Film editing is a craft that I often feel is not properly understood by the movie-going public. Many people seem to think the job is much more limited in scope than it actually is, and, indeed, fail to define it as the art form that it is. Rather, a film editor is responsible for a film’s coherence, pacing and mood, among other aspects. And in many ways, the less you notice a film’s editing, the more accomplished it may be.

Even so, the Academy tends to award showy editing, with action films, musicals and non-linear narratives tending to be major players every year. Early this decade, it appeared as though the category was incredibly tied to the Best Picture race, with match-ups of at least 3/5, usually 4/5 and, in 2002, 5/5 occurring. The last two years, however, have showed a match-up of 2/5. Perhaps we’re moving away from this?

It strikes me as a good idea to start analysis of this category with musicals, where the integration of song and dance always draws attention to the editing.

“Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” will attempt to slash its way into the Oscar race in big fashion as Tim Burton takes Sondheim’s masterpiece to the screen. Editor Chris Lebenzon has been nominated twice before (“Top Gun” and “Crimson Tide”) so if – and this is still a big if – the film delivers, I’d expect another nod.

“Hairspray” was a surprising hit this summer and I’d say it’ll be a factor this awards season, getting a good kick start with the BFCA and Golden Globe nominations. Should it pick up steam into January, I’d say longtime veteran Michael Tronick could be looking at his first nomination. I still think “Sweeney Todd” has the better shot of the two musicals from this vantage point but, if it disappoints, that may change.

“I’m Not There” is also a musical of sorts with a very strange narrative structure. Jay Rabinowitz thoroughly deserved a nomination here for “Requiem for a Dream” as far as I’m concerned, but Haynes’s film strikes me as simply too unconventional to score a nod for the editor this time around.

In the realm of action, “American Gangster” could be leading the charge. Pietro Scalia has two Oscars to his name for “Black Hawk Down” and “JFK” (which I personally consider the best edited film ever – I mean that with no hyperbole whatsoever). “Gangster” received very solid reviews and box office and I could easily see Scalia with nomination #5 come January.

The Coen brothers are known for editing their films under the pseudonym “Roderick Jaynes.” “No Country for Old Men” has been praised for its tightness and creation of suspense. It also is bound to be a huge player this awards season. (I realize the editor of this site is being a notable holdout on its likelihood as a Best Picture nominee but there’s no denying it’ll be in the heat of contention.) While I’m not sure of history on this front, Mr. Jaynes may become the first fictional person ever to get a second nomination.

Another editing vet is John Bloom, a three-time nominee who won this award 25 years ago for “Gandhi.” This year, he’s in charge of cutting Mike Nichols’ “Charlie Wilson’s War.” The film could be a major player; it'll depend on where consensus ends up.

Arguably leading the Best Picture charge is Joe Wright‘s “Atonement.” Editor Paul Tothill will be blending three eras and very different points-of-view and storylines. I think he is probably heading for his first nomination.

“Into the Wild” is also in the thick of the Best Picture race. Sean Penn’s editor of choice, Jay Cassidy, has the best chance of his career for a nomination with this film as he guides Emile Hirsch through his journey. If the film earns a Best Picture nomination, Cassidy could very well follow with the crew to the Kodak.

Matt Chesse’s career has essentially been Marc Forster’s career. The duo collaborates again this year on “The Kite Runner.” Chesse was nominated three year ago for Forster’s Best Picture nominee “Finding Neverland.” “The Kite Runner,” like that film, strikes me as a movie that will only score in this category if it were to also make headway in the big race. So we’ll have to wait for public and critical consensus on the movie.

John Gilroy’s pacing and creation of suspense in “Michael Clayton” was well done indeed. The film’s structure could also help him out. Again, however, I think this one is dependent on how much traction the film can garner in the Best Picture race.

“There Will Be Blood” seems poised to be a critical darling. Its awards potential is more questionable but it certainly exists. Having read the script, I sense it could be a very uniquely paced film – which could work to its advantage or disadvantage in this category. Dylan Tichenor, who has had a difficult time gaining Oscar traction, is leading the charge as editor.

“3:10 to Yuma” takes us back to the Old West in grand fashion. The gun fights, the excitement and the pacing were all top-notch. Michael McKusker got a nomination two years ago for James Mangold’s last film, “Walk the Line.” Should “Yuma” get the end of year attention it deserves, I’d say he has a solid shot at returning.

