In this essay, I will discuss how Jeffrey Ford, the editor of Avengers Infinity War (The Russo Brothers, 2018), and his co-editor, Mathew Schmidt, followed Walter Murch’s ‘Rule of Six’ theory. Murch (1992) says that the ideal cut satisfies the following criteria all at once: emotion, story, rhythm, eye trace, 2D plane of screen and 3D space. Even though an editor must consider all six criteria before making a cut, they do not all have the same level of importance. Murch gives them a percentage of importance. Emotion is worth 51% making it the most important element to an edit. The other elements can be sacrificed as long as the emotion is still there -- as this is what motivates the characters. In Avengers: Infinity War, we see that “The Avengers and their allies must be willing to sacrifice all in an attempt to defeat the powerful Thanos before his blitz of devastation and ruin puts an end to the universe.” (IMDb, 2018). Although this is a superhero action movie, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in general, are very character-driven. Therefore, the editors prioritised character development and story over the action as the ‘characters and story have to be satisfying for the audience, one that they’re connected with and can relate to’ (Pro Video Coalition, 2018). Which as Murch says is the most important criteria for an edit.
I will look at key moments in the end sequence of Avengers: Infinity War. Here’s a summary of the entire sequence before I start analysing. We begin in Wakanda with half of the Avengers and Black Panthers Tribes, who are preparing to fight Thanos’ Army. Shuri is working on extracting the Time Stone from Vision, while Wanda’s job is to destroy it before Thanos can get it. On Nidavellir, Thor, Rocket and Groot are creating a new battle-axe to replace the hammer Thor lost. On Titan, the other half of the Avengers and the Guardians are protecting the Time Stone from Thanos himself, but he prevails and gains the second to last stone he needed. Thor, Rocket, Groot and Wanda join the fight in Wakanda as Thanos arrives but after he gains the final stone, he snaps his fingers and wipes half of the universe out of existence. This includes several of the Avengers, Guardians, the Wakandans and all of Thanos’ army. Although the end sequence takes place in three locations at the same time, I will focus on the battle in Wakanda as this is the endpoint and will be the final destination for most of the characters.
The first key moment that I will discuss is at the start of the sequence where they are readying for battle in Wakanda. The score in this section is completely made up of orchestral music as the composer, Alan Silvestri, thought that it would be more of distraction to give “each character's musical theme a nod.” (The Hollywood Reporter, 2018). This way the score is clear but impactful and allows for a more suspenseful building of tension in this key moment. We see a wide shot of the battle line that pushes into a close-up of T’Challa [Fig 1] and the score swells and pauses while he shouts “Wakanda Forever” which signifies the start of the battle. There is so much emotion in his face and voice that even without the music we get the full impact of the stakes of this battle. Ford’s co-editor Matthew Schmidt says, “If a scene plays well without music, it’s going to play much better with it” (Varity, 2018). We can see this in the next shot when we cut to a side angle and see the Avengers and the Wakandans charge into battle. The score builds to a crescendo and we get this bird's eye view of our warriors running. Then we cut to this epic wide shot which frames the main heroes so that we know who we are rooting for. The rest of this key moment is action-filled. The editors follow the eye trace and keep the action in centre frame.
Fig 1: Close-up of T’Challa
The second key moment happens when Thor joins the battle as the rest of the Avengers are taking a beating. We see a medium-wide shot of lightning which disperse Thanos’ army. Next, we see an extreme wide shot [Fig 2] that reveals where the lightning is coming from. Intercutting wide shots and medium shots, Ford shows us what’s happening from a Gods eye view (Thor arriving) and its impact on the ground (dispersing Thanos’ army). At this point, sound design takes precedence over the score as we hear the electrical arcing sound from Thor's battle-axes -- which is swooping over Captain America and the Hulk, repelling the bad guys, Ford makes sure that we see that our heroes are still alive by going to individual close-ups of each of them. Thus, we are reassured that the Avengers are still in the game. Then it is revealed that the lightening is Thor in a wide shot, and we push into him, Rocket and Groot posed in a hero stance. A series of close-up reaction shots comes next in this sequence: from the other heroes. The final shot is of Thanos’ Army. This creates a sense of relief because the power has shifted to the Avengers’ side. We feel they may win this high-stake battle. The fast pace cutting in this sequence creates a rhythm, which is important as the editors have to keep up the momentum from the prior scenes where Thor was on Nidavelir so that the transition into the next scene is smooth. The parallel editing and parallel action “have to sync up at that moment [where Thor arrives] so you get the rush of the Avengers being reunited.” (Post Magazine, 2018).
