Task One - Editing in early cinema

Editing in early cinema

•      Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison was famous for running a film laboratory which the Kinetographic camera and the kinetscope camera were invented, he was also responsible for bringing and creating the 35mm film which is now the industry standard. Lastly he created the projector to play it which is now used in pretty much all school to display work and other related things, without this invention it would be very hard for teachers to show work to all the students at the same time.

•       Lumiere Bros - Sortie d’usine

Thomas Edison also worked with the Lumiere Brothers to create short films which were a one long, static and locked-down shot. The motion within the shot was all that was actually necessary to amuse the audience just so that the first films were showing activity such as cars moving on the city streets. An example of this is in the film 'Sortie d'usine'.

•      G.A Smith – The Miller and the Sweep

In their films there was no story or editing but each film ran as long as there was film in the camera. G.A Smith – The Kiss in the Tunnel - In 1899 G. A Smith made 'The Kiss in the Tunnel'. The aim of the movie is to mark the beginnings of narrative editing, Smith believed that some extra spice was needed in the popular "phantom ride" genre. As they went into the tunnel to splice he took advantage of the brief onset darkness, to do this he stuck the pieces of film together and then cut them during the shot of the couple.

             

•     George Melies - The Vanishing Lady

George Melies saw the possibilities of a novelty instead of just motion its self, he got himself a camera, then built a studio, designed sets, wrote scripts and then soon after he discovered the basic camera tricks and exploited them. 

It is also said that he accidentally discovered the art of stop motion from a camera which had broke down on him for a quick second. Finally he made 'The Vanishing Lady' by using the technique known as in camera editing. 

Unfortunately he never moved the camera for close-ups or long shots and this caused his work to be overlooked and then the commercial growth in the industry led him to be forced on of business and this meant he wasn't earning any money and he eventually died from poverty. In the film 'Hugo' his life elements are portrayed within it.

•       Edwin S Porter – The Life of an American Fireman

Edwin had made a breakthrough film called 'Life of an American Fireman' in 1903 and this film was historically one of the first films which had a plot, action and a close up of someones hand pulling a fire alarm. He also discovered the important aspects in motion picture language in which the screen image did not need to show a complete person from head to toe. The key discovery which made all narrative motion pictures and television possible was splicing together two shots which create a contextual relationship in the viewers mind.

•      Edwin S Porter – The Great Train Robbery

Porters then went on to creating a ground-breaking film called 'The great Train Robbery (in 1903)'. This movie was a perfect example of how the early films began to resemble the type of films which we seen in this modern day.

•       Charles Pathe – The Horse that Bolted

Charles Pathe introduced the first technical known 'parallel editing' cutting in between the two story lines in the film 'The Horse that Bolted (1907)'.

•    D.W. Griffith

Griffith was a film director who was an early supporter of the power of editing, to show parallel action in different locations he would use the cross cutting technique. He used editing techniques in the production of feature length films and he was one of the first directors to do this technique. He was mostly remembered for his movie 'The Birth of A Nation' which was a very controversial film in 1915.

Task 2/3 – Developing Editing Techniques

Task Three – Developing Editing Techniques

In camera editing
In camera editing is basically a technique of video production, which the person operating the camera shoots the shots in a specific order which it will be viewed in.
This is a unique process which many people use that operate cameras can be intimidated by.
This was a technique used used a lot in the early days of film making before "splicing" (this was the process of cutting/reconnecting film strip) became easier.
One of the most known in-camera editors was George Meiles.
Editors moved on from in-camera editing because with a camera you are able to pause and look at the film and see how it comes out and if you want to change it then you are able to change it by filming it again.
The camera editing process took a great deal of planning just so that the shots tat were filmed would be the ones that will be viewed in a specific order. There is also no cutting out and editing scenes after filming. Once the very last scene has been filmed then the production is completely finished.   