Juliette Welfing ought not to be ruled out for “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” I have yet to see Julian Schnabel‘s film, but it’s said to be dazzling on its crafts fronts. In my opinion, it’s ultimately a question of how much traction the film can garner, especially with Miramax pushing “No Country for Old Men.”

I’ll finish with a living legend, Anne V. Coates, who is cutting “The Golden Compass.” This adaptation of Philip Pullman’s famous novel will be hitting theatres a week from Friday. Consensus on it is still unclear but should it hit, Coates, who won this award 45 years ago for “Lawrence of Arabia,” could very well be headed for another nomination.

This ends first looks at nine of the ten crafts categories. I won’t deal with the last one, Original Song, until the list of eligible tunes comes out. It’s hard to believe we’re already entering December but indeed we are. Soon, the precursors and top ten lists will be giving us more clues.

Film Editing necessitates a story being told at a reasonable length with smooth transitions and, of course, applicable structure. Some genres, such as action films, musicals and non-linear stories, naturally tend to be opportunities for an editor to really show their stuff. But such an opportunity does not make the task exceptional in and of itself. It can even prove itself distracting at times.

On the other hand, films that flow seamlessly can be demonstrative of some of the best editing in the field. Less is more is by no means out of style. I recently had the opportunity to speak with two editors whose subtle work was integral to the success of two 2006 awards hopefuls: Lucia Zucchetti, who concisely and gracefully pieced together Stephen Frears’s “The Queen,” and Leo Trombetta, charged with the task of blending satire, drama and suspense in Todd Field’s “Little Children.”

Zucchetti’s career has been on the rise for a number of years. She began her career in the usual fashion, taking on shorts and independent films. This year she finds herself in the hunt for Oscar recognition on one of the most critically acclaimed films of the year.

“I can say I’ve been lucky,” Zucchetti says. “If I look back I’m very pleased with the choices I’ve made and the people I’ve encountered.”

”The Queen” marks Zucchetti’s third collaboration with Stephen Frears, following television’s “The Deal” in 2003 and last year’s Oscar-nominated “Mrs. Henderson Presents.”

“Meeting Stephen has been very marking experience,” she contends. “He focuses a lot on performances, so that’s his number one interest in the cutting room. He will sometimes have an opinion on certain concerns, such as rhythm, and he makes that known to you. Though he will say ‘You’re the editor, it’s up to you; you figure it out.’”

Zucchetti greatly appreciated this independence, adding, “He will allow you to use your skill, and he does so with all department heads.”

Leo Trombetta (who can be seen briefly in “Little Children” in the role of a documentary editor) also found the highest profile film of his career to date in Todd Field’s latest effort.

“Every other feature I’ve worked on was independent,” he begins, “in the sense that it had no distributor from the beginning. But New Line was amazingly hands-off.”

It becomes clear that Field had a different approach in his relationship with his Trombetta than did Frears with Zucchetti, but he is equally appreciative of the experience.

“Others like to give notes and let you execute,” he says. “Todd’s not that way. He was very, very hands-on. He’d be in at nine and stay until eight and was with me every step of the way.”

Length is always an issue when it comes to cutting a film. Both editors acknowledge as much, but do not overstate it.

“I think we always said the film should be the length that it needs to be,” Zucchetti says. With respect to the film’s conciseness (it runs just 97 minutes), she notes, “Stephen prefers to be concise rather than overstay his welcome, and we knew from the script that this wasn’t going to be a long movie.”

“Length is a concern,” Trombetta offers. “We knew New Line wasn’t going to release a 3-hour movie, and the first assembly was 3 hours and 20 minutes. But my feeling was not to focus on the time element until the end. It wasn’t until around mid-way through that we had to ask ‘How long is it now?’”

Both “The Queen” and “Little Children” are notable for blending light moments into serious material. Zucchetti and Trombetta each remark on the importance of achieving an appropriate balance of these tones.

“I think it was one of the challenges,” Zucchetti says. “I remember the word ‘tone’ was a very important word in the early stages as we were finding out what it should be. I’d like to think we succeeded in getting it right. It was a process of discovering, because obviously it’s a serious film with a light, humorous touch.”

