Film editing techniques

The development and principles of editing

Auguste and Louis Lumiere was the world's first public film screening on December 28, 1895. The showing of approximately ten short films lasting only twenty minutes in total was held in the basement lounge of the Grand Cafe on the Boulevard des Capucines in Paris and would be the very first public demonstration of their device they called the Cinematograph which effectively functioned as camera, projector and printer all in one. Their work consisted mainly of moving images from scenes of everyday life. The Lumiere Brothers believed it to be a medium without a future as they suspected that people would bore of images that they could just as easily see by walking out into the street. However, their film sequence of a train pulling into the station reportedly had audiences screaming and ducking for cover as they believed that the train itself was about to plough in to the theatre. The 50 second silent films show a train pulling in to a French town. The most important was Louis’s decision to incorporate the principle of intermittent movement using a device similar to that found in a sewing machine. This was something Edison has rejected as he struggled to perfect projection using continuous movement. The brothers kept their new invention a secret only organising private screenings to invited guests only.

D.W Griffith was recognized throughout the world as the single most important individual in the development of film as an art. D.W. Griffith screened his films for the urban working-class as well as for presidents at the White House. Griffith’s films became part of history in the making unleashing the power of movies as a catalyst for social change. More than anyone of the silent era, he saw film’s potential as an expressive medium, and exploited that potential. “BIRTH OF A NATION” was the first masterpiece of cinema, bringing to film the status accorded to the visual and performing arts. A story of the Civil War, BIRTH OF A NATION captured the violence, the spectacle, and the excitement of the war. Using extreme and dramatic camera angles and complexly interweaved edits, the film brought an event to life unlike any film had done before. The film, however beautiful, was a sad testament to the deep prejudice of the times and black audiences were outraged by the racist distortion of history. Viewed as a contributor to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, the film caused riots in a number of black communities.

Sergei Eisenstein created “Strike", which recounts the repression of a strike by the soldiers of the tsar; Eisenstein juxtaposed shots of workers being mowed down by machine guns with shots of cattle being butchered in a slaughterhouse. The effect was striking, but the objective reality was falsified. In 1925, in order to commemorate the Revolution of 1905, the Communist Party commissioned the renowned film "Potemkin" (also called “battleship Potemkin"). The film was made in the Black Sea port of Odessa. In 1958 it was voted the best film ever made, by an international poll of critics. Eisenstein's next film was the two hour film, "October" or "Ten Days That Shook the World", dealing with the shifts of power between the 1917 February and October revolutions, Lenin's entering the scene and the struggle of the Bolsheviks with their opponents. Eisenstein sets his camera for the kind of unconventional angle that made him a great director. October was one of two films commissioned by the Soviet government to honour the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution (the other was Vsevolod Pudovkin's The End of St. Petersburg). Eisenstein was chosen to head the project due to the international success he had achieved with The Battleship Potemkin in 1925. Nikolai Podvoisky, one of the troika who led the storming of the Winter Palace was responsible for the commission. The scene of the storming was based more on the 1920 re-enactment involving Lenin and thousands of Red Guards, witnessed by 100,000 spectators, than the original occasion, which was far less photogenic. This scene is notable because it became the legitimate, historical depiction of the storming of the Winter Palace owing to the lack of print or film documenting the actual event, which led historians and filmmakers to use Eisenstein's recreation. This illustrates October's success as a propaganda film.

Creating meaning through collage tempo and timing

Joining images is a type of editing form in which, several clips are joined together to create meaning, like a montage, Alfred Hitchcock uses this editing style in this sequence, of “Psycho” to create tension and make what a boring scene would be more exciting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvPqSRLO5Ms

