Contextual Analysis Script

What is editing?

Editing is the putting together multiple bits of visual and/ or audio media into a complete piece of work convey a story, meaning or information. Editing is used across the world of media but in this contextual analysis I will be focusing on film and television.

As Francis Ford Coppola says, “The essence of cinema is editing. It’s the combination of what can be extraordinary images of people during emotional moments, or images in a general sense, put together in a kind of alchemy.”

Let’s take a look at where editing came from and how it developed over time into what it is now.

 

The history of editing

The history of editing began with Thomas Edison inventing the first camera and then in 1889 the Kinetoscope and Kineograph to view a long strips of film.

The Lumiere Brothers were some of the first filmmakers and made short films that were one long, static, and locken down shot. Their first film was recorded 19 March 1895, and then publicly projected 22 March. As film was revolutionary, motion in the shot was all that was necessary to amuse an audience.  The first films involved people getting out of a train.

Come Along, Do!, was made in 1898 and one of the first films to feature more than one shot. The use of film editing to establish continuity, involving action moving from one sequence into another, was attributed to this film and its director: British film pioneer Robert W. Paul's

One of the first films to use this technique was Georges Méliès's The Four Troublesome Heads from 1898, was produced with Paul's camera. It also used multiple exposure to appear as if they heads were disconnected from the body. After further technology developed in this field – CGI was created.

Action continuity in multi-shot films continued in 1899-1900 was further developed at the Brighton School in England, where it was established by George Albert Smith and James Williamson

JAMES WILLIAMSON experimented with the close-up, in The Big Swallow, when his character approaches the camera and appears to swallow it. These two filmmakers of the Brighton School also pioneered the editing of the film or the first instance of colour grading; they tinted their work with color and used trick photography to enhance the narrative and visual experience. By 1900, their films were up to 5 minutes long.

American Edwin S. Porter, made Life of an American Fireman in 1903. The film was the first American film with a plot, featuring action and revolutionary techniques. Films such as ‘Life of an American Fireman’ were the first films to use multiple editing techniques within a narrative and were revolutionary in this aspect – paving the way for future film making.

D. W Griffith is one of the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and is among the most important figures in the history of cinema. He is credited with popularizing the use of the close-up shot. However his fame is stained by his widely criticized ‘Birth of a Nation’ made in 1915. Whilst it used many revolutionary editing techniques, it glorified the Klu Klux Klan.

The Russian Revolution of film still inspires filmakers today: Filmakers such as Jev Kuleshov and Sergei Eisenstien revolutionized how editing was perceived and gave it meaning, creating the ‘Soviet Montage Theory’. Eisenstien for example looked at how things such as changing the duration of a shot (how long it stayed on screen), using movement in the shot, and its emotional content, would affect audiences.  An example of this is in Strike (1925) shots of a cow being slaughtered are cut together with shots of workers being killed by troops to suggest political meaning. This was an age of rife use in propaganda, with Lenin believing propaganda through film to be very important.

Experimenting with editing continued into the 20^th century with movements such as the French New Wave in the 1960s. A group of young French film critics turned directors (Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol and Jacques Rivette) chose to disregard classical Hollywood style editing and filming, in favor of an experimental approach. They mostly experimented with old genres such as film noir and musical and made them exciting and fresh, which created hype around the movement. They prevalently used fragmented, discontinuous editing, and long takes during their experimentation. They experimented with narrative with use of objective realism, subjective realism, and authorial commentary; consequently questions that arose in the films were not answered in the end. This has influenced modern filmmakers greatly, with the wide use of cliff hangers in today’s film industry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7St14sqjyA

Hollywood even now follows Edwin S Porter’s film and editing techniques, with a large focus on continuity editing.

Editing was originally done by physically cutting and pasting together pieces of film. Strips of footage would be hand cut and attached together with tape and then later in time, glue. Editors had to be very precise; if they made a wrong cut or needed a fresh positive print, it cost them money for the lab to reprint the footage and push the editing process back. After the invention of a splicer and threading machine with a viewer such as a Moviola, or "flatbed" machine such as a K.-E.-M. or Steenbeck, the editing process sped up a little bit and cut came out cleaner and more precise.

