Editing

Oporta

Editing is like sculpting

The Rough-Cut phase is like taking your favorite chisel and eliminating the rock we don’t need. We don’t worry about the fine details and the polish to complete the statue.

That stage will come later on. For now the goal is to take your statue from a chunk of stone to something that begins to resemble your final piece.

Two Types of Editing

• Editing: is the process of selceting the good portions of raw video footage and combing tem into a coherent sequential and complete story.

• Linear : The content must be accessed sequentially.

• Non Linear: The content may be accessed from any point.

Examples

• Linear: Film, before digitization, VHS, Beta Max.

• Non Linear: Current.

What do we do first?

• Review our RAW footage.

• The reason we do this…

• There are several different ways to tell a story. Going just beginning to end may not work.

• Make an edit log.

Activity

Transitions

• The shot is defined by editing but editing also works to join shots together.

Cheat Cut

• Cheat cut. In the continuity editing system, a cut which purports to show continuous time and space from shot to shot but which actually mismatches the position of figures or objects in the scene.

Cross Cutting

• Editing that alternates shots of two or more lines of action occurring in different places, usually simultaneously. The two actions are therefore linked, associating the characters from both lines of action.

Cut in, Cut away

• An instantaneous shift from a distant framing to a closer view of some portion fo the same space, and vice versa.

Dissolve

• A transition between two shots during which the first image gradually disappears while the second image gradually appears; for a moment the two images blend in superimposition. Dissolves can be used as a fairly straighforward editing device to link any two scenes, or in more creative ways, for instance to suggest hallucinatory states.

IRIS

• A round, moving mask that can close down to end a scene (iris-out) or emphasize a detail, or it can open to begin a scene (iris-in) or to reveal more space around a detail.

Jump Cut

• An elliptical cut that appears to be an interruption of a single shot. Either the figures seem to change instantly against a constant background, or the background changes instantly while the figures remain constant

Shot/Reverse Shot

• Two or more shots edited together that alternate characters, typically in a conversation situation.

WIPE

A transition between shots in which a line passes across the screen, eliminating the first shot as it goes and replacing it with the next one.

Eyeline Match

• A cut obeying the axis of action principle, in which the first shot shows a person off in one direction and the second shows a nearby space containing what he or she sees.

Match on Action

• A cut which splices two different views of the same action together at the same moment in the movement, making it seem to continue uninterrupted.

Long Take

• Normally using a steady cam normally used to show a whole area.

Overlapping Editing

• Cuts that repeat part or all of an action, thus expanding its viewing time and plot duration.

Rythm

• The percieved rate and regularity of sounds series of shots, and movements within the shots.

Montages

• A series of different shots to show the passage of time.

Relations in EditingThere are five areas of choice and control in editing, based on five types of relationships between shots:

Graphic RelationsRhythmic Relations Temporal RelationsSpatial RelationsThematic Relations

Graphic Relations

Although the primary focus of the film editor is to ensure continuity of the narrative, film editors remain acutely aware that film is a visual art. Therefore, they work to achieve visual interest by creating transitions between shots that are graphically similar and graphically dissimilar, depending on the desired effect.

Graphic Continuity

• A graphic match is achieved by joining two shots that have a similarity in terms of light/dark, line or shape, volume or depth, movement or stasis.

• A graphically discontinuous edit creates a clash of visual content by joining two shots that are dissimilar in terms of one or more of the above visual principles.

Graphic Match

Graphic Discontinuity

Rhythmic Relations

Film is not only a visual art, but also an auditory and even tactile art. Therefore, editors also remain aware of the effects achieved by manipulating the rhythms experienced by perceivers through thoughtful juxtapositions of longer and shorter shots as well as through transitional devices that affect the perceiver’s sense of beat or tempo.

Temporal RelationsEditing is the process by which the difference between temporal duration and screen duration is reconciled. It sounds simple, but consider this: most feature films present in roughly two hours sufficient intersection of story and plot to provide perceivers with everything they need in order to understand days, weeks, months or even years in characters’ lives.

Temporal Relations: Chronology

• Most narrative films are presented in roughly chronological order, with notable exceptions (Memento, anyone?)

• The two most common disruptions to chronological order are flashbacks (a leap to an earlier moment) and flashforwards (a leap into the future) - the former is much more typical than the latter).

Temporal Relations: The Passage of Time

• To speed up time, editors make use of elliptical editing techniques such as

Transitional devicesEmpty frames - figure walks out of the frame

in Shot A and then into the frame in Shot BCutaway shots – cut from a scene to another

scene that takes less time, and then back

• To slow down time, editors make use of expansion editing techniques such as

Overlapping – end of Shot A is identical to beginning of Shot B

Repetition – multiple views of a single shot

Elliptical Editing(Hyperlink)

Expansion Editing(Hyperlink)

Spatial Relations

Perhaps the most important, as well as the most overlooked, principle of editing is its function in providing perceivers a reliable sense of the physical space that constitutes the world of the film. Editors are responsible (with assistance from cinematographers) for relating points in space in order to achieve narrative continuity.

Spatial Continuity• The standard pattern for editing a scene in a

narrative film includes the following: Establishing shot – shows the characters in

relation to each other Shot/Reverse-shot – shows each character, one

after the other, from over the other character’s shoulder

Eyeline match (POV shot) – shows what a character is looking at

Re-establishing shot – exactly what it sounds like

Continuity Editing(Hyperlink)

Spatial Continuity

More Spatial Concepts• Multiple camera technique – used for

difficult/expensive shots

• Axis of Action (180-degree line) – can’t be violated without disorienting the perceiver

• Match on Action – lines up the end of action A and the beginning of action B

• The Kuleshov Effect – implies a spatial relationship in the absence of an establishing shot

Axis of Action

Thematic RelationsEditors have at their disposal two very powerful techniques for manipulating the perceiver’s place in the hierarchy of knowledge, and therefore affecting our thematic understanding of the film:

• Montage sequences – visual motifs, communicate passage of time

• Crosscut editing – cutting back and forth between two lines of action happening simultaneously; greatly heightens perceiver’s position in the hierarchy of knowledge

Montage(Hyperlink)

Crosscutting(Hyperlink)