{"id":172214,"date":"2022-08-10T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-10T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.premiumbeat.com\/blog\/?p=172214"},"modified":"2022-08-09T16:07:32","modified_gmt":"2022-08-09T21:07:32","slug":"bullet-train-editor-elisabet-ronaldsdottir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.premiumbeat.com\/blog\/bullet-train-editor-elisabet-ronaldsdottir\/","title":{"rendered":"An Interview with “Bullet Train” Editor El\u00edsabet Ronaldsd\u00f3ttir"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Learn tips for editing kinetic action sequences and balancing multiple characters’ storylines with the editor of Bullet Train<\/em>.<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There’s a moment in the film Bullet Train<\/a><\/em> where a character picks up a water bottle which initiates a flashback sequence that’s so long of a story and richness of action that you’d think it was its own standalone short film. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time we smash cut<\/a> back to the scene at hand, said water bottle is used to knock out at least one critical character before being quickly discarded for even more insane fight sequences to commence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, that’s the style and pacing of Bullet Train<\/em> from start to finish. Based on the Japanese novel titled Maria Beetle<\/em> by K\u014dtar\u014d Isaka (published in English as Bullet Train<\/em>), this live-action adaptation is very much alive and full of action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Directed by David Leitch<\/a> (of John Wick<\/a><\/em> and Hobbs & Shaw<\/a><\/em> fame), and starring Brad Pitt<\/a> and a fully loaded all-star cast of chaotic bit characters seemingly ripped from the pages of lost manuscripts from Quentin Tarantino<\/a>, Guy Ritchie<\/a>, and Haruki Murakami<\/a>, Bullet Train<\/em> is about as energized, chaotic, and hard-punching as a modern movie can be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This leads us to ask some interesting and insightful questions of the film’s editor, El\u00edsabet Ronaldsd\u00f3ttir<\/a>, about her role in the madness, and how she was able to bring so many cross-cut storylines together for a complete, yet still kinetic, whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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PremiumBeat: Hi El\u00edsabet, thanks for chatting with us! From an outside viewer’s perspective, Bullet Train<\/em> seems like a fun\u2014yet challenging\u2014project to piece together. What was your approach to balancing so many characters’ storylines at once?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"Portrait
Courtesy of El\u00edsabet Ronaldsd\u00f3ttir.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

El\u00edsabet Ronaldsd\u00f3ttir<\/strong>: That’s an interesting question because that was probably the biggest task we had in front of us. How do we balance them? How do they all get to shine without overshadowing each other? But, it was also a lot so fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the things was how to introduce those characters. In the book\u2014and it happened to be that way in the script, too\u2014in every chapter you’d meet a new character. And, we tried to stay as true to that as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, I’m a big believer that our job as editors is to translate the script into a different language, which is the moving image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, as with any translation between languages, sometimes you have to rearrange sentences or even words. So, when I started experimenting with just having these different characters bounce in and out, it started to make sense to have them meeting each other and being intertwined from the beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It felt like I got a bigger sense of fate in a way you didn’t get so soon in the same way when we had the chapters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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PB: There are also lots of intense and over-the-top action sequences and fight scenes in the film. What’s your approach for giving the audience a sense of that kinetic energy?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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