Made on a Mac: Roger Avary
“I designed ‘Rules’ to be a culture bomb.”


Deep Edits
Screen shot Avary, a method director who works flexibly on set, finds even greater changes and evolution in the editing suite. “You make the movie and then you remake the movie in editorial. That’s what they always say, and there is some truth to it. Movie is really mise en scene and montage, how you align the frame and then how you juxtapose images together. The trick in cinema, for me at least, is to shoot and shoot, and then montage edit them all together.”

And editing has never been easier or more efficient for Avary than with Final Cut Pro. Avary describes making “Rules” as the most perfect artistic experience he can ever hope to have, and for much of the experience he credits his tools. “When I was cutting ‘Zoe’ on film I can remember thinking, ‘I can’t wait for the day when everything is in a little box. And I can quickly make changes, and sit down on the system myself. And I can have it in my home, and if I wake up at one in the morning, I don’t have to go down to the studio and have them let me in so I can make my change. I can walk down into my living room or into my office and quickly make the little change.’ Now I have that.”

Avary says that making “Rules” was the most perfect artistic experience he can ever hope to have. Avary, who had played with nonlinear form before with “Pulp Fiction,” pursued it even more aggressively in this film, rolling action and time forward and back, something that was only made possible, he says, by the capabilities of Final Cut Pro, Cinema Tools, and QuickTime. “Working with FCP has been astonishing. It’s robust, it’s fast, and it did everything that we needed.”

Migrating to Mac OS X
While editing “Rules,” Avary switched over to Mac OS X, with great results. “Personally I’ve migrated to OS X. I rarely turn my computer off, my laptop, but I only reboot occasionally. The stability is amazing, I love it. And with Final Cut available on OS X it makes it so much easier because the software can go down and not suck the system down with it as well. That’s one step better.”
Pro/Film

“The Rules of Attraction”
1. Culture Bomb
2. Method and Madness
3. Deep Edits



Tools of the Trade
Power Mac G4
Cinema Display
Mac OS X
Final Cut Pro
Cinema Tools
QuickTime


Other Articles
Coming “Attraction”
Roger Avary makes “The Rules of Attraction,” adapting the script from a book by Bret Easton Ellis.
Editing “Attraction”
Avary works on the film with indie director/editor Sharon Rutter.