Principles of Editing

There are three sub genres in the principles of editing, creating meaning through collage, tempo & timing, Story – centered editing & the construction of meaning & creating meaning outside the story.

Collage – a collage is the way in which the video clips are put together to put the point across in the film, switching between content on screen and characters in a relevant formation. Such as in Lord of the rings edited by Hitchcock where the switching between the reflection of Golumn and himself creating two different personas for the character, one being his alter ego the other being itself which confuses the audience but the flow of conversation is never broken between them, it shot reverse shots continuously like it would in a normal conversation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhF060VmS1g

Tempo – This is the length of the clip, adjusted to create a different atmosphere, a short sequence of clips for tension and a long clip if more detail is needed to be paid attention to. The average length of a shot is 4.75 seconds compared to how it used to be 5.15 seconds which shows that editing styles have changed to be much quicker, the film industry is a lot more fast paced, viewers wanting more action, action needing quicker editing. With the speed of clips becoming shorter some viewers may not be able to adjust to what is going on on-screen quick enough due to the human eye needing 3 seconds to adjust to a picture change, some in recent films being shorter than that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0RFWOfZtq4

In this clip of the 400 blows the clips when watching the overview of the carousel stay for longer, trying to gather more information of what is going on on-screen but when from another view such as looking up at the audience it does not stay for as long because little focus and knowing is known as to what is going on, the close ups stay for a longer period of time then the reverse shots.

Another way of adjusting the tempo of a film is the transitions in which are used which can depict the time between each clip, a straight cut without a editing transition would be thought as a immediate change but with a fade that takes you to another scene or location meaning that the time frame would have had to been adjusted. Using the fade to black transition could be there to show a gap of a sleep, so when a character goes to sleep it fades to black and reopens the shot in another day.

When editing the tempo can be adjusted by how the shots are filmed before the editing process, if a two shot of some characters is filmed and then something happens another shot of a close up of one of the characters reactions could be switched to, still remaining in the same time but making the clip more personal. In the film bonnie and clyde this is used, when the woman is walking down the stairs it is unclear what she has, but then switches to a different perspective now showing her with a gun.

Story – Centered editing & construction and meanings

The way the film is put into the timeline in editing can completely change the audiences perception of what is going, if your telling a normal story using a linear editing style will make it straight forward, sequencing them in order as to how they happen but in films such a fight club this does not happen, the order in which things happen is altered so the motive of the film is not made clear until the end this is non linear editing or media res.

Condensing or expanding time is by putting clips together and using fade ins and out, it creates the thought in the audiences mind of time passing by such as in spiderman when he designs his costume it makes it look as if he has been trying to come up

with ideas for hours by putting all his drawings across the screen that is called expanding.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFYHMfF4oIY

understanding what it going on on-screen is key, the special awareness f the editing must be taken into account, if there is something which is being spoken about in context and is not made clear on screen the audience will not be able to make the comparison or judgment of the item, so zooming in, in the editing process or filming a close up is what should be done in the situations where something in the background or of small resemblance needs to be made clearer.

During conversation between two characters as well as using two shot, shot reverse shot is used frequently, as in the Golumn clip where it switches between the reflection and the character as they in turn speak. This is used to reveal the reaction of a character in response to what someone is saying. Not usually from a point of view of the character shown as if you were a by stander behind the character, usually using the over the shoulder shot.

When trying to make the audience think on the same wavelength as the character or feel involved in the scene the clip switches to what the character is looking at as he looks at it so the audience feel as if they can see what the character is seeingWhere as a cutaway is when whatever is going on on-screen may have relevance but not character orientated, more to set the scene that to explain to audience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1qIYWt1OOE

Creating meaning outside the story

The props are a very important part of the layout of a film and keeping them the same throughout is to, if something moves between the time it has been shot last this may make the film look weird because something may be there one minute and gone the next, that is called a continuity error like in ace ventura half way through the scene the chess pieces which were at one point on the table then dissapear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaVdFdb-KyQ

When establishing a scene with a few characters in the establishing shot shows the characters on the side they are on there orientation in response to the camera, once the establishing shot has been made you cannot go over the 180 degree mark otherwise the characters will be facing in different directions as to how they were originally, this is the 180 degree rule in filming.

http://vimeo.com/videoschool/lesson/52/180-degree-rule-explained

In 1924-25 the montage was a very popular editing technique used in films and the soviets embraced communism so a lot of films had clips of the soviet way of life , usually military related jumbled together into there films, sergei Eisenstein was a renowned director known for his montages and in his film ‘Oktober’ his use of the montage creates and atmosphere of hard work and determination which was how the soviets wanted to depict themselves, this movement only lasted 5 years until 1930.

http://cinetext.philo.at/reports/sv.htmlhttp://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100811025929AAgLa6G

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0QAjpeosgU

Attribute to editing Techniques usedCollage A lot of different shots and types are

used, opening up and gaining more information about the scene, 25 different shots are used in the opening minute ranging from extreme long shots, tracking shot, ground shots & medium shots are all used to show the audience the build up to the fight, including other characters in the scene who will be arriving on the location, establishing the final part of the clip.

Tempo The clips range from one second to 7 seconds, depending on the type of shot, when establishing an object it stays on the subject for 1 or 2 seconds, but with the tracking shots last for longer because more is to be shown. When involving the main characters the clips focus for longer. The longest clip is as they walk through the gate and the camera is panning up as there walking in establishing the surroundings.

Timing During this scene there is little speech most is fighting so reactions to speech is not a problem but during the fight scenes everything is in sync, when a character is hit the shot either changes to a different shot once they had been hit or of the blood coming out of there face.

Continuity Due to a lot of action going on at the same time and many characters being involved in the fight, focus is kept on the main characters because the extras in the film will be moving around, it is not made clear that characters are in the same position because positional understanding is not kept in the clip so you do not need to understand where the extras will be in the clip.

180 degree rule This apply mostly in conversation but between characters fighting the camera stays on one side of does not switch between when a character is doing something, but does change when there are establishing shots and eyeline matches, but this does not happen in the 1 clip so the 180 rule does not apply.

Order of events Everything is kept in a linear style, everything happens in the order in which

it would normally, cutting far way to another character on route to the location, supposed to stay within the timing of what’s going on.

Green Street Hooligan – Final Fight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APb7TeeN8Tg