Title: The Art of Film Editing: Insights from Walter Murch's "In the Blink of an Eye"

Suggested quote (for visuals or cards): "Editing is all about making the right cut at the right time — the one that feels inevitable."

According to Murch, an ideal cut satisfies the following:

Emotion (51%): The most critical factor; the cut must be true to the feeling of the moment. Story (23%): It must advance the narrative.

The article-length takeaway from this section of the book is that technology is merely a tool for a physiological process. Murch argues that a cut works because it mimics the way we perceive the world: we "cut" our own reality every time we blink to separate one thought from the next. Whether an editor uses a Steenbeck or a computer, the goal is to align the film’s rhythm with the audience's internal emotional state.

In an era of TikTok cuts and millisecond attention spans, Murch’s analysis of the "blink" is more relevant than ever. We are cutting faster, but the physiological mechanism of the human eye has not evolved. We still blink to separate thoughts. We still need that fraction of a second to process emotional shifts.

• "The Filmmaker's Handbook" by Steven Ascher and Edward Pincus
• "On the Art of Film Editing" by Karel Geris
• "The Art of Editing" by Glenn Hebrew

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