names of the films or anything. Was there ever a moment where you know, y… you guys did a cut, second cut, third cut, or whichever, and it went out and, you know, before even the test screenings, the executives saw it and it came back and there was a massive fight for keeping that scene? I know I kinda asked you this earlier, but just something that was really, something that you really wanted to stick your, you know, stick to it and along with the director or against the director. Not as in like in a hostile way, but just like a creative disagreement.

40:20Craig WoodWell, I'm sure there is, but I'm not, I'm sort of vaguing on what that might, an actual example of it. I'm positive 'cause, you know, there are things that are very important to the director and the editor as part of that storytelling team…

40:37Jawad MirRight

40:37Craig Wood... That are probably less important to the studio. But of course, the good creative executives are on your side as well.

40:49Jawad MirYeah.

40:50Craig WoodYou know, you're all on the same side. So, I can't think of an example 'cause, you know, I've mostly had good experiences with studio executives.

41:06Jawad MirThat's good.

41:08Craig WoodYeah. C… certainly the experience with Marvel, that's been wonderful 'cause the executives are incredibly involved. And they're lovely people with good taste. So it kinda works out.

41:24Jawad MirWonderful. Are you ever involved in any of the color correction aspects of things, like in the post?

41:32Craig WoodSome… sometimes when there's time. Usually it's happening at the same time as the final mix, and I…

41:39Jawad MirYeah

41:39Craig Wood... Take it upon myself to be at the final mix for as much of the time as I can be. So when I can sit in, and I think I have a decent eye for color, I'll pop in and annoy them all.

41:57Jawad MirOne thing I noticed about The Mexican, which I didn't back then when I watched it, and correct me if I'm wrong, it didn't look like there was any lighting that was used on the set. It was all natural lighting that was utilized. Maybe I'm completely…

42:10Craig WoodWell, I'm sure Darius would love that compliment, Darius Wolski, the cinematographer. But, you know, I'm sure there's a lot more lighting going on than i… is apparent because…

42:24Jawad MirBut…

42:25Craig Wood... There's certainly a color scheme going…

42:27Jawad MirNo, color scheme is there, for sure. If there was lighting used, I mean, hats off to him because I couldn't tell I c… i-it wasn't like… It was just so, you know, there were so many dark shadows, but they were really well lit at the same time with whatever light source was. I just thought it just seemed to me a very raw, but this... Yeah, there was a color palette, 100%. And, you know, with the walls and the camera going down and…

42:53Craig WoodWell, and between the two location, it's like the Vegas scene has this vaguely, teal quality overall, and the Mexican sections have a totally warm…

43:08Jawad MirYeah

43:09Craig Wood... Oranges and yellows. And that was very deliberate on Gore's part. He wanted to differentiate the s… the story aspects, and I think he accentuated that in post-production as well.

43:24Jawad MirWhat has been your most favorite, scene in any of the films that you have done to cut, and why?

43:33Craig WoodFavorite scene to cut.

43:37Jawad MirThat you were like, "Oh my God, this is something that we can play with, or we can do it this way or that way," and…

43:42Craig WoodWell, weirdly, the scene that jumps to mind, was in a very low-budget film I did early on, so it was somewhere among all of the films we've been talking about, called Highway. It was a very early, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jared Leto, Selma Blair film. Very low budget road movie thing. And there's a scene with Jeremy Piven as a, as a drug dealer that I was so excited with as I was cutting it, 'cause the director wanted me to go wild with getting into the head space of someone that's high on everything, you know. So it's all done with jump cuts, and it's crazy repeat things and, I was so excited with that scene when I finished cutting it 'cause I felt like I created something fresh.

44:40Jawad MirI think that was a… I was just looking it up. That came out in 2002 when Jake was, quite a kid.

44:47Craig WoodI think he was 19 or 18 or something.

44:50Jawad MirYeah. And what are you working on, without any, you know, things that you don't wanna talk about? What are you, what are you currently working on or going to be working on or excited to work on?

45:02Craig WoodNothing on, immediately on the horizon. I've just done a month on Disney's Haunted Mansion, just helping them out, for a particular preview. That was totally fun. I think that's gonna be a fun movie. So at the moment I'm taking a little break and looking around.

45:30Jawad MirGood.

45:30Craig WoodSo if you think of anything, please let me know.

45:34Jawad MirAnd is there a particular director that you would love to work with that you have not? Or is that something not, something that doesn't cross the mind?

45:46Craig WoodWell, I'm looking forward to working with Gore again. We haven't worked together for a little bit now. There's a possible project in the future for him and I to do together. It's, it's a case-by-case situation, you know. I… There are particular directors that I like, but I was really lucky. I didn't finish this film, so I didn't see it through to completion. But I was the r… first editor on The Great Wall, with Zhang Yimou, and that was a total pleasure.

46:27Jawad MirIs that the Matt Damon film or...?

46:30Craig WoodYes.

46:30Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

46:31Craig WoodYes. It didn't end up very well. But,... It was wonderful working with what is really a Chinese trea… national treasure, Zhang Yimou.

