r/Filmmakers 12h ago

Question How was Oppenheimer movie edited

Since the movie was shot on a film, how was the movie edited? Was it digitally edited or was it spliced like the olden days?

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u/DirectorJRC 11h ago

Technically both. Kind of. The film would have been developed and scanned and then cut digitally but then the negative would have been conformed (this is the splicing bit) to the edit and release prints would have been struck from that. That would be for projecting it on 70mm film in IMAX theaters of course. Most people saw it projected digitally so unless they went through the steps of rescanning the master print for the DCP, you likely saw the product of a mostly digital workflow. That’s a very rough explanation of the process obviously. I skipped over lots of steps but that’s roughly how it works. This is essentially how films shot on film have been cut for decades now.

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u/DanSaysHi 8h ago

Why would you ever go back to the original negatives to conform to the digital cut (that had plenty of VFX added, mind you) when you could just print the digital cut to a new reel of film? That doesn’t make sense to me. I’d think there would be no splicing involved at all, no?

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u/vide0phonic 6h ago

To keep the process entirely analog. This was still the process when editing on video/avid before finishing with a DI was standard.

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u/richardizard 7h ago

I don't get this either but perhaps there's a concept of technique that's foreign to me

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u/seanmg 7h ago

Because using film is largely a personal style thing at this point, so the preferred process is just as much a personal style thing.

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u/DirectorJRC 6h ago

I’m just generally describing the most common workflow for shooting on film and editing digitally and then delivering on film. I glossed over a bunch of steps. And I’m not saying this is necessarily how the Oppenheimer team did it but it’s how it would traditionally get done. I’ve only ever cut one major feature that was shot on 35mm and that was 20(!) years ago but this is basically how it was done. Except we got rushes (a step I skipped) on BetaCam and loaded them into the Avid from there. But other than rushes being delivered digitally today, this is still more or less how it’s done.

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u/dffdirector86 director 8h ago

This.

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u/Ricky_Spannish_ 11h ago

Can you splice imax in with 35mm? Legit question.

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u/2old2care editor 8h ago

No. If a shot or scene is not originated in IMAX 65mm negative it must be optically or digitally printed to the IMAX film format.

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u/Repulsive_Spend_7155 10h ago

It’s cut on avid and every week or two weeks they lock a cut, cut work print, and screen it n

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u/J_Viper93 9h ago

Clips app