Featuring a mobile, car-chase-ready editing rig.

Edgar Wright‘s meticulous style of film-making moves up a notch with ‘Baby Driver’, in which whole sequences are choreographed to songs. In order to facilitate this, editor Paul Machliss, ACE tells Avid that the director decided editing needed to happen in real time, on-set. With such tightly-choreographed sequences, the duration and action of each shot in each sequence needed to be precise.

In order to achieve this, Machliss explains how first a template edit was created in pre-production, so that as each shot was captured during production, it could be dropped into its  position in the template – and if it didn’t fit, the director would know to go for another take.

This technique in itself isn’t so revolutionary – and it’s a particularly useful approach for those making their first movies – but the solution Wright and Machliss worked out for the chase sequence is pretty cool: a car-chase-ready, mobile editing rig.

There’s a full video presentation on the Avid site.

(Photos via Paul Machliss / Avid)

Further Viewing

Edgar Wright explains a Texas Switch (where a stunt performer switches places with the actor, to create the illusion of a seamless shot):

Texas Switch breakdown: So stunt Driver Jeremy Fry squeals into the parking spot with Jamie Foxx, Flea & Lanny Joon in the car. Fry then sinks into his seat and Ansel, who is hiding behind the pillar, walks out with Jamie, Flea & Lanny as if he performed the stunt. No VFX needed. https://t.co/j54Ag8ZmaI

— edgarwright (@edgarwright) February 8, 2021

More notes on the film in our Baby Driver review:

Review: Baby Driver (2017)