Walter Murch is possibly the most eclectic film editor today. He’s been nominated for nine Oscars and nine BAFTAs with three wins in each, covering both sound and picture. He’s also done screen writing and directing, including the feature film Return To Oz for Disney. Despite its critics, Return To Oz is a film that not only was ahead of its time, but adhered far more closely to the original L. Frank Baum book series than the Judy Garland classic or any modern interpretation of the Oz stories.

Murch is one of only two directors to have directed Michael Jackson in 70 mm stereoscopic 3D – Francis Ford Coppola being the other. That was Captain EO, a short film produced for EPCOT, one of Disney’s theme parks.

Many readers may only know Walter Murch for his shift across multiple editing systems – from Moviolas and flatbeds to NLEs (Avid, Final Cut, Premiere Pro). Maybe they just know him for his ‘Rule of Six’ editing tips (In The Blink Of An Eye), as a proponent for editing standing up, or simply for his switch to Final Cut Pro to cut the feature film Cold Mountain. That move has subsequently been coined ‘the Cold Mountain moment’, because it was such a major shift for a large Hollywood film.

Beyond being a film editor and sound designer/mixer, Murch is a student of the industry, the psychology of cinema, and more widely of arts, science, and philosophy. So you can add author and lecturer to his many accomplishments. His first book, In The Blink Of An Eye, is the seminal book on film editing. He’s subsequently been the subject of two other books, Michael Ondaatje’s The Conversations and Charles Koppelman’s Behind The Scene, as well as countless interviews and lectures. I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing Walter Murch a number of times.

Murch’s latest book is Suddenly Something Clicked, published by Faber. It’s available now in the UK and July in the US. You can pre-order from all the usual outlets. The book is written in a casual and conversational style, so reading it is often like Walter Murch telling you his thoughts and stories as if he were right there in front of you.

Walter Murch started compiling notes for this book about twelve years ago, but sat down seriously to write it during Covid. This endeavor ultimately ran long and was split into more than a single book. Suddenly Something Clicked is the first stage, covering picture and sound post-production. At 350 pages (plus acknowledgements and index) it’s about 40% of the total material. The subsequent 60% touches on writing, casting, direction, production, cinema aesthetics, and philosophy. It will be published at a later date.

Suddenly Something Clicked is a mix of stories, theories, and practical advice related to picture editing and sound design and mixing. If you’ve listened to many of Murch’s interviews, then some of these stories and experiences will be familiar; yet Murch has added much more detail to flesh out the context. He’s avoided duplicating what he’d already discussed in his first book In The Blink Of An Eye. The chapters are heavily interspersed with quotes, annotations, graphs, and links. Online resource links include the URL as well as a QR code to connect directly to that reference material. Some of these include Murch’s own illustrative videos posted to Vimeo.

In one chapter, Murch discusses his 1998 re-edit of Orson Welles’ 1958 film, Touch Of Evil. The studio had yanked the film from Welles and made significant changes. Welles objected and wrote a 58-page memo outlining his objections and suggested changes, which the studio ignored. Walter Murch was asked to re-edit the film based on Welles’ memo and to restore it to some semblance of what Welles actually intended. There is plenty of detail about the changes made, but Murch also enhances this chapter with quotes from the Welles memo. This provides context for the reader to understand how and why Murch made the editorial decisions that he did.

Excerpt from Welles’ 58-page memo:

“I assume that the music now backing the opening sequence is temporary [Welles was referring to the Mancini score]. As the camera moves through the streets of the Mexican border town, the plan was to feature a succession of different and contrasting Latin American musical numbers, the effect, that is, of our passing one cabaret orchestra after another.”

There are plenty of things to learn throughout the book, even if you’ve been in the industry for years. For example, Francis Ford Coppola and Walter Murch were at the forefront of modern surround mixing with Apocalypse Now. Lots of films used surround mixes, since Fantasia in the 1940’s. But the innovation for Apocalypse Now was to use stereo surround channels instead of mono, and to add enhancement for super-low frequencies that are felt rather than heard with the ears. This six-channel format was eventually coined 5.1. The reason the sixth channel is labelled .1 is because – as the LFE (low frequency effect) channel – it carries only one tenth of the frequency range of the other five channels.

Another revelation was about the sonic differences between DBX and Dolby noise reduction and why both were used. Murch also describes how he mapped channel panning in the Apocalypse Now mix from only mono to three channels to full 5.1 surround, based on the action on-screen and how the mix layout would creatively support it.

More practical advice is presented throughout the book. Murch shares a set of guidelines he gives to all assistants at the start of a film.

Excerpt from Murch’s assistant editor guidelines:

“First of all, remember you are telling a story, taking advantage of and amplifying the appropriate emotional colours, keeping all of the characters in the scene alive to the degree that is necessary.”

There are also specific suggestions for how to get the best results with ADR (automatic dialogue replacement) recording. He weaves the ADR discussion around anecdotes of working with Marlon Brando and Martin Sheen.

Excerpt from Murch’s ADR guidelines:

“One habit from the earliest days of ADR that is still often used is to feed the actor’s previous reading into his headset and require him to say the new line at the same time. I would avoid doing this. It prevents the actor from hearing his own speaking voice and modulating his performance, and the result is often a sleepy or slightly ‘drunken’ reading. Instead, play the line to be replaced in a quick-repeat loop as many times as it takes for the actor to be comfortable with it, and then, just before the moment of recording, mute the playback of the old line and let the actor give the new reading.”

Throughout the book, Murch has augmented the bottom of each pair of facing pages with a relevant quote and the attributed author. The start of many chapters features a piece of interesting art, including paintings by his late father, Walter Tandy Murch. Key examples, such as in his chapter on editing The Conversation, are illustrated with frames from the film to help make the point.

Taken as a whole, these touches add visual interest, but also a reason to read through the book more than once. You will pick up gems that you might have missed in the first go-around.

Naturally, no book, interview, or discussion with or about Walter Murch would be complete without his theories about why cinema works in the first place. Suddenly Something Clicked won’t disappoint there. With a passion for science, Murch has developed many theories about how human brains react to film’s picture and sound characteristics. You’ll find these chapters peppered into the mix.

Suddenly Something Clicked is a fascinating read authored by someone with six decades under his belt as an editor and sound professional. Walter Murch is someone who may well have put more thought into the process than most of his contemporaries. This is a ‘must read’ for any student of the cinematic arts.

Click here for information about his recent project, Her Name Was Moviola.

Her Name Was Moviola – An interview with Walter Murch about film editing with the Moviola