“The forty minutes after the title are satirical,” Trombetta affords. “It starts to change when Ronnie enters the pool. From that point on, it was a big challenge to keep these tones balanced. And the hardest thing was to realize a scene you really love had to be sacrificed to maintain the tone.”

In addition to length, each film was met with rather unique elements of structure. For Zucchetti, it was the integration of archival material, which she says made the experience particularly memorable.

“It was one of the reasons I felt it would be interesting to cut,” she states frankly. “Archive can affect storytelling so much. It opened up a number of possibilities which enormously affected our story and opened up debate among the filmmakers.”

For Trombetta, the challenge of structure came upon receipt of Field’s work on the page.

“The film had a completely different editing structure in the script,” he says. “We were originally supposed to have many scenes on screen at the same time in boxes, but it was sad to admit it didn’t work. I had to put my ego aside, and we decided to do it more straightforward.”

With the highest profile films of their careers bursting onto the cinematic scene last month, it is quite apparent Lucia Zucchetti and Leo Trombetta are approaching their futures in the business with optimism and openness.

“The success of ‘The Queen’ has been so wonderful, beyond any expectations,” Zucchetti explains. “I feel the past three years have been very exciting, but every single project I did taught me something different and challenged me in different ways. If you go for something you’ve done before, it might not pique your interest as much.”

“There’s no genre that I don’t want to have anything to do with,” Trombetta concludes. “I’m still at a point where I’d love to do every kind of film.”

And wherever they go from here, it seems certain that the experiences of “The Queen” and “Little Children” will stick with both editors forever.

The film editor’s task is not only to establish an appropriate length for a given film, but also to make sure the experience is well paced while remaining engaging throughout. Without quality juxtaposition, the viewing experience would certainly be a trying one.

Traditionally, the lineup for Best Film Editing closely mirrors the Best Picture lineup. A 4/5 crossover is common, with a 3/5 crossover being almost always the case. In 2002, the five Best Picture nominees were the five nominees here. Yet last year, only two of the nominees were for films cited for Best Picture: the great Michael Kahn for “Munich” and eventual winner Hughes Winborne for “Crash.”

Genres such as the musical and the action film tend to do relatively well here. Musical numbers and action sequences not only pose a special challenge for editors who seek to make them visually coherent, but these scenes also have to be well integrated into the film. But while such endeavors pose the opportunity for showy editing, I hardly feel that they warrant awards attention for that reason alone. Films where the flow feels truly seamless represent, in my humble opinion, some of the best film editing on display in a given year.

This is also perhaps the group in which the Academy that is most embracing of new nominees, with at least a couple of first-timers joining the ranks every year. In 1999, in fact, all nominees were first-timers. Directors David Lean and Joel Coen (with brother Ethan) have also both managed nominations for editing their own films, “A Passage to India” and “Fargo” respectively.

Last year’s winner, Hughes Winborne, will pop up once again this awards season with “The Pursuit of Happyness.” The film is not the sort that announces an editing showcase, but if it’s a hit, and especially if it’s an ultimate Best Picture contender, Winborne could ride goodwill from last year to a second nomination.

As mentioned above, musicals seem to be regular nominees. When they are Best Picture contenders, they are always in the mix. Bill Condon’s “Dreamgirls” certainly seems to fit this mold, and Virginia Katz has been developing a good relationship with Condon for years, having edited both “Gods and Monsters” and “Kinsey” for the director (earning an American Cinema Editors nomination for the latter). I think it would be a mistake to bet against her this time around.

Another favorite in the category is the war film, where drama must be blended with coherent and certainly thematically viable action sequences. This year, expect to see Joel Cox in the running for Clint Eastwood’s “Flags of Our Fathers.” Cox has worked with Eastwood on over a dozen occasions, winning the Oscar for “Unforgiven” in 1992 and being nominated again for “Million Dollar Baby” in 2004.

As previously mentioned, it is not uncommon for an action film to score a nomination for Best Film Editing. And when the editor responsible is none other than the legendary Thelma Schoonmaker, we have a bona fide contender on our hands. Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed” hardly plays like a traditional Best Picture nominee given the level of violence and mode of genre, but the critical acclaim has been immense. Schoonmaker’s work on the film also certainly ranks among the finest efforts of her career.

