How Did Editing Play a Bigger Role in “American Sniper”?
Clint Eastwood worked with his longtime film editors Joel Cox and Gary Roach. As they prepared for the shoot, Eastwood reportedly told them that the film probably would be made in the editing room, which is a sharp contrast to his usual working methods. Unlike most of Clint Eastwood’s past films, American Sniper jumps around through numerous times and locations. As a result, Eastwood and his editors invested signficantly more work into the film’s structure than they typically do in post-production. By the time Eastwood and his team were polishing the film, a number of scenes (mainly war scenes) were reportedly dropped.