Week 8 LectureEditing

The Role of the Editor• The basic role of the editor is the

coordination of one shot to the next• They also eliminate unwanted footage,

selecting only those takes that are usable• Eliminate superfluous frames: Those before

the direction says “action” and after he say “cut”

• Decide the best way to transition from one shot to the next

• The editor’s job is closely tied to the director’s. The director has to be mindful of the way they choose to shoot certain scenes so that they will edit together smoothly

What makes a good editor?

The Psychology of Editing• In Walter Murch’s book “In the Blink of an Eye”, he discusses the psychology

behind film editing:

• "There are places in a conversation where it seems we almost physically cannot blink or turn our heads (since we are still receiving important information), and there are other places where we must blink or turn away in order to make better sense of what we have received. And I would suggest that there are similar points in every scene where the cut cannot or must occur, and for the same reasons."

Editing Transitions• The term “cut” is derived from the way in which film

editors would have to literally cut the film and piece them together with either tape or cement

• Editors use transitions to signal a relationship between different shots• Cuts: A transition between two shots that share the same physical

and temporal space• Dissolve: a gradual transition between two shots that show a

change in space/time

• Any time that they audience feels that there is abrupt shift in space/time between two shots in a film, this is referred to as a “jump cut”• Jump cuts can sometime be used for stylistic effect

A Bit of Editing History

Stylistic Decisions in EditingRealism Classicism FormalismRealism Classicism Formalism

Spectrum taken from Gianetti’s “Understanding Movies”

Sequence ShotsThe Arrival of a

Train

Cutting to Continuity

A Trip to the Moon

Classical CuttingThe Birth of a Nation

Thematic Montage

Thirty-two Short Films about Glenn Gould

Abstract CuttingRhythmus 21

• Like directing styles, editing styles can be classified by the ways in which the editing is obtrusive upon the creation of meaning in the audience

• Films that are edited with more realism, use less editing and allow audiences decipher spatial and psychological relations for themselves, while more formal films are more particular about the images that they place in front of the audience

Editing: Sequence Shots

• The most realistic style of editing has little editing at all. Films in this category tend to only edit to place sequences together

• Film theorist Andre Bazin was a proponent of this style. He felt that it allowed more power to the audience in the process of discovery• Example: Children of Men• A film that I worked on:

Milton Glaser Draws and Lectures

Editing: Cutting to Continuity• Cutting to Continuity: The process by which unneeded

information in the telling of a story is removed. This illustrates the ability of editing to condense time

• Example: In your movie you need to convey that a woman leaves work and drives home. Using either Realism or Cutting to continuity, here is how your project would turn out• Realism: Show every part of the process – Her leaving work,

getting in her car, driving, arriving home, going in the door• Cutting to continuity: Showing only the essential parts – leaving

work, driving in her car, arriving home. Only the necessary parts are shown to us in order for us to understand the sequence

• Cutting to continuity produces the assumption that everything we see in the story has a specific purpose in telling the story later on

Classical Cutting• This style was developed early by DW Griffith to draw

viewers into the emotional content of the scene. There is still continuity in the edited image and additionally the editor uses different shots to draw the viewer into the scene.

• This is typically done through coverage – the process in which a scene is filmed using a variety of angles

• The Master Shot: a Wide shot of everything that is happening in the scene, used to establish relationships between the actors

• Close Ups: Used to draw the audience psychologically closer to the characters in the scene

• Eye line match: If we see an actor refer to something off screen, or see something off screen, the shot that follows is typically what that object is

• Cutaways: Coverage of specific items or actions used within the scene

• Matched action: Cuts happen during a major action – The emphasis on the action, will deemphasize the fact that there is a cut

Classical Cutting: The 180 Degree Rule• The 180 degree rule is one of the most

important rules in both directing and editing• The rule is made so that screen direction

and eye lines are always continuous and therefore not confusing for the audience

• The diagram on the left shows a scene between two men. The scene is divided by an axis of action (the dotted line). The camera, when covering the scene, must remain on the same side of this line. Otherwise the actors position on screen and screen direction would be inconsistent from shot to shot

• The line can be reestablished by cutting to a wider shot and having the actors move to new positions

• The only reason that you should violate the rule is if you want to disorientate the audience

Editing: Thematic Montage• Thematic Montage is a more formalistic editing technique. It involves

editing a narrative together not because they share the same space, but because the editor wants to create a juxtaposition between the two actions• Films like 32 Short Films about Glenn Gould use a variety of techniques to explore

the life of a famous Canadian Composer. Sequences aren’t cut together because they share the same narrative space, but because they share similar themes

• This was a technique that was espoused by Early Russian Filmmakers such as Kuleshov, Pudovkin and Eisenstein. They believed that acting wasn’t necessary, as all meaning could be derived by the process of editing itself• Kuleshov did an experiment where he placed different images after a shot of a man,

the shot of the man was identical each time. However, depending upon the juxtaposition, the audience perceived his feeling to be different in each sequence

The Kuleshov Experiment

What creates meaning?

Editing or Performance?

Editing: Abstract Cutting• As with Avant Garde film, abstract cutting draws attention

to the act of editing itself.• Films of these nature don’t use editing to set up temporal

relationships between objects, but instead cutting is used to create juxtapositions and meaning, evoking certain emotions in the audience

• Work is mostly non-narrative• Example: Ballet Mechanique (1924)

• The Legacy of this can be seen in montages today.