We started the session by watching a car scene from Steven Spielberg's first film 'Duel'.Through this scene we see the editing speed up as the car chase speeds up. It works with the actions and builds up the tension right through and always gets tighter and tighter.
Film Editing
Editing is the art of joining separate shots together to create longer sequences that make up the complete film/programme. Editing is the only part of the production process that is unique to filmmaking and is often referred to as the 'Invisible Art'. because when done well is so immersive the viewer doesn't notice the edits.
Editing isn't just joining shots together, it's also about creating emotion, drama, rhythm and action through the shots. This is where Story telling. The man who created editing is Edwin. S. Porter with 'The Great Train Robbery'.
Editing has changed and developed since this film but essentially still holds true to what we had from the 'The Great Train Robbery' but what has changed dramatically is how we edit and the technology. Up until the early 2000's, all films edited together were done using something called a Steenbeck, editing actual film by cutting it on the frame with a blade and then taping it together with another shot you wanted.If you look at films from before the 1990's, there was a lot less cutting in them. The physical difference meant films were much slower. However, as technology grew we got Linear editing which was with tapes and this was the most basic kind of editing as you just do shot after shot and if you made a mistake you had to start over.
Continuity editing
The predominate form of editing style in narrative film and television is known as continuity editing, also know as the Hollywood style as the technique was developed in Hollywood. The idea being that the main purpose of editing is to take discontinuous shots to create a continuous whole.
This is where all the shots work together and you aren't ever confused. Creating a continuous story. This will also involve cutting out un-needed footage which for a Director can be hard because you might have spent ages getting footage but an Editor won't care and just wants to make sure sequence flows together.
The most creative layer of editing is creating drama of a scene, through pacing, rhythm and emotion. This doesn't mean fast cutting or slow cutting, it means cutting at the right time. Pacing is key to create a great film.
If two people are talking, usually you'd go back and forth from who's talking but if you hold on someones reaction you suddenly change the pace. Pacing with a scene will usually start slow and build up and speed up as the scene goes on and as the drama increases. You always have to cut for a reason, it must adds to the scene.
Creating the emotion in a scene with editing is the hardest skill to pull off. You can create love, hate, happiness and sadness. An emotional scene with love or sadness would be quite slow and smooth. An action scene with excitement or hate would be fast paced.
Where you position your characters in a scene is crucial in editing - whose story is this? POV shots can show a characters view and swap the feelings for the audience seeing it from the characters point of view.
There are many different techniques used with editing like cross cut, montage, fade/dissolve which can help improve the edit and make it the master piece you want.
For an edit you need to log the rushes. Label them and put them in bins to organise them. Then you do an assembly cut, where all the footage is in the right order without cuts. Then you do a rough cut, make the cuts, move clips and get a good idea and then after that you do a fine cut which is where you really create the drama and get close to the finished length and finally we get the final cut where everything gets the little touches, finalised and finished.
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