ScreenTalk

Annie Collins on cutting films

Posted by Screen Talker on 12 February 2009

Editor Annie Collins has worked with some of New Zealand’s most provocative directors, including Barry Barclay (The Neglected Miracle), and Merata Mita (Patu!) over a 30 year editing career. Collins has also edited key feature films, (Scarfies, Out of the Blue) and was part of the editing team on Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings.

NZ On Screen’s Clare O’Leary visits Collins at her home and Collins reflects on:

• Her beginnings in the industry and being convinced by producer Pat Cox to shelve her design training and become an editor.
• What she requires of directors (“that they’ve done their homework!”)
• Cutting Patu! with Merata Mita: evading the police and becoming conscious of the Springbok Tour Protests’ relevance to New Zealand history and realising the (different) echoes it had for Mita as a Māori filmmaker.
• Working with director Robert Sarkies on Scarfies and Out of the Blue
• The four and a half years she spent working on the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the realisation that despite the “profound experience” of working on such a massive scale project that she needed to get back to New Zealand stories.
• Her consciousness of the power of the edit: “it takes about five seconds for you to destroy somebody in a cut, or edit, on national TV.”
• The ethics of story-telling: the need for the people who are involved in a documentary (or a story where the subjects are still alive) to follow “good process” and the importance of “clarity of mind and heart.”

Collins is currently working on Graeme Tuckett’s documentary about Barry Barclay due for release later this year.

See Annie Collins’ profile on NZ On Screen.

This interview is available on YouTube for embedding and distribution.

Credits: Direction and Interview – Clare O’Leary, Camera and Editing – Leo Guerchmann

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