Unit 16: Film and Video Editing Techniques ('Its all in the edit!')

In this assignment I will be talking about the history and theory behind editing as well as looking at its purpose and its principals. I will do this analysing the development of editing and how it has changed over time, discussing why editing is so important and how what it can do to improve a motion picture.

Purpose's and Principals of Editing:
Editing is used to set the pace of a film, this is done by increasing or decreasing the amount of cuts. To set a fast pace lots of cuts between different shots are required, this makes the viewer feel like everything is happening really quickly, fight scenes in action movies are often edited this was to emphasise the danger that a character might be in.

In this clip from 'The Bourne Ultimatum' editing is used to create a really fast pace, during the fight there are lots of cuts to different shots, the camera is always changing. This keeps the viewer on their toes and purposely creates a bit of confusion as the cuts are so frequent that its hard to tell if the protagonist (Jason Bourne) is winning the fight thus building tension. As well as this the close up camera angles make the audience feel the danger as they are right up close to the action.

However slow pace in films can also create tension, this is created by few cuts and long drawn out shots which often focus in on one character or an action that they are performing.
For example the final stand off in 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly' is long and drawn out, the build up is very tense, with one wide shot showing the characters take their position for the final duel lasting ages before it cuts away. This is so tense because the audiences no that this is it, the big climax the film will be wrapped up here and two of them will die, drawing out the scene helps build tension and keeps the audience waiting for the spectacular finale. The music at this point is slow but as it starts to build up and the tempo of the song increase the camera starts making more and more frequent cuts until the pace changes from slow to fast, the song reaches its crescendo and duel is settled. The slow pace may bore some people, but I think it just makes the ending better the stand off is extremely tense!

Conventions and Techniques:
The Kuleshov effect: Lev Vladimirovich Kuleshov was a Soviet film maker and film theorist who taught at and helped establish the world's first film school, the Moscow Film School. Kuleshov is most famous for his montage film theory the 'kuleshov effect. It is the mental phenomenon by which viewers derive more meaning from the interaction of two sequential shots than from a single shot in isolation. Lev Kuleshov made a short film to demonstrate his theory and educate viewers on how the effect could dramatically change the viewers perception of a character and how they feel. For Kuleshov, the essence of the cinema was editing, the juxtaposition of one shot with another.His example was that shots of an actor were inter cut with various meaningful images  in order to show how editing changes viewers interpretations of images.



It is best explained by by Alfred Hitchcock, who i think demonstrates the theory better.



The 180 Degree Rule: This is a fundamental rule to film making that is essential to making a film have continuity. The 180 Degree rule in cinematography is used so that scenes with multiple shots filmed from different camera angles still make sense to the audience and are not disorientating. It is especially important during dialogue scenes where two or more charterers are having a conversation. For example a scene with two characters having a conversation may have over the shoulder shots, when cutting back and forth from being over each characters shoulder the camera must be over the the opposite shoulder to the other persons to capture there perspective otherwise characters would be jumping about over the screen when cutting back and forth. If someone is facing someone talking to them and the camera is over there right shoulder, when filming from the other persons perspective the camera must be over there left shoulder as they are opposite one another. This keeps continuity and stops the scene from being disorientating, everything appears to the viewer like it is in the right place.

Cuts and Transitions: Cuts and the timing of cuts in films is really important, for example cuts can be used to speed up or slow down the passage of time, which is a really useful tool in films, allowing the director to manipulate time as he wishes. As well as this cuts are very important when music is being used in films, cuts must match the music for example in action films during fight sequences there is often fast paced music matched by fast paced cuts this helps build tension and a sense of danger the faster cuts are the less the audience feels the protagonist is in control of the situation portraying that they are in danger.

The History and Development of Editing:
Sergie Eisentien: Eisenstien was a soviet film director and theorist famous for pioneering in the theory and practice of the montage. Eisenstien was most famous in Russia for his work with the Soviet government making propaganda films during war time. He was awarded with 2 Stalin awards for his work one in 1941 and one in 1946. His most notable work includes; Strike, Battleship Potemkin, and October as well as his historical classic Alexander Nevsky  and Ivan the terrible. Eisenstien briefly took classes from Kuleshov where he learnt and developed his interpretation of montage theory.

Battleship Potemkin was one of his most famous and controversial films. He realised that through the use of editing he could compress time but also expand it. He did this through the use of editing as it was one of the first films to demonstrate modern montage theory. The film differed from others before it as it had lots of cuts, at the time this was harder to do as film had to be cut with razors to edit sequences together as there was no digital editing. This changed alot, films where no longer so slow paced, directors started using more and more shots and adding more and more cuts. For example film went from being paced slowly like 'The Great Train Robbery' (1903) to being more fast paced like 'Battleship Potemkin' (1925)



D.W Griffith: David Wark Griffith was an American film director and montage theory pioneer, like Eisentien he too used montage theory in his films. His most controversial was film 'The Birth of a Nation' (1915) used montage theory and was unlike anything seen before it as DW Griffith realised he could use a razor to edit his film, adding and removing scenes and changing there order, before this films were shot in order of the scenes but this influenced modern film where any scene can be shot at any time and it can just be edited together. Aswell as this he also very early on influenced colour in film as he add colour to some parts of his film by individually colouring every single frame in a scene. And the film was 3 hours long before this most films where very short, around 10 minutes in length, Griffith set the way for the long feature films that we know today, most being around the two hour mark.