Fig 2: Extreme-wide of Thor landing in Wakanda
The third key moment is when Wanda joins the fight in Wakanda. Prior to when she joins the battle, we get some cross-cutting from Shuri and Vision in the lab and to the battle where the power has shifted again to Thanos’ Army. This is to remind the audience what is at stake and what they are fighting for. We get a shot from the behind of Wanda as she is looking down at the battle from a high tower in the lab. The sound design builds to a crescendo; the score is a low hum as the stakes rise and the situation grows even more tense. We push into a close-up of Wanda’s face. She has a decision to make, to protect the love of her life, or help save her friends. We cut back to the battle where the bad guys have deployed their wheel machines, and the Avengers are losing. We get a medium shot of both Black Widow and then Okoye. Then we cut to a wide shot where it looks as if they are going to be crushed. Suddenly, Wanda appears in a wide shot [Fig 3] and uses her magic to turn the bad guy’s weapon against them. The editors purposely don’t show her making the actual decision to leave Vision and help her friends as she is a superhero, and she will always do the right thing -- in this case, to help her friends. When she does this, the sound effects used are very intense. Shannon Mills, the sound editor said in an interview with A Sound Effect (2018) that Wanda’s specific magic sound is made up of “a variety of textures with interesting high-end, such as blown air, metal scraping, and glass shard tinkling... manipulated.” and this is exactly what we hear at this moment. The sheer intensity of it shows us how powerful and important Wanda is to our heroes’ cause.
Fig 3: Wide shot of Wanda saving her friends.
The final key moment I want to discuss happens towards the end of the sequence where Thanos is in Wakanda and he has gotten the final stone he needed. Thanos uses the time stone to rewind Wanda destroying the Mind Stone, he plucks the stone from Visions forehead. We see a medium shot of Thanos aligning the Mind stone to the gap in his glove, then a close-up of the glove itself. The score swells and builds to this electrifying moment and we get a high angle shot of Thanos as he draws in all the power from the glove. All hope is lost until Thor swoops in from the sky and there is this battle of sounds between Thor’s electrical arc and Thanos’ metallic notes. Thor stabs Thanos with his battle-axe and we get a series of over the shoulder shots of the dialogue between them both. We get a close-up of Thanos’ face, his voice drops to a whisper and the hand-held camera tracks to his hand as he snaps his fingers [Fig 4]. This moment is the emotional high of the film as what the Avengers were trying so hard to prevent has happened and the score builds up to reflect this. The score has been brought down to a gentle dynamic to emphasise the metallic notes of the snap and then we get this surge of sound accompanied by Thor’s cry which suddenly stops as we fade to white. Skywalker Sound re-recording mixer, Juan Peralta, said in an interview with CNET (2019) that his “biggest job was to turn such a tiny noise into a huge emotional moment.”
Fig 4: Close-up of Thanos snap with Thor in the background
In terms of post-production, Ford and Schmidt had a massive task with editing Avengers: Infinity War as they were simultaneously editing Avengers: Endgame (The Russo Brothers, 2019), which resulted in them having over 900 total hours of footage to edit. The total number of cuts in Avengers: Infinity War alone is 2,950 and the editing for both films took place in offices and edit suits across Los Angeles, Atlanta and Edinburgh. Meaning that they had to keep well organised and keep a very good line for communication as they weren’t always in editing together in the same room. Their chosen editing software was Avid, and Ford uses Avid to edit all his films as “the quality of the compression is stunning”. Editing in DNx115 allowed them to see “the detail and depth of what the ARRI Alexa 65 was capturing” (Post Magazine 2018). How they split the workload general was Ford would edit one day of dailies (whether it was for Avengers: Infinity War or Avengers: Endgame) and Schmidt the next day's then it would go back to Ford and so on. However, it wasn’t always that straightforward, as they would often trade scenes to get a new perspective -- which would lead them to bounce new ideas off of each other. As they got closer to the release date, their sole focus was Avengers: Infinity War. They were still cutting a few short weeks before the film was released, despite the edit beginning during preproduction with the previsualisation team. The team at The Third Floor started planning the visual effects a year before shooting began, which allowed the editors to get to know the plates they would be working with -- as some shots were 100% visual effects/motion capture. This meant that they could start editing these shots without actors' performances and some of them made it into the final cut. Post-production as a whole was a very collaborative process as the directors and producers would regularly check-in or video call to get a progress update.
In conclusion, I feel Jeffrey Ford and Matthew Schmidt follow Murch’s “Rule of Six” and prioritise emotion in their edit. They carefully consider how each cut tells the story, create rhythm, and affect eye trace, 2D plane of screen and 3D space. The rhythm of this sequence is set by its fast paced-cutting style, as well as the dynamic range of the score and sound effects. When the dynamics are loud, we feel our hearts racing. When the sound is quieter, we feel relieved that our heroes are winning. Avengers: Infinity War is the film that is it because it was a massive collaborative effort with a massive visual effect team who made the audience feel like they were there with their favourite heroes. A sound team that was able to play with our emotions and like Ford says that “so much of the story and emotion is being delivered by the soundtrack” (Pro Video Coalition, 2019). And directors who had a clear vision that the editors were able to recreate following Murch’s “Rule of Six”.
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