Interview with Daniel Garriga, Editor/Post Production Manager at Stellarhead

As Oscar night approaches, I talked with Film and Video Editor Daniel Garriga about the Best Film Editing Nominees. Garriga is an Editor/Post Production Manager at Stellarhead, an imaginative content creation and digital communications agency in New York.

Film editors are sculptors who mold the raw footage into a finished product, do you see your job this way?

Absolutely. Ever since I wanted to have a career in Post Production it has always fascinated me that great iconic imagery and stories were told from a series of takes filmed and put together in a dark editing room. And only up until a couple of years ago, after being an intern and assistant in the post production industry, I was finally in the "driver's seat" to edit a sizzle reel. I got a creative rush from taking raw footage and music, then making something coherent out of it. A story.

There is nothing like sitting with a producer in a dark room and watching a particular project morph from raw footage to a first pass, to a second pass, to a third pass, etc. until you begin to see it as a final product

There are great career long collaborations between Editors and Directors, do you have any favorites?

I would say the top of my list would be Scorsese's long time collaboration with Thelma Schoonmaker. Their collaboration goes back to Scorsese's NYU days in the 60's and it must be the longest running director/editor collaboration in the business. Other notable Director/Editor collaborations I really like are Spielberg and Michael Kahn, who recently received a lifetime achievement award and Tarantino's collaborations the late Sally Menke. I am very curious to see how the editing in Tarantino's next film will look without Menke, as they've been editing together since "Reservoir Dogs."

Angus Wall & Kirk Baxter are big Collaborators with David Fincher and they just won the Eddie Award for Best Editing in "The Social Network"? What's your take on their work?

Angus Wall & Kirk Baxter are names most people don't know, which is interesting because editors can really define what a director's films become, but David Fincher's films have such a distinct look, that it doesn't matter who is editing it.

"Social Network" is also up for the Oscar in editing; do any of the other nominees stand out more in your opinion? ("Black Swan", "The King's Speech", "The Fighter", "127 Hours")

I can only speak for the films I have seen ("The Social Network" and "Black Swan") and I can say that "The Social Network" is such a Story & Character focused film that the editing is a bit more straight forward than "Black Swan," which noticeably becomes more hectic and fast paced as we dive deeper into the mind of Nina as the story progresses. This technique was evident in Aronofsky's "Pi" and "Requiem for a Dream" as well.

Are there any films from 2010 that got overlooked by Oscar in the editing category?

I thought "Inception" definitely got overlooked. It must have been an amazing feat to take on a film like that where there are literally so many layers of dreams in the story and how they cut back and forth from each layer and kept most audiences totally engaged. There was complete silence during the film in the theater I was in and I knew they were not sleeping, because at the end the whole theater broke out in thunderous cheers.

"Toy Story 3" won Best Editing in the Eddie Animation category. Editing in animation doesn't seem as challenging as it does with Live Action, because everything is animated according to a storyboard. Do you agree? Or set me straight, does animation editing have its own set of challenges?

I think animation definitely has its own set of challenges. Since the editing is done through story boards, I would guess that the editor is working closely in the pre production of the film to oversee all the cuts being developed. Editing in pre production, never really thought of that (laughs). I'm sure there have been cases when they actually get to the cutting room and some cuts might not work and they must have to go back and reanimate a shot so the cut works.

What essential criteria must an editor follow to win Best Editing?

I wish I had enough wisdom to answer this question, but I have not edited a major motion picture yet. From what I do know, is that editors must be very exact and detail oriented about everything. This is essential to telling a story whether it be a 2 minute sizzle reel or a 2 hour film. It's all about connecting the dots to end up with something coherent to an audience and hopefully trigger true emotions as well. When the cuts connect the dots to emotionally affect the audience you have done your job as an editor and might be a huge factor in the academy's decision to nominate you for best film editing.