SB: You spend most time with programmes you’ve commissioned during the edit, right?

 

DG: “Yes, you commission a programme, don’t hear from anyone for ages, then someone phones up and says ‘I’ve got a cut for you to see.’

Editing, it’s obviously the most interesting bit of documentary filmmaking. I come to a first viewing and usually see a rough cut, it’s just about the most thrilling moment. It was when I was a producer, too. You have this sense that something can still be brilliant, or still be terrible. What is done at that moment feels very, very crucial in terms of what the film turns into.  As a producer you get to be involved in a couple of rough cuts a year; as a commissioning editor, you get to see a couple of rough cuts a week. It becomes something you get to be very trained and skilled at hopefully, working out how to make it great.”

 

SB: Is it sometimes a shock to see that rough cut? You’ve seen the film at the treatment stage, script stage perhaps, but maybe not even that.  Has it ever been a shock, what you actually see?

 

DG: “In a way, it’s always a shock. You suddenly see the reality of what you’ve imagined about the film. Then you have a dilemma about whether to play to the strengths of what it is now, or try to get it back to what it should have been. But it’s always thrilling. You go to an edit, the people in the room know what the film is all about and you don’t. They pull back the curtain and show you something for an hour and a half. After that time, you have to react to it and tell them how to steer it, no matter what it is. The problems could be anything. There is a kind of adrenalin kick to trying to react intellectually to whatever you might be shown. Sometimes things are in a total mess and other times things are clearly going to be fantastic.

 

In a way, I’ve got to the point that I prefer rough cuts to finished programmes for a couple of reasons. I think rough cuts have a kind of ram-shackled grandeur to them. Once they’ve been beaten into shape to make a prime-time television proposition, they can sometimes lose extraordinary things that don’t quite fit, or don’t quite make sense, but it’s a real shame, often. In a weird way, I like rough cuts for their ram-shackled nature, but also I like them because they’re alive. Somehow films to me now, when they’re finished, they’re dead, they’re over. There’s nothing more to say. Whereas rough cuts are living, breathing things that you can still alter and change and influence.”

 

SB: I sometimes is try to preserve sequences from the rough cut, if I think they are good. I guard them and don’t fine cut them. Sometimes, when you are throwing things together at the start of editing, there’s a kind of energy the cut can have that I try to preserve. Is that just filmmaking or is that telly that asks for everything to be polished and fine, where perhaps you cut the life out of a sequence?

 

DG: “Its partly television, its also about style. If you look at American documentaries [for cinema] their role is much more in terms of being niche, public service art films. So something even as populist as Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine it still has a kind of ram-shackled nature. Any British commissioning editor would take 20 minutes out of that film and make the argument much clearer. In some ways, that would be good, but it would also lose something. The argument is never quite fully spelt out and stated, but that means that it influences the audience in a more emotional, obscure way. I think it’s partly  about different fields of filmmaking. American cinema release documentaries tend not to have a lot of commentary, whereas British docs tend to be much clearer, pithier, more polished, less flabby. This is partly because they are mainly television funded.”

 

SB: Do you have a plan of attack once you’ve viewed the edit, or is it different according to the problems of each particular film?

 

DG: “I think there’s a dilemma with the first viewing. If you think it is going to be fantastic, there’s a temptation to tell the production company, ‘This is absolutely marvellous!’ Most of my colleagues say, you really shouldn’t do that at a first edit, because the next time you see it nothing has changed, nothing has been done. It’s a very difficult balance, because to some extent it becomes about playing the people you are dealing with and I don’t mean that in a nasty way. For me, I try not to play too many games. I just try to tell it how it is. I also think making a film is an enormous undertaking, in terms of one’s energy. The last bit of the edit can feel like rolling a stone to the peak of a mountain. If someone says ‘It’s wonderful!’ when you’re not quite at the peak,  there’s a temptation to stop there.”

 

SB: When you’re in the edit room, how do you like to work with people?

 

DG: “I try to make it as friendly and collaborative and cool as it can be. That’s what I want. But I’ll tell you what it’s really like. What you’ve usually got is 3 people: the executive producer, the producer and the editor and there’s always different dynamics with those 3. You usually want to talk to the producer. It’s really their film and the executive producer can act like a boxing referee if things get intense and then you also have this funny thing of the editor.  I’ve always been bothered by the fact that the editor sits there, almost ignored, as if they are someone who just twiddles the dials or hits the computer keys. You say ‘We have got to get rid of that sequence, it’s just not working.’ The producer scowls and the editor nods vigorously and you realise you are stepping into a battlefield  between these three people. You don’t want to get in the middle of those kind of arguments on the whole, you just want to help people to make the film they want to make. That’s the really interesting thing from my point of view. I can almost always watch a cut and think about how I would make it better, but it’s really, really hard to help someone else make their film the way they want to make it better. I think that’s intellectually a step further.”