46:42Jawad MirRight. And in terms of the tools that you use, right? Do you guys, use Avid or any other tool to…

46:51Craig WoodExclusively. Exclusively Avid. I just don't wanna ever be forced to learn another piece of equipment, which is just sec… The equipment should be second nature to you, and the Avid is to me.

47:04Jawad MirAnd that's one other thing I find with Avid, right? Like I've used Premiere, I've used DaVinci, I've used Avid, and Avid is probably the… I shouldn't say probably, is the most reliable one out there, you know, in terms of usability and no crashes…

47:19Craig WoodThe thing, the thing I'm fairly aware of from the assistant's point of view, the Avid communicates with all the other departments better. It, you know, doing our handovers…

47:32Jawad MirYeah

47:33Craig Wood... It works better than the other platforms do.

47:36Jawad MirYeah. And i-i-i-in terms of story, sorry, my question's not about story. My question is about some of your favorite films, not from an editor standpoint, just something that you really enjoy watching the story or something that you inspire yourself before editing a film. Is there something that you watch or something that you look back to on a regular basis to keep inspiring yourself?

48:03Craig WoodWell, I have both my guilty pleasures and my pleasure pleasures.

48:07Jawad MirPlease do share.

48:09Craig WoodAnd, you know, my favorite film, and w… it was so formative to me, is 2001: A Space Odyssey, which I repeatedly watch on a regular basis. I just find it absolutely mesmerizing and beautiful and significant. It's the film I've seen the most in the cinema, probably 20 times in 70 millimeter.

48:36Jawad MirNice

48:36Craig Wood... But these days I watch it on 4K Blu-ray, and that's also a great pleasure. I have my guilty pleasures, which are, I love the Owen Allen movies. Towering Inferno is a particular favorite of mine. I… there's just something about i… its storytelling, that I love.

49:01Jawad MirGot it. And one last thing that I wanted to ask you, Craig, is that what advice you may have for people who are trying to get into editing or want to edit or are editing and h… how to sort of… Because it's, it's just become one of those things now like anything else because, you know, you... I find a lot of people have this mixed understanding of that if you can edit a YouTube video, then you are all set for something massive, which could be the case in some cases, right? It could… I don't personally think so, but, like, I… And I w… I'm talking like this because I went through that myself. So I used to edit a lot of commercials and promos, and I did a couple of music videos, not too much, and I dived into a feature, I directed my first feature documentary, and I'm like, "Let's just edit this," right?

50:04Jawad MirAnd it was like a low budget and…

50:07Craig WoodDon't tell me you cut it yourself.

50:09Jawad MirNo, I get to the point. I'll get to the point. I'll get to the point. I'll get to the point. So I cut it myself and, but the lesson learned was that my second and my third film, I didn't. And that was something that I learned very early on, that it's not the same thing because especially with documentaries, I mean, there's just so much stuff, like so much footage that you have. Not to undermine narrative films, but going back to my question, what advice would you give to people who are starting out, in doing so?

50:42Craig WoodIt's, it's what I always say. It's surround yourself with like-minded people that you en… enjoy working with. You know, I was very lucky through… throughout my career, both in Australia and when I came first here to meet like-minded people. It's like I think of what it's like to be in the cutting room with Gore Verbinski, and we just have a great time together. You know, sometimes he'll, he'll play his guitar, and sing me a song. You know, we both love Jesus Christ Superstar, so we'll be singing Jesus Christ Superstar together. We just have a great time, and then we get into these heady discussions about the symbolism and the, subtext. And it's very interesting with him that we can watch a scene through.

51:43Craig WoodWe might have tried something, and we'll see a scene through, and we'll have exactly the same reaction at the end. We'll go, "Oh, no, that ruined this." And I've seen it. I've been with other people in the room at the same time, and they're going, "What? What are you talking about?" But Gore and I know exactly what we're talking about.

52:02Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

52:03Craig WoodAnd it's just being with like-minded people. It's beautiful.

52:08Jawad MirAnd you know, you're a hundred percent right because one of the things that I have, come to learn too, I have the same DP for the last, you know, twelve years. My editor now, the last couple of films she's worked on, I want… Because, you know, it's not just because they do good work, which is fantastic, but y… that level of understanding and that…

52:26Craig WoodIt's the communication shorthand that…

52:29Jawad MirYeah

52:30Craig Wood... You cannot put a price on.

52:33Jawad MirIt's incredible

52:33Craig Wood... You just know how each other work. I, you know, I kind of think Gore and I having worked together so much over the years, we've come… It's not like I've learned how he works. We've learned how each other work, and we sort of do our work accordingly.

52:51Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. No, that's, that's great. Is there anything else that you wanna, say or talk about? Because, I mean, I can go on and on for a lot of your films, but I wanna keep your time i… in mind as well.

