How Editing Has Developed Over Time:
The very earliest filmmakers were afraid to edit film shots together because they assumed that splicing together different shots of different things from different positions would simply confuse audiences, Film makers quickly discovered that editing shots into a sequence not only contributed to the audience's sense of tale, but also enabled them to tell more complex stories as a result.
Editing has
changed in many ways since it began. Editing began at the turn from the 19th to the 20th century.
One of the most popular forms of editing
in the early 1900’s was "in camera editing". George Melies was filming a bus
leaving a tunnel in 1896 however his camera jammed and stopped rolling, by the
time that his camera worked again there was now a hurst where the bus should
have been. This gave George the idea to stop his camera and make things look as
if they have disappeared or turned to something else, he used this technique in
a very early film called "The Haunted Castle" in 1896. The film shows
a magician in a haunted castle who makes people and objects such as a cauldron
and a skeleton disappear and reappear. This seemed magical to the audience as
nothing like this was seen before. This form of editing is not changeable.
Now the camera man would turn the hand crank at a steady pace so that the
camera would film and then they would stop turning it to stop the camera from
rolling, the director would then move an actor, the set object to make it look
as if the shot had been cut. The camera was never moved. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPmKaz3Quzo
Another film to use this was a film called A Trip To The Moon directed by Georges Melies in 1902. This film had many different on set locations at different angles with different actors. in the middle of the film we can see the camera almost zooming in on the moon or the moon coming closer, this was made by using stop motion animation, the art of putting together a lot of pictures that all have slight alterations so that when played one after the other quickly the pictures look as though they are moving. After this scene there is a fade from looking at the moon to then being on the moon, this is created by layering two pieces of film tape on top of each other so that when watched the viewer will see both clips at the same time. All of these techniques put together helped to make the story more clear and to make it easier for audiences to follow the action. All of these editing techniques were made by George Melies.
Another very
famous technique made in the early 1900’s was montage. This
is the idea of putting together shots to put forward a theme or emotion as well
as action, It was introduced to cinema primarily by Eisenstein and made a
regular practice by D. W. Griffith and the Russian filmmakers.
In 1908 a director called D.W. Griffith invented the "cut in". The first film this was seen in was "the greasers gauntlet". He cut his shot from a medium long shot to a full shot in the middle of the scene to emphasise the emotion between 2 characters. He then learnt to play with different angles that created a scene. This is called continuity editing which means cutting between shots to create a sense of continuous time. From this, Griffith then invented the 180º rule, this was the discovery that if you kept the camera/cameras on only one side of the action that there would be no confusion or problems with continuity when you cut from one angle to another. In another 1908 film "After Many Years" Griffith used another of his editing inventions called "cross cutting" which means cutting between 2 different scenes to show a shipwrecked man and the woman that he left at home. Most professionals thought the idea was stupid and would do nothing but confuse the public however Griffith stuck to what he wanted to do and after a few years this became one of the most popular techniques in editing. He then took this one step further in 1909 with his film "The lonely Villa" where he cut between 3 shots.
The different shots and the speed they were recorded helped to make the "hollywood editing" we are used to today. A lot of other directors copied Griffiths work and from people experimenting with editing concepts such as; establishing shots, shot reverse shot, matching eyelines shown in a shot and cutting on action.
In 1915 Griffith created the first ever blockbuster, "A birth of a nation" This filmed contained all of Griffiths techniques however was banned in many places due to the films racism. Just one year later he made a film costing $2.5 million called intolerance which had 4 separate narratives in it. The film unfortunately didn't do well in the box office and although he made 26 more films he died still in debt from this film.
These days we have much more complicated editing with almost every scene we watch being edited and the camera angles being from all angles. Now films tell stories with multiple narratives easily using editing to make it clear to follow. Special effects and CGI are also very popular now but something that people in the early 1900's would never have dreamed of.
The Purpose Of Editing:
There are many principles of story telling, a very important one is to engage the viewer, it is important that audiences can engage well with the film they are watching and this can be helped by using a good plot to interest the viewers and to also make it interesting to watch with exciting scenes and editing choices. Fast and Furious 1-7 are all very popular and well known films filled with speed and excitement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l00J78JipzQ
In this scene from Fast and Furious 6 we see an intense car chase through the Mersey tunnel. Although the scene is just over 2 minutes long its filled with different shots and the pace of editing is very fast creating a more exciting atmosphere full of action making hard for viewers to lose interest. Through out the scene we see 6 cars going at an incredibly fast speed and all weaving between one another under a tight tunnel with the general public driving though as well. Some of the shots used in this scene are close ups of the drivers facial expression showing the anger and concentration in each person, POV (point of view) shots so that the audience can see what is happening through the drivers eyes and also extreme close ups of things such as drivers putting their foot on the accelerator to show the speed and tension building up helping the drama in the scene develop faster.
The pace of this scene and
everything that happens in it clearly shows the genre of an
action film, there is also the use of a gun and the stereotypical white
muscular man as the protagonist are also signs of and action film.
The Principles Of Editing:
The Principles Of Editing:
A common technique of editing is Seamless editing, where you put two different pieces of film together to create a neat piece of film. This could be taking two different shots of film from different times or places, however as one character walks down the same street and into the same building, you would mirror the image and create a seamless edit.
Parallel editing is when a film maker cuts back and forth between different spaces, usually suggesting events are happening at the same time for example in the godfather. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_I82117oAw
Continuity editing is very similar to seamless
editing however this is more based around making sure that actors are looking
in the same direction and that costume hair and makeup look the same in every
shot, this so that the narrative has structure and the story flows
seamlessly.
These
are seen in a music video for Britney Spears' Till The World
Ends where 2 scenes of an underground party and a group of people above the
ground are seen after each other without the audience noticing
the edit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu9NQCfurDY
With continuity editing the 180º rule is very important, the rule is that the camera can't pass the imaginary line that is at 180º in between two characters during an interaction and that all action will be filmed from one side.
Another very famous editing technique is montage which was a very early form of editing that we still use today, one of the most well known examples of montage is in the shower scene from Psycho. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VP5jEAP3K4
Montage is used to emphasise the actual process of passing time in a condensed form, in this example a man is stabbing a woman the movements are quick creating a fast pace and don't show the actual stabbing, montage can also consist of several shots occurring at a different point in time for example the work out scene from rocky.
The most common type of editing is jump cuts an instant shift in the time and place of an action which isn't announced by a transition. this can be seen in almost all film. these are also similar to cut aways, shots that focus the audience's attention on precise details.
As I spoke about before in fast and furious, point of view shots are a good way fro the audience to see the action through the characters eyes and understand thing from their point of view.
To make editing look cleaner people use transitions other than cuts. Some of these are:
dissolve - when a shot is gradually replaced with another.
wipe - when a shot pushes another shot off screen until it's completely off screen
Fade - when a shot either fades from a black screen to the shot or the other way around.