                        
In our in camera editing video you can see that we was not properly prepared and we had to keep re taking the first shots making it turn into a bad start of the video but as the video went on there was less retakes

Task 4 - Analogue to Digital Editing

Analogue to Digital Editing

Digital editing is electronic media which means that the data is stored digitally instead of in an analogue form. Digital editing is basically the using computers to manipulate and order the digital data. Digital cameras use bytes and bits to ,transmit, record, transmit and reply images. The whole recording i digital and no splicing is involved. In digital editing the non-linear editing allows you to do things such as access each frame or specific frames in the digital video clip even if it does not relate to the sequence of the clip. You also have the freedom access any frame and then use something such as cut and paste. On the other hand there are pros and cons when it comes to digital editing such as pros being cheap to edit, simple to edit, you can make copies but there are also disadvantages such as its possible for the data to become corrupt.

Analogue editing is when you cut celluloid pieces together also films are usually printed on acetate negatives which are then spliced into 1 which will make a real film. They are later then served through a projector at a constant speed of twenty four frames per second which will create the picture to appear as if it is moving and this is known as analogue. There are also pros and cons to the style of editing, for example better sound quality but is limited to editing and the quality of the video can be easily lost.

Linear editing is basically a video post-production which also includes the ability to arrange, select and modify. This process usually includes a computer which controls a tape machine. The computer then saves the video and then time and information in an edit decision list known as EDL. The EDL can be used to change the edit as you wish. On the other hand there is a problem with the linear editing which is that every piece of the video should be laid down with the recorder and once you start you can’t go back.

Non-linear editing is a technique which allows you to be able to access any frame in a digital video and in any sequence within the clip. Non-linear editing provides you the options which linear editing would not.

Splicing allows you to rearrange sounds. Splicing is a device which has the ability to join lengths of photographic films together and its generally used in motion pictures. There are also things called cement splicers which is a film base which is dissolved in solvent. Tape splicers are thin and transparent pieces of adhesive tape which is used to join ends. Tape splicers are used on most types of films. Also another type of splicing is called ultra-splicing and it is used to melt the film into 1 and are used in microfilm.

A Moviola is a device is a device which allows the editing ability to view the films whilst also editing. It was originally the first machine used for motion picture editing. There are also pros and cons of this type of editing which are that the pros of this editing technique is that you are able to study individual shots in the cutting rooms. Also the advantages are that you are able to add special effects and then cut out the parts that you do not want.

Task 5 - Understanding montage theory

3 Key Meanings:

French montage - In French films this term simply identifies the process of editing a montage means "editing" in French.

Hollywood montage - This type of montage is used to condense a long narrative sequence into short compact sequence. An example of this is in Rocky they show clips of him preparing for the fight and getting in shape, the different places that he was training in and the time of day changing.
A hollywood film maker may choose to include a montage because it shows the different aspects of the movie and what he is doing and it shows the best bits in a short period.

Soviet montage - In a soviet montage it shows two different videos which relate to each other. This type of montage is is used to reveal a hidden, deeper meaning within the video.Soviet filming was a method of juxtaposing shots so that they can develop a new meaning which did not first exist in either of the shots alone.

Lev Kulshaov was one of the first people to theorize the standard cinemas in the 1920s. He also agreed that editing a film was like building a film with just bricks making the film established. Kuleshov had done an experiment to prove this point too, he went and took an old film clip which only had a headshot of a Russian actor and then he inter-cut the shot with other images. Once Kuleshov presented his film to the audience they honoured and admired the acting and the display of hunger in their face when he saw the soup, the grief of when looking at a dead child and the delight towards the woman.

Acting of juxtaposing shots within a sequence made the relationship and the audience were then able to conclude the meaning from the two different shots. This was an experiment which started the technique which is known as montage.

Sergi Eistein was a student of Kuleshovs but not for long but the two went their seperate ways because they didn't have the same idea of montage. Eisenstein then tried to irritate associations in the viewers which was a shock.

Task 6 - Creating a montage

       

Hollywood montage

The aim of this montage was to show the main and possible things that can happen in a school day and condense it into a short clip. Within the shots you can see what happens at different parts/times of the day during school and the things that you may be talking about during breaks. For example when they are sitting on the wall they are telling each other what their going to be doing on the weekend. The video ended up being good because we showed everything that we was aiming to in the style of a hollywood montage. This type of montage allowed us to make the video very quick because we were able to condense it, instead of having to make an unnecessarily long storyline. Many movies use Hollywood montages and an example would be "Rocky" when he is training for his next fight training in all different kinds of places.

