Cover Story: Disney’s Beauty and the Beast
By Jim Bask
EDITOR VIRGINIA (GINNY) KATZ, ACE
Katz was nominated for an America Cinema Editors Eddie Award for Kinsey and won an Eddie Award for her work on Dreamgirls.
When did you get involved in the film?
“[Tobias] started in February and I came in in April, about six weeks before they started shooting, because to look at previs and what they had for the previs so I could put my two cents in terms of whether I thought a close up should be inserted somewhere, or if something was missing. I felt if we could add to the previs and then we started shooting. It’s been a fantastic process, great fun, but it’s been long.”
How do you describe the editing style?
“When you ask about editing style, for me, my style is always dictated by the film that I get. So, for instance, the opening of the movie has this beautiful ballroom scene and all the women are in these gorgeous white dresses, so it’s this very fluid, beautiful waltz. I felt that fluidity and I cut it in that way. Then, when you have a dance scene with Gaston, and that’s a totally different taste, because it’s more raucous, it’s in a tavern, it’s taste differently because it calls for that…it calls for a more robust kind of editing and although it’s a dance number and a song, it’s a different pace than the ballroom scene. So I let the film, whatever it may be, whether it’s an action scene or a father/daughter talking, dictate to me what the rhythm is and then I go with it for that scene. It’s always about telling the story and getting the emotion out of it and usually the film to me dictates that. When I look at dailies, I understand the scene and feel what it’s looking for.”
What was the format that the footage was in when it came to you? Did you ingest it and convert it into something else to work on?
“Company 3 converted the footage for us from the ARRI raw, which is what Tobias shot, to DNx115. I get the bins and it’s ready for me to cut.”
What do you cut on?
“Avid. Love that Avid [Version 7]. I worked with Bill for a long time, and we had worked on film and I was one of those people who didn’t really want to move from film to say, the Avid, because I always loved the texture and that kind of feel of film, but once I made the move I could never think of moving back. I realized the great creativity it allows. It’s just made everybody’s lives easier.”