EditingPutting it together

Editing

• Editing is about putting the shots together that make up the film

• Editing shapes the rhythm and pace of the film

• How long are the shots?

• How have they been put together?

Shots and cuts

1Shot Shot

Cut

Shots and cuts

•Cut: where 2 shots are joined together

1Shot Shot

Cut

TRANSITIONS

•FADE IN

•FADE OUT

•DISSOLVE

•WIPE

DISSOLVE

• One shot fades in while another fades out so that for a few seconds, the two are on top of each other and appear to blend

Shot

Shot

DISSOLVE

DISSOLVE

Shot 1............. dissolves into................... shot 2

Fade Out

• FADE OUT One shot disappears, often into black or white.

• Often used to show a change of time

Shot

Fade In

• FADE IN The shot appears gradually often from black or white

Shot Shot

Wipe

• One shot is wiped from the screen by another .

• Often used to go from one scene to another or from one time to another

1

Styles and Patterns

•Parallel Editing

•Matching and Graphic Match

•Montage (including Soviet Montage)

•Continuity

•Elliptical Editing

Parallel Editing• Editing that alternates between action occurring in

different places, usually at the same time. The two actions are therefore linked.

• Watch the end sequence of Psycho where we cut between Lila in the house and Sam talking to Norman. What is the effect?

Matching•Cutting to a shot that somehow

‘matches’ the shot before

•Location

•Eye Line

Montage

•This is where a whole series of shots are put together, that give an impression of what is happening.

•It is also used to show different, apparently unrelated shots that suggest an association.

Montage•Based on the ‘Kuleshov Effect’ (Lev

Kuleshov) or the juxtaposition of images

•Direct relationship between the images

•What emotions is the woman in the following picture expressing?

Montage

•Other filmmakers did not want the link to be so obvious and wanted the audience to work at pieceing together the action

Battleship Potemkin•Watch this extract. The sequence is

a very famous one set on a flight of step in the Russia town of Odessa. The townspeople are rebelling against the hardships of the Czarist rule but the Czar’s troop arrive to restore order. As we join the action a young woman has just been shot and her baby’s pram teeters on the edge of the steps.

Activity• Why was it necessary to concentrate when

watching this clip? Are you more involved because of this concentration?

• How does the editing emphasise the following:

• The attitude of the soldiers and their sheer physical force

• The vulnerability of the ordinary people

• The atmosphere of chaos and confusion

Montage•Can be thought of as a video

collage of a single moment

•Psycho Shower Scene

•Can be used as a video collage to establish a relationship between images and the passage of time.

•Rocky ‘Training Montage’

Graphic match - Shape

Note the match of

the images

Continuity• A system of making cuts in a film

whereby the cut maintains the action in the shot.

• Space and time are seen to be continuous between shots.

• The dominate style in Hollywood (the vast majority of movies you’ve seen use this method throughout the film)

Elliptical •Shot transitions that omit a portion of

an event or action (see jump cuts)

•Used to shorten time but also show an incohesive state (character under duress—war, drugs, delusional)

•Can also show a larger passage of time…. Fine line between this and montage

Pace of editing

•When shots are short in length, this is fast paced editing.

•It can make the audience feel anxious, or add to the speed of the action

Shot Shot Shot Shot Shot Shot Shot Shot

Pace of editing

•When the pace of editing is slower, and a shot may continue for a longer period, this may make the scene feel more relaxed

•At the beginning of a film the longer shots may be needed to give us information

Shot Shot

Pace of editing

•Changing the length of shot changes the pace and this can emphasize a change in the film as well eg a change in mood, or contrast one part of the action with another.

Shot Shot Shot Shot Shot