CHAPTER 6

Editing

In Peter Jackson's Return of the King, multiple story lines moving back and forth between Frodo and Sam, Aragorn, Legolas and Gandalf, could be very difficult to follow without expert editing.

Editing has several practical functions:

1.    Makes logistics of crafting feature length film with many story lines possible

2.    Makes scenes easier to choreograph

3.    Cuts down on production costs

Because traditional camera magazine only held about 15 minutes it was impossible to achieve one-shot scene of any length.

Only with the advent of digital photography has this been possible.

editing

Choreography is much easier because shooting anything longer than one minute requires incredible planning (Hitchcock).

And actors would need to memorize long blocks of dialogue.  With any small miscue by anyone on the set, the whole sequence would need to be reshot.  Plus traditional film cannot be reused.

Editing also contributes to aesthetic quality of film. Music videos may include hundreds of fast shots.  These can be set to a rhythm which would be impossible with a single-shot film camera.

In narrative film, editing also emphasizes character development, establishes motifs and parallels, and develops themes and ideas.

Three parts to manipulate in editing:

1.    Graphic qualities of two or more shots

2.    Tempo at which these shots change

3.    Timing of each shot in relationship to other elements of the film

Kuleshov Effect

Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov, pioneer in editing published articles about his experiments with film.

In one experiment, he filmed the expressionless face of a man.  Intercut it with images of a bowl of soup, woman's corpse in coffin and young girl with teddy bear.  When he screened the film for various audiences, they all raved about his acting and how his expression changed as he thought about each image.

The Kuleshov Effect theorizes that the meaning produced by joining two shots together transcends the visual information contained in each individual shot.

Attributes of Editing

I.    Creating Meaning through Collage, Tempo and Timing

        A.    A Collage of Graphic Qualities

                1.    Editing can suggest many things.  In Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise (1932) a couple is kissing on a couch.

                        The next shot shows the couch empty which indicates they have gone to the bedroom

                2.    Juxtaposing shots of two characters talking can have an effect on the audience.  If the shots are similar, the audience will perceive that it is an ongoing simple conversation.  They will focus on the words rather than the camera and editing.  A simple scene like this could be shot over several days but the audience wouldn't notice because the shots are intentionally not jarring.

                3.    Switching between angles can have a strong effect on audiences.  By showing a predator from a low angle and then a victim from a high angle, the audience will feel the terror of the victim.

                4.    Parallel shots like the bone and spacestation in 2001

            B.    Tempo

                    1.    Editing can encourage emotional and intellectual responses by adjusting tempo

                            a.    Shot Length

                                    I.    Long Shot tends to slow down the pace of a scene, while short takes quicken pace.

                                            A.    Action (short shots).  Romance (long shots)

                                    II.    Traditional films have longer shots.  Average length of 5.15 seconds down to 4.75 for             electronically edited films. A 10% difference.  Research shows it takes and audience from .5 to 3 seconds to adjust to new shot.  If a shot is less than 5 seconds, audiences may miss entire shots.  Some audience members may get a different meaning as they focus on different shots.

The tendency to rely on short editing may explain why modern audiences can't get used to watching old films.  The seem too slow paced.

                            b.    Tempo can also be affected by shot transition

                                    I.    Cut most common

                                    II.    Fade out/in

                                    III.    Dissolve

                                    IV.    Wipe; Iris in/iris out

                                            1.    Does not dissolve--works like split screen and pushes other shot out of way

                                    Transitions not only show passage of time but affect the pacing of the scene.  Cuts quicken pace, dissolves slow it down.

                     C.    Timing

                            Can edit to correspond to lines of dialogue, music, etc.

                            Use montage to show passing of time

                            Arrange order of events (memento)

                            Establish space

                    1.