IN INTERVIEW EXCERPT FROM TWO YEARS AGO

"I expressed my reservations about the picture in my book, but I think when I wrote that, I was over-focusing on the difficulties we faced in reaching the final cut and ignoring the picture's strong points," says Paul Hirsch about Blow Out in an interview with Patrick Z. McGavin posted at Shadows and Dreams. "I love that we inadvertently memorialized an editing process that is now obsolete." The interview was conducted in 2020, but McGavin has posted the Blow Out portion this week as Criterion's 4K edition was recently released. Here's a bit of an excerpt:
Shadows and Dreams: The use of sound, on and off screen, is so central to the storytelling here. What kind of work went into capturing that to everybody’s satisfaction?Paul Hirsch: Dan Sable was our sound effects editor. They hadn't invented the term sound supervisor yet. He was responsible for recording the sounds. The placement of the sounds within the scenes was critical, and I did that.
Dan moved some of the sounds, and I had him move them back. The picture cuts were triggered by the sound, and the temp effects I laid in had to be treated like dialogue, sync-wise. The picture cuts and the sounds are like in a dance with each other, and you can't shift the sound without spoiling the picture.
Shadows and Dreams: Was that your suggestion to DePalma to introduce Burke, the John Lithgow character much earlier in the film?
Paul Hirsch: I think that came out of an early screening of the film for a few friends, who found a lack of tension in the early reels. Introducing the antagonist sooner was our solution to that note.
Shadows and Dreams: Another celebrated moment, the Zapruder-influenced scene where Jack syncs his recorded sound to the published photographs. Was that an example of DePalma letting you do your own thing with the material?
Paul Hirsch: Well, he always let me do my own thing unless he had a problem with something I had done. Then we would change it.
Shadows and Dreams: Did DePalma storyboard a lot with the cinematographer, Vilmos Zsigmond? If so, did you reference any of that for your work?
Paul Hirsch: I only look at the script and dailies. Brian did his own boards for a long time, and they were difficult for me to decipher. Anyway, they are all about how he planned to shoot a scene. Once the scene is shot, they are irrelevant.
Shadows and Dreams: In your book, you talk about the conflict with you and DePalma over the final movement. How did you ultimately resolve that?
Paul Hirsch: We disagreed over the timing of Travolta's run to save Nancy Allen. I recut it according to Brian's instructions. Then George Litto, the producer, saw the cut and expressed an opinion that coincided with mine. So Brian agreed to go back to the earlier structuring, although with film, you had to take apart one version to create a new one.
So I had to try to remember what I'd done. It was all about how early or late we started John running. As for the final scene, I would have preferred a hokey happy ending, but that's just me.