Julia started her career as an assistant film editor in the mid-1980s. She is now one of the most eminent editors in Spain. She has worked a number of times with Carlos Saura, including ‘Tango’ and ‘Goya’. She also cut Victor Erice’s segment ‘Lifeline’ in ‘Ten Minutes Older, the Trumpet’.
I was born in Arellano (Navarra), a village of about one hundred inhabitants located in the north of Spain. My father was a farmer and my mother was a housewife. In my youth I was interested in cinema, photography, reading, mathematics, painting, music and athletics.
Julia Juaniz in her edit suite (Courtesy of Julia Juaniz)
I used to go to the cinema every Sunday in the village where I was born. All our family liked it. We also saw films on TV. I think that from when I was very young I was happy in the cinema. I always wanted to study cinema, but at that time there was no film school in Spain. I began studying medicine but I did not finish my studies. I went to London to study English and nearly two years later I returned to Spain to learn about or work in film. I managed to get on to a film crew as an unpaid assistant to the director and following that I worked in the same capacity in camera and editing. After that I became a cutting room assistant and some years later I became an editor.
I have learned the craft from the editors I have worked with. Seeing interesting films at various times and studying them in detail have helped me a lot. Reading books of all sorts and especially ones about film had also helped me greatly. The editor who has most influenced me is Juan San Mateo.1 Amongst directors the strongest influences have been Victor Erice2 and Carlos Saura.3
With Carlos Saura I digitise the material that is shot each day and we talk together about the shooting. At the end of the shoot comes ‘all the tomorrows’ of editing. The atmosphere for cutting is good and the attitude to any problems that arise is positive. He has already made many films and knows that there is a solution to everything. We always have good communication right up to the finishing of the film.
With Victor Erice on ‘Ten Minutes Older’4 I edited after the filming. There is a storyboard, but while we are editing things change because we think of a better way. I always intend that my relationship with the director should be cordial, and one of trust, in order that the director should be able to say everything that he wishes – and in the end we always become friends.
Other than these my list of directors whose films have had a strong effect on me includes Eisenstein, Chaplin, Griffith, Renoir, Rosellini, Godard, Murnau, Bresson, John Ford, Nicholas Ray, Dreyer, Bun˜uel, Robert Flaherty, Orson Welles and Hitchcock.
I think my work can best be seen in ‘Goya’5 by Carlos Saura, ‘Guerreros’6 by Daniel Calparsoro and ‘Alumbramiento’7 by Victor Erice. They are three very different cutting styles.
*************
European cinema is more a film-maker’s cinema whereas Hollywood is more a producer’s cinema. Due to its type of narrative, European editing takes more risks than American editing. Although it’s well done they play safe.
I don’t think that digital technology should have any influence on editing. It’s just a question of comfort. Technology neither makes the technician nor the artist.
I think that advertisements and music videos are mainly responsible for the changes in editing style. There are advertisements that tell a story in twenty seconds, and the spectator can assimilate the information. Something that hadn’t happened before, but for a film the shots have to be seen, not just transmit a sensation. Changes in how we edit are always for the better, if not now then later. The true editor will always exist, but perhaps in the future most people will only look for someone to stick the shots together. That’s the way things seem to be going.
When I am editing I need to be in an ordered and agreeable place. More and more I need peace, silence and coffee. Normally if I’m not working my life is so different. The first two weeks are great, because you always have things to do. Then I need to be editing, if not I get anxious.
I think that being intuitive and sensitive is very good for being an editor. The important thing is to have the courage to do what you think you should do. Editors are born and made. Luck is a great help when it comes to finding interesting films and directors with whom you can continually learn.
*************
I choose what film I am going to work on by the script. It must strike me as interesting. If I know the director and how they work, it’s better. If I don’t know the director, I try to get to know them a bit, see what they are like, how they think, to determine if I’m interested in their film, but if I really like the script I usually do the film.
On the first reading, I read the script straight through, thinking about the story, finding out what I feel. Then I read it more slowly, thinking about other details – how it’s structured, what the characters are like. Let’s say I learn it and from then on I work with the shooting script (the marked-up script which shows how each moment has been covered in the shooting). I prefer to work on Avid and in a room that has all the equipment you need for editing – not to have things brought to you, when you need them, from another room.
I work on the emotional aspect of the film. I am guided by my intuition, my emotions and my sense of rhythm. In each film there exists a time which is intrinsic to that film and gives it cohesion. I look at all the takes several times and I note what I feel as I watch them. I think how I will do the first assembly, and I start doing it – usually a long assembly at first with various takes of the same shot so that I can make selections by seeing them several times. When the assembly is more organised I start doing a finer cut. I work on the sequences in the order they arrive from the shoot. I am continuously revising everything.
Sound has the same importance as image to me. As I edit I think about the image and the sound. Perhaps that’s because in Spain the editor used to cut both picture and sound and I got used to working like that. The use of music depends on the director I am working with. Some ask your opinion more than others. For me the music must be just another ingredient in the film, which should accompany it, but not stand out from it. Music delimits the emotional space. Atmospheres delimit the physical space.
I have learnt that however a film ends up is the way it will be seen in future years and this always gives me sleepless nights because I want it to be the best it can be. When the editing of a film has been completed, there will have been only one way it could have been done at that moment; if I see it five or ten years later, I don’t necessarily know if that was right. For me editing is enough of a burden and a challenge anyway, because I want to get the best I can offer at that moment. I have to say that I am sufficiently wilful that when I don’t like a particular cut that we have done, I always say so and if necessary will keep saying so (more than once).
An editor believes that you have to be modest and humble enough not to want to make your own film with the material. What is essential is to maintain the spirit of the film itself. The thing that inspires me about editing is the unpredictability of the result and its capacity to manipulate or influence human emotions. The desire not to explain (predetermine) everything allows one to work from the point of view of the spectator and to resist answering all questions.
Ana Torrent the magical child in ‘Spirit of the Beehive’ by Victor Erice (Courtesy of Optimum Releasing)
To get all this right in some films can be more complicated than in others; one suffers more and the work takes longer, but in the end you want to believe that you have done everything possible to get it right for this particular film at this particular time.
Notes
1. Juan San Mateo – Assistant Editor for Victor Erice on ‘The Spirit of the Beehive’, 1973, and Editor on the same directors ‘The Quince Tree Sun’, 1992.
2. Victor Erice – Born in 1940 he has made only a few films but each is exquisite. Apart from those mentioned in the previous note he made ‘El Sur’ in 1983.
3. Carlos Saura – Born in 1932. First major success, ‘Cría cuervos’, 1976. Also ‘Carmen’, 1983 and ‘Ay, Carmela!’, 1990. His narratives often incorporate dance.
4. Ten Minutes Older, the Trumpet (2002) – A fascinating collection of ten minute film by internationally renowned directors of which Erice’s ‘Lifeline’ is easily the most affecting and its precise montage contributes greatly to this.
5. Goya (1999) – Carlos Saura, the life of the painter Goya in Bordeaux.
6. Guerreros (2002) – Daniel Calparsoro. Story of a Spanish platoon in the Kosovo war.
7. Alumbramiento (Lifeline) (2002) – Victor Erice.