   

Soviet montage

          

The aim of the soviet montage was to foreshadow bullying within the school. We managed to do this by showing how the student was being bullied in school at different places and times in the school day. there is  part where they are sitting in class and the girls at the back start to throw paper at the girl in front of them. To then link it to the lions we put a picture of three lions ready to eat a buffalo which they had captured, then we showed a video of a lion chasing and then attacking the zebra and eventually eating it. You can understand both clips as the girl and, the buffalo and the zebra were the prey for the lions and in other words "the bullies". We put the two different clips in the video because you can see how they relate to each other and both clips are as bad as each other. This type of montage allows you to link two different types of videos together and be able to see the meaning of the video.

Task 7 - Understanding continuity editing

Continuity editing

Continuity editing is a style of editing which became known to be popular in hollywood films.
This type of editing was developed the early Europe and American directors and in particular "D.W. Griffith".
This classic style of editing allows you to take temporary shots which will also be in the same scene, your able to do this by using a technique such as the 180 degree rule, reverse shot and a match on action, all these types of shots make it easier to capture the shots and show that time is moving on and changing.

Continuity editing is good because it helps you to show that time is moving between the shots which makes the film easier to understand. Also this type of editing gives you a realistic feel towards the film.
But just because this type of editing moves along realistically it doesn't mean that you cannot use things like flashbacks or flash forwards. You can use flashbacks and flash forwards just as long as the viewers can see that the narrative is still progressing forward and is still realistic.

Key continuity techniques

Eye-line match - This technique allows you to link two possibly different shots together for example the character could be looking at something but at that moment the viewers don't know what he is looking at because they can not see because of the shot angle, but you can cut it into another shot which will show us what the character was looking at. By doing this it allows the audience to experience an event within the film at the same time as the character is.

Match-on-action - This technique allows you to link two shots together. For example you could see the character start an action in one shot and then the camera will cut to another angle of the shot which will allow us to see the character do the action better than the first shot.
This technique makes sure that the action movement looks natural and realistic even if the actor actually performed the same shot twice just in a different angle.

Shot, reverse shot - this type of shot will reveal the first character and then the second shot will reveal the second character, by doing this it allows the audience to connect to the characters and also allow the viewers to realise that the 2 characters are actually interacting with one another.

The 180 degree rule -  The 180 degree rule is basically a guideline which state that the two characters within the scene should always have the same left to right relationship to each other and if the camera passes the invisible axis which connects the two objects or characters then it is called crossing the line.

Task 9 - Non continuity editing

French new wave

French New Wave was created from film makers such as Jean Luc Gogard and Francois Truffaut and they pushed the limits of a variety of editing techniques and create a new style called "French New Wave".
Non-continuity editing was popular throughout the 1950s and 1960s and it basically was a style of film making.  What French New Wave films did was use carefree editing styles and they did no conform to the traditional editing etiquette of hollywood films.
French New Wave editing captured attention to itself by its lack of continuity and its self-reflective nature helped the audience to remember that they were watching a film.
What they did to keep the audience surprised and intrigued was using material things in the scenes which don't relate to the narrative.

Most modern film makers still use the 180 degrees technique/rule to give the scenes a startling effect for the viewers but a movie that ignored this rule was 'A Bout de Souffle'. What they did was in the car scene the background kept changing and this made the viewers jump and realise the background changed and thy skipped some of the journey.

                         


Another way of directing the audience would be by breaking the 180 degree rule. The camera usually stays on the side of the imaginary line. For example directors like Stanley Kubrick was against this rule because he wanted to play with the viewers minds. In The shining movie it goes against the rule and you can see it in the scene clip and how the rule is broken.



Another director who went against the 180 degree rule was Gary Rose in the film Hunger Games. The camera should stay on one of the sides of the imaginary line but Gary Ross changed the camera completely so this caused us to be able to see the room from a whole different direction so that we could see everything. This was beneficial for the audience in the way of making the film look even more realistic because they were able to see everything within that room as if the audience was also there.