 

SB: Do you think  there is ever a conflict there between the film that the producer/editor want to make and the film that Channel 4 wants?

 

DG: “There’s often a clash. When I was a producer, I thought the commissioning editor could go fuck themselves! Just because they paid for it, it was outrageous for them to tell me how to make my film! Now I’m a commissioning editor, I think I have a clarity of vision about what they, the filmmakers, are doing wrong. I’m like a Judas to my former self.

 

Largely, it’s about clarity. People who’ve been working on a documentary for 6 months or a year or longer, tend to be absolutely absorbed in it and assume interest and knowledge of the subject covered. What’s strange and interesting about that is, great film making often involves mystery, drawing people in slowly, but from the commissioning editors point of view, you watch a film and you think ‘My God, towards the end of this film there’s absolutely amazing stuff!’ but I would have no idea and frankly, I would have changed channel long before then unless I’m  tipped off early on that this film contains this amazing stuff, or has a certain ambition. And so on the whole, Channel 4 wants clarity and wants to persuade people to watch its programmes at the front. But filmmakers don’t want their films to be idiot proof and moronic. That’s a battle I fight internally, with my colleagues and with myself about the degree with which one can be more interesting than that. But on the whole,  I lose that battle.

 

Not all films need this chapter and verse, or menus, as they are called. Often with say,  observational documentaries you can show a scene that sort of sums up the whole thing at the top. Hollywood movies often do that, an English film, Sexy Beast does. It starts with that bolder rolling down the hill and crashing into the swimming pool and destroying the sunbathing life of the criminals on the Costa del Sol. It’s a metaphor for what Ben Kingsley is about to do in that film.  So I think we can be cleverer. Sometimes I argue about with people here at Channel 4 about that. When I was a producer, sometimes commissioning editors would come in and say to me ‘Hang on a second, I’m a bit confused here’. And I’d say ‘Yes, deliberately, I’m deliberately trying to get you to feel a bit uneasy there’ and they would say ‘Well I don’t care if you doing it deliberately, just fucking take it out’. And I would say, ‘I’m doing it deliberately. How thick are you?’ This is something I still battle with. Now, as a commissioning editor, if something strikes me as odd and if I think the filmmaker has already  shown the audience that they are in good hands, that they are trying to deliberately unsettle you, I try to let it stay in.”

 

SB: Do you like to have a script in front of you when you are at a screening? I worked in the US for 6 years. There, we  look at the screen during screenings. Everyone watches the story unfold as a sequence of moving images and sound asking themselves ‘Is the story working on screen?’ There are no scripts at screenings.

 

DG: “When I first see something, I try and just watch it and scribble the odd note. By the second or third viewing it’s useful to have a script, especially if the issues I have are on commentary points. Quite soon you get an idea of what the material is and what’s working and what’s not working. Then it becomes much more how you make it work using the right lines to set things up or what’s the right information to give the audience here. Really, a lot of the commissioning editor’s job is to get that script working. That’s probably the thing we influence most. People do complain that I just look at the script, rather than at the screen. Everyone complains about  commissioning editors doing that. It used to drive me crazy when I was a producer, ‘It’s television, it’s not radio!’ But you can actually watch the film while looking at a script.”

 

SB: You have talked about how important it is to give praise when a film is working, but sometimes that doesn’t happen. Why is that?

 

DG: “It is important to praise films. The reason people don’t get enough praise from commissioning editors is because it’s hard to remember to do that. You’ve just watched the film and your job is to say what’s wrong with it and how it can be improved. So there’s a huge amount going on in your head. But I do think that’s really negative and I worry that us commissioning editors can come across as too negative.”

 

SB: As an editor, I see information about what’s working as a clue as to what you would like to see more of, of how you see the film developing.

 

DG: “It’s interesting, because I feel that when something works, everyone can tell and so I don’t mention it. But I take your point, that praise can be as helpful as criticism. But on the other hand, I think everyone knows when something’s great. I’d certainly complain if something great disappeared. But that rarely happens because people know what’s great and what’s working.”

