What Is Editing?

� The process by which the editor combines and

coordinates individual shots into a cinematic whole

through cutting

� A fundamental assumption behind all film editing is

the tendency of viewers to interpret shots in relation

to surrounding shots.

Two General Aims of Editing

1) Generate emotions and ideas by constructing

patterns of seeing and hearing

2) Move beyond the confines of individual

perception and its temporal and spatial editing

* Typically, the way we have become accustomed

to this process is through continuity editing

Continuity Editing: aka invisible editing

� Developed in Hollywood during the 1910s; pioneered by Edwin Porter, D.W. Griffith, and Cecil B. DeMille

� Designed to create the illusion of continuous narrative action within each scene to maintain the illusion of reality for the spectator

� Seeks to maintain continuity by appearing seamless and not calling attention to itself

� No one directly guided its development; it just worked

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Conventions of Continuity Editing

� Screen direction is consistent from shot to shot – e.g. 180 degree rule

� Graphic, spatial, and temporal relations are maintained from shot to shot

Continuity Editing

� On set and during post-production, several crew

members work to ensure that editing is

seemless and natural

� Director

� Script Supervisor

� Editor

� Sound Designer/Composer

* Today, editing often begins in pre-production

through the use of storyboard artists

Contiguity – A ⇒⇒⇒⇒ B ⇒⇒⇒⇒ C

Example: A character walks through a doorway

Analytical – A ⇒⇒⇒⇒ B ⇒⇒⇒⇒ C

Example: Cut to a close-up of an established object

Intercutting – A + B = C

Example: Rescue Sequence

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The Editor’s Responsibilities

� Spatial relationships between shots

� Temporal relationships between shots

� Acoustic relationships between shots (w/ sound editor)

� Overall rhythm of the film

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Temporal Relationships Between Shots - Continuity

Editing is used to manipulate the presentation of plot time onscreen

� Flashback

� Flash-forward

� Ellipsis

� Montage

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Editing Techniques That Maintain Continuity

� Shot/reverse shot

� Match cuts

� Parallel editing

� Point-of-view editing

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Match Cuts

� Match-on-action cut

� Graphic match cut

� Eye-line match cut

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Parallel Editing

� Parallel editing – two or more actions happening at the same time in different places

� Crosscutting – editing that cuts between two or more actions occurring at the same time, and usually in the same place

� Intercutting – editing of two or more actions taking place at the same time; but it creates the effect of a single scene rather than two distinct actions

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Other Transitions Between Cuts

� Jump cut

� Fade and dissolve

� Wipe

� Iris shot

� Freeze-frame

� split screen

Disjunctive/Discontinuity Editing:

� A + B = Z

� Confronts the viewer with juxtapositions and

linkages that seem unexpected so as to:

� Call attention to the editing

� Disturb, disorient, or viscerally affect the viewer

1920s Soviet filmmakers learned that

� A cut can:

1) Serve a Narrative function

2) Elicit an Emotional response

3) Generate an Intellectual response

This set of discoveries was named “montage”(French for the assemblage of parts into a machine)

� For Soviet directors, editors, and theorists, the

word montage signified dynamic editing and

the ways it could control a film’s structure,

meaning, and effect.

� Of course the ultimate irony of the Soviet

montage movement is that it was ultimately

adopted by Hollywood filmmakers

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Please consider a simple analogy:

D.W. Griffith is to Sergei Eisenstein

as

Adam Smith is to Karl Marx

Adam Smith – The Wealth of Nations (1776)

Written during at the dawn of the

Industrial Revolution. The first

modern work in economics (i.e.

capitalism).

The Wealth of Nations expounds

that the free market, while

appearing chaotic and unrestrained,

is actually guided to produce the

right amount and variety of goods

by a so-called “invisible hand”.

Karl Marx – Das Kapital (1867)

Best remembered for The Communist

Manifesto (1848), Capital remains a

foundational text for contemporary

humanities and social sciences.

A German living in England, Marx

argued that the driving force of

capitalism is the alienation of labor and

exploitation of natural resources.

Marx critiques Smith’s invisible hand,

by explaining how money creates a gulf

between producers and consumers.

Money tends to make the exploitation of

human labor and natural resources invisible

because it leads us to care more about how

much things cost than how they are made.

So….

If Marx’s critique of capitalism centers on $,

Then Eisenstein’s marxist critique of continuity editing centers on ….

The Cut or the Frame

(the space between individual shots where meaning is generated)

Uses of Disjunctive Editing

Dialectical Montage: Used for artistic or rhetorical purposes as in Battleship Potemkin, Man With a Movie Camera, Manhattan, or Requiem for a Dream

Continuity Montage: Used to advance the timeline of a story through sustained ellipsis as in the “lonely scenes” in romantic comedy or training scenes in films like Team America or Rocky

Associative Montage: advertising uses montage to connect products to pleasure, lifestyle, sex appeal, politics, etc.