That's entirely down to the director and producer.

On big-budget movies, in some cases the director has 'final cut' priviledge, in which case they do whatever they want. In other cases the producer has control and can even refuse to let the director in the editing room, if they want. In low-budget movies, often the director is the editor, if not they're usually supervising the edit.

In my case I've edited a couple of dozen low-budget shorts and features for other directors. About half the time they've basically given me the tapes and script and come back a few weeks later once I have a rough cut: then we work through it together and turn that into the final cut of the movie.

In the other half, they've story-boarded the whole thing and they sit there while I stick the movie together to match their storyboard, then leave me for a while to tidy up the joins.

Even on big-budget movies, sometimes the director will edit too: Robert Rodriguez edits his own movies, for example. But that's quite rare.

In other cases the director will sneak into the editing room when the producer isn't looking and re-cut it :). I believe James Cameron did that on one of his early movies for Roger Corman :). In fact, I also seem to remember that Sam Peckinpah sneaked into the editing room and stole the 'director's cut' of one of his movies, because the producer wanted to recut it.

On darkman, Sam Rami and crew snuck (were let in by the editors as they left at night) in the night before it went to the film transfer and final cut presentation to the board and changed the story back around to how they wanted it (against the will of the studio exec in charge of their project) Luckily, all the other heads really liked it so Sam and crew didn't get fired, but it was a very very ballsy move. Normally, I believe the relationship is negotiated in contract before any shooting even starts. Which means it usually depends how big the director is and if they even want to be in there.

Andrew
www.prometheusmotionpictures.com

Isn't that complete crap. I mean its the directors vision shouldn't he have control over his movie???

That really depends. In Sam Rami's case it was BS because that was his project, but if your just some hired gun director working for a producer to make his vision than you shouldnt get any kind of final cut deal. Everything is situational.

Andrew
www.prometheusmotionpictures.com

quote:

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Originally posted by BkLyNbNcE

Isn't that complete crap. I mean its the directors vision shouldn't he have control over his movie???

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Some people think it's the writers vision and should have control over his movie.
Some people think it's the producer who has control.
The studios put up a lot of money, not only for production but for marketing. They feel they have some say and control.

On small, personal movies like we all make, we have control. But as soon as other people join the project, things change. An experienced producer with several good films under his belt is not likely to give up total control to a first time director.

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The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

some directors want other people to edit their movies in order to give it a fresh perspective... allen and scorcese for example. the editor for annie hall took 40-something minutes out of allen's movie, and allen has said numerous times that it was much better that way.

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