 

SB: You might not think this, but there can be a kind of humility in the director/editor team. They slave away on this diamond, trying to get the facets polished. We know what we think works, but we are aware that others may not agree with us.

 

SB: Some production companies I’ve worked for say follow the commissioning editor’s instructions precisely; others say we should see what works and what doesn’t in the cut. Do you want what you say followed to the letter?

 

DG: “I think the commissioning editor should say ‘Here is where I think the problems are with the film’ and allow freedom to the director, editor, production company to solve those problems in whatever way they think works. Otherwise the danger is the commissioning editor starts becoming a complete backseat driver. They start suggesting intricate detailed solutions that may not work.  I start by making suggestions and by the end they become more like edicts or papal bulls. But then again, you start to earn your right to make it your own film if it’s really good. If you’ve got something that’s really brilliant, you earn the right, you’ve got more leeway not to listen to the commissioning editor. It depends whether the commissioning editor is any good. You see, I think I’m really good at it, but I suppose everyone thinks that.”

 

SB: I’m glad you said that. Steven Frears’ editor Mick Audsley once said to me, take notice of where people see problems, not what they say the solutions are. He described an incident when he was editing Dangerous Liaisons.  People kept complaining about one sequence they thought didn’t work. They suggested taking out the awful claustrophobic close ups. Mick and Steven decided to take out all the wide shots and from then on everyone thought the scene incredibly effective and successful.

 

DG: “Having said that, filmmakers are often incredibly reluctant to change things. They can get stuck on a certain thing or a certain way of doing something. And they say to me  ‘If you move that piece of sync at all, it won’t set up this or that.’ Many of the conversations are like that. It can be frustrating, because they aren’t seeing the wood for the trees. Thinking of that, I was the commissioning editor on a project recently at a company that I used to work for. My old boss was the exec. The director was being really difficult. Everything I suggested, he said that it wouldn’t work. And I said to my old boss ‘Why is he being so difficult?’ He said ‘He just cares about the film, but there’s only one person I can remember being more difficult than him, you!’”

 

SB: Do you like the editing process, is it a pain or a pleasure?

 

DG: “The editing is just fantastic. It’s by far the most interesting bit of documentary making. I just love the highs and lows of the editing. Some days, the light’s all  shining on you and other days its all dark and there’s no way out. That manic depressive experience of it is just thrilling!”

 

SB: Do you think that those editors who raising one eyebrow when you say something they agree with should contribute a bit more?

 

DG: “I find it embarrassing and awkward that editors don’t talk. The difficulty is if the editor disagrees with the producer, then you’re undermining the producer to some extent. I do think though, that editors should not just sit there, as if they are technicians. I do think they should join in the dialogue.”

 

SB: If you have a good team together, it’s best to move away from the battling which sometimes is an ego battle and focus on the film. That’s my ideal.

 

DG: “I think you actually do that don’t you? I think that’s right; I think it is good to focus on the film and forget about the egos. I’m up for discussions about films and how to make them better and all the rest of it is nonsense and all the worries about  who should speak to who and who is where is the pecking order is just rubbish. I’m totally up for talking to anyone about programmes.”

 

SB: Do you have a particular style of documentary you like or particular filmmakers?

 

DG: “Loads, I’m interested in so many  different kinds of filmmakers. One would be Verner Herzog. When I was a producer, I cut my films with Verner Herzog’s editor, a guy called Joe Bini, who I think is one of the great editors around. I was interested in the way Verner Herzog cut his documentaries. I think he plays interesting games with documentary and the nature of documentary. For example, he cheats things in an interesting way. He says he’s not interested in ‘truth’ for its own sake. He snootily calls it ‘the truth of the accountant’. What he’s after is an ‘ecstatic truth’, which means he’s free to make stuff up and lie as long as he’s getting at the heart of what something is really about. For example, in the film, Wings of Hope, it’s about a woman who survives a plane crash over the Peruvian jungle and the film begins with the lines ‘Juliane Koepcke looks like a normal woman, but at night she dreams she is walking down a shopping street’ and at this moment we see she’s walking down a shopping street ‘And everything seems normal, but all the mannequins have broken heads.’ And the camera pans up and we see the mannequins the director’s put in the shop window with smashed heads. It’s just a very arresting, interesting way of playing with what documentary is.