Today, with the invention and popularization of the internet, most films are edited digitally (on systems such as Avid, Final Cut Pro or Premiere Pro)

Different editing styles

Filmmakers use continuity editing to engender a sense of situational continuity or discontinuity at

editing boundaries.  It is the most commonly used form of editing and works to tell a narrative in a scene, using a succession of related shots.

Montage editing involves a quick succession of shots of the character doing different things –Hollywood used to tell a story or important information in a short way (beginning of an episode to show what happened last episode). Montage editing us also used in action, such as showing a characters training.

Action editing is also widely used in modern day Hollywood and involves a quick succession of shots of action, usually close up. This has the effect of making the audience feel involved in the action and subsequently heightens excitement and tension.

Live Editing is used in every live broadcast and involves an editor and camera operators. The editor sits in the editing room and directs which camera comes on when and where they should move. This is widely considered the most different form of editing due to its no margin for error and strenuous demands.

Colour grading is where the film shots are edited to show different colours and tones. It is used in every Hollywood film and many more. It serves to create a mood, time or location and enhances the narrative or visual experience

Parallel editing is the technique of continuously alternating two or more scenes happening simultaneously but in usually different locations. In modern day film this is a widely used technique and is prevalent in action films, whereby the protagonists are split up – such as Inception. Pharrell editing presents a unique challenge in that the director needs to make sure each scene’s progression is clear to the audience. David Wark Griffith was an early adapter of intercutting, using the technique as early as 1909.

 

Classic Hollywood editing and common traits

Hollywood films usually follow a set of common editing traits. These are usually based off the Continuity Editing System – which is the most common form of editing. The action unfolds as a smooth and continuous flow across shots.  The camera remains relatively unobtrusive and doesn’t draws attention to its presence. Position, movement, and screen direction of objects within the frame consistent between shots, ensuring audience comprehension.

The 180 Degree Rule : In filming a scene between 2 characters, an imaginary line connects them in relation to one another. Edits or cuts can move between any 2 images taken from below the line without disturbing the audience. The camera stays on one side of this centre line or line of action, and the characters will stay in the same relation to each other in screen space, and if the camera crosses the line, it distracts viewers from following the action.

Eye line: Eye line editing is largely used within continuity editing and is based on the premise the audience want to see what the character is seeing; they want to feel immersed in the film. It is largely prevalent in scenes where characters are speaking to one another.

Eyeline match - a character looks off screen in one shot, it is expected that the next shot shows what the character is looking at. Matching eyelines allows for audiences to connect the spaces in separate shots together across an edit / cut.




Shot reverse shot: Hollywood uses shot reverse shot usually in character exchanges. The camera reverses the previous shot to facing the character when they begin to speak. This allows the audience to realise where the characters are in relation to one another.

 

Editing transitions

The Cut is the most widely used editing transition and is most prevalent in Hollywood. This is because it is part of continuity editing – it lets the film tell the story, without distracting the audience.

The Jump Cut can be effective to portray time passing, distance the audience from the action in a Brechtian manner, or as a stylised editing. It was widely used in the French New Wave movement.

A match cut is where a scene cuts to a similar bit of imagery in a different scene. This can evoke meaning between the two objects, or simply connect two scenes in an interesting way. The most famous match cut is in the 2001 Space Odyssey, whereby a bone is cut with a spaceship to convey that thousands of years have passed.

Wipes are not usually used in films as they can distance the audience and detract from the realism. However, they can be effective in creating a style – such as the early Star Wars films which are known as some of the most famous to use various wipes. This creates a futuristic and distant feel.

Here I demonstrate a use of three editing techniques including fade, slow motion and dip to black. They slow the pace of the film and create a melancholy mood.

 

Why edit/ meaning

The Kuleshov Effect

 

Lev Kuleshov conducted a test. He combined independent shots of an actor’s face, a bowl of soup, a woman in a coffin, and a woman on a sofa. He would show the actor’s face reacting to the other footage. Even the exact same footage of the actor was used, audiences reacted differently to each sequence. It verified that the story was told in the mind of the viewer, not on the screen.

The Kuleshov effect really emphasises why to edit. Editing is crucial for telling a story, creating meaning and evoking emotion – all vital in film and television. Editing has been called “the invisible art” because if it is done skillfully, the viewer doesn’t notice the editor’s work. The story, the visual effects or the mood carry the audience and even when viewed by skilled filmmakers, the story and mood can overwhelm the viewers’ ability to see the editing. The art of editing creates the magic.