The book "The Disaster Artist", about the making of "The Room", has an excerpt that tells about the process of editing the film. It's as hilarious as you can imagine.

The book was written by Greg Sestero, who plays Mark in the film.

By the time premiere night rolled around, it had been a long time since I’d spoken to Tommy; he’d vanished into the post production minutiae of The Room. The last time I had seen him was at his editor’s studio in Burbank, shortly after the filmwrapped. I’d been called in to dub some of my dialogue due to the fact that the sound had been improperly recorded for most of the film. Tommy also insisted on recording dialogue for a PG-rated version of The Room, which he hoped would be suitable for prime-time television broadcast; lines like “manipulative bitch” became “manipulative witch.” He didn’t seem to consider that a much bigger roadblock to his prime-time broadcast version of The Room might be its eleven minutes of sex scenes.

My visit with Tommy and Eric Chase, the film’s editor, in Burbank made clear that their working relationship was that of two mountain goats repeatedly buttingheads. Tommy’s mantra during the editing process: “I repeat, nothing will be cut.” Nevertheless, a portion of every editing session involved Eric trying to convince Tommy that various scenes either needed to be shortened or lost entirely. “This slows down the film,” Eric would say of one scene. “No, it doesn’t,” Tommy would respond. “This scene has no relevance to anything whatsoever,” Eric would say about another scene. “Yes,” Tommy would counter, “it does.”

Eric was troubled by the lack of continuity. He struggled to make it clear to Tommy that editing couldn’t solve every problem. But Tommy saw no problems. The biggest issue was the inclusion of the Lisa-Mark love scene Tommy insisted on wedging into The Room’s last fifteen minutes, which resulted in a small time warp that no editing tricks could convincingly account for. “How,” Eric asked Tommy, “am I supposed to edit this? Lisa says she’s getting ready for ‘the party tonight.’ Then it’s night, and there’s no party. Then it’s day, and she’s still getting ready forthe party! And you want a love scene thrown in there?” Tommy’s response: “Yes. This is the way I see it.”

Eric’s greatest battle was trying to convince Tommy to lose the scene in which Johnny bares his naked ass. Eric’s reasoning: The shot scared his wife. Tommy refused. The one battle Eric did manage to win was convincing Tommy to trim three minutes from Johnny and Lisa’s first sex scene. With the exception of thealternate Chris-R alley scene, Johnny’s living room death, and all of the HD camera footage, everything else Tommy shot was somehow squeezed into The Room’s final edit.

This “everything stays” mentality extended itself to Tommy’s Wiseau-Films production logo, which plays before the movie proper begins. Tommy had had two logo sequences designed. The first was a speck of silver light morphing into a shinysilver W, which then explodes into a spinning Wiseau-Films globe. The second option was another, slightly different Wiseau-Films globe that also forms out of the nebular emptiness of space. Tommy had trouble choosing between the two logos. While only one plays in the theatrical cut of the film, both run—one right after the other—on the DVD version.

Another duel Eric lost involved The Room’s opening credits. Eric was unable to convince Tommy to follow traditional auteur protocol and list all his credits on onescreen: Written, Produced, and Directed by Tommy Wiseau. Instead, Tommy elected to dedicate a separate screen to each of his duties. Executive Producer: Tommy Wiseau; Writer: Tommy Wiseau; Producer: Tommy Wiseau; Director: Tommy Wiseau. Tommy’s scent is all over the film before it even begins.

I honestly feel sorry for this editor.

Submitted May 31, 2022 at 03:22AM by verissimoallan https://ift.tt/uTJAU0g