º£½ÇÉçÇø

The Science Communication Unit was delighted and honoured to host acclaimed film editor Walter Murch on 27 October.

The American film editor, director, writer and sound designer spent an afternoon at CLCC and shared insights from his long career with our MSc Science Media Production and MSc Science Communication students.

Walter’s long list of credits includes film classicsThe Godfather trilogy as Film Editor, Re-recording Mixer and Post-Production Consultant. The Academy has recognised his work with nine Oscar nominations and three wins: Best Sound for Apocalypse Now and Best Film Editing and Best Sound for The English Patient. Walter pioneered sound mixing, coining the term ‘sound design’, and authored the seminal book on film editing, In the Blink of an Eye. His documentaries include Particle Fever about the search for the Higgs boson at CERN, which won the inaugural Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication.

Walter reflected on the differences in editing fiction and documentary. He noted that being able to shoot multiple takes but with scenes limited by the script, fiction has an abundance of interpretation but a paucity of events. Documentary, by contrast, has an abundance of events but a paucity of interpretation. For the documentary Particle Fever, the challenge was to find a compelling emotional story in four hundred hours of footage filled with what one film festival organiser described as “the stink of science”. The real world does not always yield the required material and Walter discussed how, in bridging missing footage, editors must necessarily “bend truth in the service of the greater truth.”

Both Walter’s fascination with science and his passion for the art of editing was a great inspiration for our students at the start of their own journeys into science communication and filmmaking.