Ensemble films are another variety that the editing branch tends to gravitate toward. “Traffic” and “Crash” have both won the Oscar this decade for constructing vast narratives out of many characters that intersect in the most unlikely of ways. Emilio Estevez’s nostalgic “Bobby” is already considered a divisive film, but one cannot fault veteran Richard Chew (Oscar-winner for “Star Wars” 29 years ago) for his work piecing together many characters and sub-plots into the overall narrative.

Stephen Mirrione and Douglas Crise will also have the responsibility of fashioning a tight ensemble piece in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Babel.” The film increasingly looks solid for a Best Picture nomination, and Mirrione is a past winner in this category for another ensemble film as it is, the aforementioned “Traffic.”

“United 93” features what I consider to be some of the best film editing of the year. Not only is the film’s visual juxtaposition superb, but also the pacing is riveting and the sheer number of cuts is massive. The film credits three editors who are Oscar virgins – Richard Pearson and Christopher Rouse (who worked with “United 93” helmer Paul Greengrass on “The Bourne Supremacy”), as well as Clare Douglas (another former Greengrass collaborator on 2002’s “Bloody Sunday”). It’ll be interesting to see the degree to which the critics can revive the buzz on “United 93,” but the first place I’d expect to see the film earn awards attention would be in this category.

Meanwhile, Oliver Stone is a filmmaker somewhat infamous for his films’ editing. I personally consider “JFK” a showcase for the most accomplished film editing in the medium’s history. Like Greengrass, Stone has also explored the events of 9/11 this year. “World Trade Center” pieces together that fateful day with Julie Monroe on board, along with Oscar-winner David Brenner (“Born on the Fourth of July”). I don’t think a nomination is out of the question, but Paramount has a stacked plate this fall, so we’ll see if the film can get back in the game.

Tariq Anwar (Oscar nominee for “American Beauty”) will have the task of making “The Good Shepherd” compelling across many years of history with subject matter that could possibly be too dry. An elaborate flashback structure certainly won’t hurt matters. The film seems the sort that Oscar might eat up…if it’s any good. Time will tell.

Should the branch be in a fantastical mood, Alex Rodríguez’s piecing together of a futuristic world in “Children of Men” might just be up their alley. The project certainly sounds intriguing and a potential opportunity for an editor to shine.

“The Prestige” features the talents of Lee Smith, an editor I feel deserves more Oscar love than he’s received. Though cited for outstanding work on Peter Weir’s “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World,” Lee missed for his clever pacing of Weir’s “The Truman Show” and last year’s riveting “Batman Begins” from Christopher Nolan. Smart editing will be integral to the success of Nolan’s “The Prestige.” Here’s hoping Nolan has given Smith another great opportunity.

Best Picture contenders should always be watched for in this category, so “The Queen” (concisely cut by Lucia Zucchetti) and, to a lesser extent, “Little Miss Sunshine” (Pamela Martin), ought not to be ruled out.

Elsewhere, Todd Field’s “Little Children” was a surprisingly tension-filled affair. And while the reviews have been good, they probably haven’t represented the wave of immediate acceptance New Line might have been hoping for. “Little Children” isn’t really the sort of film that would tend to grab a nomination for film editing without being a very strong Best Picture contender (which this film will have trouble becoming). But for some reason, Leo Trombetta’s work is sticking in my head as a dark horse contender for a nomination. I can’t put my finger on why, but there it is.

Then we have “Catch a Fire,” a film that is difficult to dislike yet obviously has factors preventing it from greatness. That said, veteran editor Jill Bilcock creates a surprising amount of suspense in the film’s narrative. She came up to promote the film during the Toronto International Film Festival (rare for a craftsperson), and Noyce said he “was lost when she left the set.” So if the film manages to garner any traction in the awards race, this might just be one of few spots.

Like last week, I’ll finish with discussing Steven Soderbergh’s “The Good German.” In the same manner that he shoots the film under the pseudonym “Peter Andrews,” he edits it as “Mary Ann Bernard.” The Coen Brothers were nominated here for “Fargo” despite being credited as “Roderick Jaynes,” so a mention for Soderbergh isn’t out of the question. Maybe it’s just a question of paperwork for eligibility, I’m not sure. But “The Good German” remains one of the few unknown entities in this year’s race.

That's it for this week. Next time, we take a look at one of my personal favorite categories – Best Art Direction.