Mike Horton: legendary film editor...

Interview – 2016

Mike Horton is an award-winning editor who has worked on some of New Zealand’s most beloved films. His CV includes classics Goodbye Pork Pie, Smash Palace, Utu and Once Were Warriors. Horton was nominated for an Oscar for editing Peter Jackson’s The Two Towers, and his one regret is not editing the final film of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Horton talks about:

Narrowly avoiding disaster at the premiere of movie Middle Age Spread
The work done on the film by celebrated camera operator Paul Leach
Being impressed by the stagecraft of Beyond Reasonable Doubt star David Hemmings
Trying to wake up director Geoff Murphy during the edit of Goodbye Pork Pie
Uneasiness about Bruno Lawrence having to carry so much of movie The Quiet Earth on his own
Performing miracles on a small budget on Once Were Warriors
Finding a solution when someone accidentally cut into the original footage
The three-year job of cutting The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and how it went right to the wire
The experience of working with "auteur" director Peter Jackson

This video was first uploaded on 2 February 2016, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview, Camera and Editing – Andrew Whiteside

There was not a lot of film, and not a lot of choice . . . The neg cutter mistakenly made a blue, cut where there was no cut . . . We didn't have another take, we actually had to make one up in the Oxberry. We had to physically make a frame from the frame before, and the frame after. Stick it through the Oxberry, and make a half add mix to create the frame that the neg cutter had mistakenly cut. So there wasn't much to come and go on on that picture.
– Mike Horton on performing miracles and rescue missions on a tight budget, on Once Were Warriors

Mike's Full Profile