53:06Craig WoodWell, nothing specifically. I love answering your questions. That makes me think of things. You know, things don't just leap out. I've just had a sort of

53:21Jawad MirAmazing career

53:22Craig Wood... Very, I'm looking for the right word, privileged…

53:29Jawad MirPrivileged

53:29Craig Wood... Career. It's, privileged is the…

53:33Jawad MirWell, I wouldn't say that because the reason you had that career because you worked hard. It's not like it came for free.

53:40Craig WoodNo.

53:40Jawad MirRight? That's what people need to understand.

53:42Craig WoodI don't come from like a film family or anything like that.

53:46Jawad MirRight.

53:46Craig WoodI came from Australia. I was sort of ridiculed for wanting to be a filmmaker in Australia. They thought that would be impossible.

53:55Jawad MirYeah.

53:56Craig WoodAnd, you know, I can remember I was on my first… I was going to my first production meeting on Mousehunt, my first feature film.

54:05Jawad MirYeah.

54:05Craig WoodAnd it was for DreamWorks, Steven Spielberg's company.

54:09Jawad MirRight.

54:10Craig WoodAnd in, on, in the car on the way there, I had a little cry to myself because my career had been so precisely focused on that moment in time because they were the films that I grew up loving, all of his films.

54:24Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

54:26Craig WoodAnd now I'm working for ostensibly him.

54:29Jawad MirYeah.

54:30Craig WoodThat was, a teary moment. It was.

54:34Jawad MirI can, I can feel that, and it's, it's that… And that's something I was saying earlier, that a lot of people… And this happens to a lot of us, right? Like whether you are working at, in Hollywood or whether you're independent or whether you're working in Japan or India… You know, you see someone's career, whoever they are, in whichever field, but let's just talk about films. You feel like, "Oh, you're so lucky that you can get to do this." Well, you got lucky because you had to work hard, and people don't know that back end story that the amount of tear and sweat that you had to go through to get to that point, and you still are c… you're still going at it.

55:10Craig WoodAnd there are a lot of little choices you make along the way w… which actually put you in a, in a position for certain things to happen. You know, I can remember in Australia I said no to certain career paths because I didn't wanna get tied down there, and I wanted to keep the possibilities open. And that was the right decision, obviously.

55:38Jawad MirYeah, no, it's, it's about that gut feeling. And have you ever thought about editing a doc, feature doc or a series?

55:45Craig WoodNot real… you know, it would d… it would have to be a, some subject that was particularly dear to me. But I feel like I like to tell stories in a narrative way. So…

56:03Jawad MirBut I mean, they're n… they're narrative documentaries

56:05Craig Wood... I know there's a lot of narrative to documentaries…

56:08Jawad MirYeah

56:08Craig Wood... But it's, it's a different…

56:10Jawad MirWhat about music videos? Something that you wanna do going back to music videos or commercials, or that's sailed… boat has sailed as well?

56:17Craig WoodI would never say no to that, but it's, it, they've changed. You know, I, m… my career has been blessed by doing these things at sort of their peak…

56:30Jawad MirYeah

56:30Craig Wood... In time.

56:31Jawad MirYeah.

56:31Craig WoodYou know, I w… I started doing music videos in the early '80s, and the '80s were the heyday of music video. It's when MTV actually played music videos…

56:41Jawad MirRight

56:41Craig Wood... 'cause that's what it was created for.

56:46Jawad MirGotcha

56:46Craig Wood... And then I, you know, in the late '80s and through the early '90s the commercials were at their heyday, and things changed with both of those. So I'm glad I'm where I am right now.

57:01Jawad MirWhat's your fav… what… aside from 2001: Space Odyssey, from an editing standpoint, what's your favorite film?

57:11Craig WoodFor a long time it was JFK.

57:16Jawad MirI haven't seen that in a while. I remember that, watching that. Yeah.

57:20Craig WoodYeah. I think it's so beautifully cut and, you know, the stuff that Hank Corwin brought to it… ... The f… fast cutting and the way the sound functions as part of the storytelling, that's, wonderful. Obviously I love Lawrence of Arabia, but I particularly like what, Anne Coates did on Erin Brockovich. There's just something about the cutting in that film. I love Matchstick Men. That's…

57:55Jawad MirThat was a great film. So…

57:57Craig WoodBeautifully cut film. Yeah.

57:59Jawad MirDid she do Traffic as well?

58:03Craig WoodNo. Traffic is Mar… Marioni.

58:08Jawad MirOkay. Okay. Well, great, Craig. I hope that this time that you spent, it was, useful to you. I certainly enjoyed it.

58:18Craig WoodOh, no, this is great fun. Thank you so much.

58:21Jawad MirNo, I would love to, kind of attending your schedule down the road, I would love to do more maybe on a film, more particularly. It doesn't have to be dream work ex… you know, kind of now expanding the podcast and do more wider range of topics and stuff. So if it's of any interest I would love to chat with you more in future.

58:37Craig WoodI would love that too. Thank you so much.

58:39Jawad MirGreat. Thank you so much, Craig. All the best. Thank you.

58:42Craig WoodAll the best. Bye.