Tempo has to do with the speed in which a scene is moving, whether it’s fast pace or a slow pace. Editors use the control of tempo to manipulate the audience’s attention level depending on the feel of a scene. For example in the James Bond film “Casino Royale the chase scene is fast in tempo which makes the audience excited and anticipating the outcome. Tempo switches rapidly between long shots and slow edits with the longest cut lasting 23 seconds and the shortest a single second. Recently shots are increasing in pace in direct contrast to The Golden age of Hollywood. The mean shot timing was 5.15 seconds it is now 4.75 seconds. It takes a regular individual approximately 3 seconds to re-adjust to a shot change. If the audience takes 3 seconds to adjust to a new scene, what would happen when the average shot length is so short that the audience are never given a chance to catch up, the tendency to rely on quick editing in the 21^st century productions may grant greater insight to why younger audiences are not receptive to dated or classis movies. The second way editors adjust the tempo is by using shot transitions, cutting from A to B, fading in and out and by using dissolve. These shot transitions represent a passing of time, but they also affect the duration and speed of a subsequent scene. Cuts increase and develop the pace of the content and are responsible for instigating rapid change. Even a scene with comparatively lengthy take, a cut often implies a sudden change in mood or character dynamic.

Timing is the time and duration it takes to cut from one shot to another, timing also has to do with the stream of camera shots that create meaning. In clip “Mean girls” the four way split screen and close up shot are in sync with the words of the characters. This allows the audience to follow the storyline of the films easily in an stimulating and evident manner. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awow8HpWNcg

Fades affect the pace of the film as they directly slow and even pause the occurring action on screen. They rarely occur in modern day cinema but when they do it is to create a clear transition into memory, fantasy, dreams, flashback or flash forward.

Story- centred Editing and the construction of meaning

Editing and spaces have to do with closeness of the shots, for example if scene in a film were consisting of a conversation between two friends talking in a small room, the shots they would be cutting between would mostly be close-ups and medium shots, this is to emphasise the small space and closeness between the characters. In the opening chase scene of James Bond “Casino Royale” the shots that are used are mostly long shots, extreme shots and birds-eye-views, these shots create the illusion of wide open space.

Films like Fight Club and Limitless are the perfect example of media res, which is a type of narrative that doesn’t follow the traditional conventions of a normal film narrative of beginning, middle and end. All of this had to do with a linear or none linear editing arrangement of events, the arrangement of events. The arrangements of events can be altered from the traditional linear order for the reason that; it adds mystery and a sense of wonder to the film and also the film makes more sense this way.

Eye line match is useful if you want to steal the audience’s attention from the usual, fly on the wall perspective of a film and put them in the perception of the characters situation and emotional state, then you can use an eye-line match. For example in the film the hunger games there is a scene where one of the characters is stung by bees, using eye line match the editors where able to blur and make the scene shaky as if the audience where experiencing the same physical state as she was.

Shot reverse shot is a conversation between two people. One engages in dialogue the other appears to actively listen. Rule of thumb is that the actors will never speak directly to the viewer as direct dialogue at the camera will destroy the illusion of a naturally unfolding story. Cameras are generally slightly offset to the side rather than POV shots.

Cutaways are used to link inanimate objects or scenery with the current situation of mind, cutaways are usually used when there is a conversation between people and a different situation is happening in the same scene and moment, this allows the audience to receive two sets of information at once. Cutaways are used very often in the movie “U-Turn” by Oliver Stone.

Continuity is the method of trimming unnecessary footage from what would be a very long shot an only using the most key parts to keep the movement of the film engaging and thrilling. This also involves keeping the visual of the film consistent; this may involve such things as lighting, wardrobe, mise-en-scene.

180 degree rule is a basic guideline regarding the on screen spatial relationship between a character and another character or object within the scene. An imaginary line called the axis connects the characters and by keeping the camera on one side of this axis for every shot in the scene, the first character will always be frame right of the second character, who is then always frame left of the first. If the camera passes over the axis, it is called crossing the line or jumping the line. This rule is extremely important as it reduces continuity risks that would confuse and distort the audience watching the film.

One key characteristic of soviet montage movies is the moderation of individual characters in the centre of attention. Single characters are exposed as members of different social classes and are representing a general category of people or class. Soviet montage is important as it conveys variety in characters and separates them, allowing the audience to tell apart the importance of each characters role in the film.