How "Star Wars - A New Hope" Taught Me About Film Editing

When I was growing up in Ballard (a suburb of Seattle) in the 1970’s we had no DVR, no VCR, no Internet, no Streaming, we barely had cable (and that was the neighbor’s family).  We had two TV’s.  A color one in the living room (probably 19”) and I had a black & white one in the 10” range.

A Super 8mm Projector.  Seriously.

If we wanted to see a movie in our house we had only one option:  a movie projector.  A Kodak store on Market Street had an 8mm/Super 8mm projector you could rent and a handful of films you could watch.  Most were cartoons or short nature films produced by Disney.  If you were lucky you could possibly get a silent film (well, they were ALL silent films) – maybe even one feature length.  I distinctly remember a lazy afternoon watching the silent full length feature film “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” starring Lon Cheney at my friend Schroeder’s house.

Heck, watch for free, it's in the Public Domain:

https://archive.org/details/The_Hunchback_of_Notre_Dame

I think you could probably rent a screen, too, but typically we would use a sheet or a wall to project onto.  And, trust me, nothing is as funny was watching a film backwards – at least to an 8 year-old boy.

When “Episode 4” came out in 1977 I wasn’t even 13 yet but I had a paper route and some “walking around money.”  When other kids were spending their hard earned cash on candy and pop, I was spending my money on my own phone or cable with all the movie channels.  I was probably the only 13 year-old kid getting bills from Viacom.

My first phone.  I thought this was cool.

Still, though, this was 1977 and the VCR hadn’t hit yet and I was head over heels infatuated with all things “Star Wars” and films.  When I got enough money saved up, I bought my OWN 8mm projector and screen and started purchasing 8mm films from a Blackhawk movie catalogue.

Blackhawk Films

I started collecting these great old silent films and thoroughly enjoyed sharing them with friends and family.

Then, when I least expected it, I saw in the back of one my “Star Wars” magazines they were selling a 11 minute long Super 8mm film of “Star Wars.”  I was in heaven.  FINALLY I would be able to watch 11 minutes of “Star Wars” at home!

11 minutes of Heaven

I’m sure it took a couple weeks to get the one reel film and in those weeks I imagined what those 11 minutes would look like:  First the opening shot and part of the battle, then the Space Port and blasting off, a couple minutes of helping the Princess escape from the Death Star and then a couple minutes of them blowing the living hell out of the Death Star.  Yes, it was only 11 minutes and, sure, it would be in black-and-white but it would be STAR WARS in my hands that I could watch over and over and over again.

When the film finally arrived, I couldn’t wait to relive those magical moments and after putting the screen up and slapping the reel on and smelling the familiar smell of burning dust off the projector bulb, the film began.  And it was two scenes.  Scene one being the scene where Obi-Wan (Ben) Kenobi tells Luke about the Force and seeing the hologram of Princess Leia and then the other scene being the end of the escape from the Death Star and the battle against the Tie-Fighters.  That.  Was.  It.  In black-and-white and subtitled.

Suffice it to say, my little 13 year old heart was broken.  They had 11 WHOLE MINUTES (note, they took up 30 seconds with credits including telling me that John Williams did the music score of  a silent version of the film)!!

Heck, you can watch it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LSW90Bd2UQ

Oh well.  It wouldn’t be the first time film broke my heart and, well, it wouldn’t be the last…

Around the same time, the toy company Fisher Price came out with a toy film viewer.  Imagine a gun shaped thing you put up to your eye and then cram a large plastic cartridge into it.  Then, by turning the crank, you could watch a short minute long film.  Cartoons mostly.  You could crank it forward really fast, backward fast, slow it down frame-by-frame, or turn it at what would be a “normal” pace.  The artistry of Mickey being competent or Donald throwing a conniption fit slowed down to the very beautiful frame itself.

Film gun!  Or is it more like a phaser?

I soon learned that if you actually opened one of these cartridges, the film was Super 8mm film stock.  I could, if I wanted, remove the film, put it on a reel and show it on a screen and not have to stick a plastic gun to my eye.

It's what's inside that counts.

And then, at the same Jafco store (started in the Seattle area, bought out by a company called “Best” – went out of business in the late 1990’s) where I bought the projector and screen I came across Kenner’s version of the film viewer and cartridges but these were “Star Wars!”  Finally, I could watch Star Wars in color in the palm of my hand.  And though there were only four cartridges it still was SOMETHING to satiate my desire for watching the film…again.

They had a Jafco in Lynnwood.

Soon, though, the wheels started to turn.  On one hand I had an 11 minute black-and-white disappointing version and, on the other hand, I had four (or five) cartridges of color film stock.  What to do…what to do…what to do.

Oh, yeah, that's right.  A "color show."  None of that black-and-white bullsh*t.

Oh, well, cartridges be damned – I broke open those puppies and pulled out the Super 8mm color “Star Wars” film footage.

These cartridges met a quick and painful death.

Using my 8mm film editing machine, I began to splice in the color film footage in the chronological order as they were in the film.  Bit-by-bit, frame-by-frame, and using scotch tape, I turned my 11 minute black-and-white subtitled disappointment into a mix of color and black-and-white subtitled Frankenstein freak hybrid of a film now going from 11 minutes to a whopping 14 minutes.  But…but…but with more footage AND COLOR!

Splicy Cutty Viewy Thingy

Then came the BIG question:  Do I substitute the black-and-white footage for color footage?  You see, a cartridge contained footage from the scenes of them escaping the Death Star.  I mean it’s one thing to have short color footage and then long, boring, black-and-white footage and then short color footage and long, pointless black-and-white footage but would I be ballsy/stupid enough to actually find the exact frames of black-and-white footage and remove them and insert the color footage instead?  And the answer to that question was:  YES.  I would be stupid/ballsy enough to do that.

When I finally viewed the finish film it was pretty much perfect except for one glitch that kind of repeated something in black-and-white.  I would get it 3 stars out of 4.

There’s something you intrinsically learn when working with your hands on film footage.  You notice things.  Especially if you’re going frame-by-frame, 18 frames per second.  You notice the turn of a head, or the framing of the scene.  You notice the beats when you turn a black-and-white Tie-Fighter explosion into a color explosion.  You notice the intricacies of a shot, or movement (or lack of movement of the camera).  You get a feel for the rhythm or pacing of the scene.

Certainly, going frame-by-frame through a classic film didn’t teach me everything I needed to know about editing.  But at the age of 13 or 14 it certainly opened my eyes to what editing is and what it can do to tell and enhance a story.