Understanding Video Editing
Purpose of this assignment: To
understand the development and principles of editing
Scenario – You are going to develop a
web-log about video editing designed to help young people with their film
production skills
TASK 1
You will develop an
understanding of the development and principles of editing through exploring
key examples throughout the history of the moving image.
·
You
will explore early film such as the Lumiere bothers and early experimentalists
such as Griffiths and Eisenstein.
·
You
will explore editors from the Twentieth Century such as Walter Murch who edited
films such as ‘Apocalypse Now’ and ‘Cold Mountain’
·
You
will then explore contemporary editing in the medium of the music video.
·
You
will present your research findings in the form of a web-log aimed at sharing
your knowledge with young people.
Your web-log will
explain the development and the main principles of video editing using visual
examples to justify points made. Show understanding of all the points in the
table below These could be screen-grabs or clips from films.
Development
|
Purposes
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In-camera editing
|
Storytelling
|
Following the action
|
Engaging the viewer
|
Multiple points of
view
|
Development of drama
|
Shot variation
|
Relationship to
genre
|
Manipulation of
diegetic time and space
|
Creating motivation
|
Film and Video
|
Combing shots into
sequences
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Analogue and digital
|
Creating pace
|
TASK 2
Explain and provide
visual examples of the following terms associated with video editing by collating
and publishing an explanatory compendium of key terms.
Add any other terms
that you come across during your own editing.
Continuity, Motivation, Montage, Jump-cutting, Parallel editing, 180 degree rule, Splicing, Cutaways, Point of view shot, Shot-reverse-shot, Providing and withholding information, Editing rhythm, Cross-cutting, Cutting to soundtrack and Transitions.
For example;
·
Cut
·
Dissolve
·
Fade
·
Wipe
Historical Development of Film Editing:
Beginning with Edison, when Edison’s assistant W.K.L Dickson invented the motion picture viewer the device turned out to be an instant success, although Edison hoped the invention would boost the sales of the phonograph (record player), they could not conclude a way to match the sound with the images.
This led Edison to conduct the creation of the Kinetoscope a device giving you the ability to view motion pictures however without sound. Patented in August 1897 most of the early Kinetoscope films have burnt due to the acidic base of the film, luckily enough for us he produced paper copies of the individual frames on the film a prime example of this would be Edison’s first ever moving pictures ‘Fred Ott’s Sneeze.”
Movies at the time we considerably short due to the fact Edison believed that a viewer would not be able to stand the ‘flickering’ for a long period of time (lasting no longer than 10 minutes). Initially the Kinetoscope could only be viewed by one person at a time however this was soon replaced by screen projectors so the film could be viewed by a whole room of people at once.
Expanding from this both Edison and his assistant wanted to film a high umber of motion pictures so they opened the first ever movie studio in 1893 known ad the ‘Black Maria’. Using this studio they created between 200 and 300 films examples such as the ‘Three Acrobats’ produced in 1899.
At the same time, the Lumiere brothers were French pioneer manufacturers and inventors of Photographic equipment and were able to create an early motion- picture camera and projector called the Cinématographe.
The Cinématographe was a device, created in early 1895, which combined the Camera with the Printer and Projector. Officially patenting it in February 1895 this new device was smaller than Edison’s Kinetograph, hand cranked, and lightweight.
The most key innovation was the mechanism through which allowed the film to be transported through the camera. Using two pins or claws they could be inserted into the Sprocket holes already punched into the Celluloid film strip, these pins would move along and retract the film leaving it stationary during exposure.
This device had the ability to record, develop and project motion pictures allowing it to go down in history as the first viable film camera. They then used this to capture footage of workers leaving a factory at the end of the day known as “La Sortie des ouvriers de l’usine Lumière” (“Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory”) which is considered to be the first motion picture.
Leading from this the brothers unveiled the Cinématographe in their first public screening in December 1895 after a number of other private screenings. IN early 1896 they then opened Cinématographe theaters in London, New York, Belgium and Brussels and produced more than 40 films in that year alone.
By 1905, the brothers withdrew themselves from the movie making business to favor the developing of the first practical photographic color process which was known as the Lumiere Auto chrome.
Shortly following this, D.W. Griffith was known as one of the earliest directors and producers in cinema, making his name with his innovations and directing the film ‘Birth of a Nation’ in 1915.
He originally worked as an actor and playwright before turning to cinema, creating innovative filmmaking techniques. Although he directed the feature length blockbuster movie ‘Birth of a Nation’ it was highly racist within its content. This movie told the story of the Civil war and the Reconstruction era based and adapted from the book ‘The Clansmen’. This was first seen in the U.S and was further lauded for its pioneering storytelling forms, which still greatly influences modern moviemaking and shapes ideas around audience cultivation.
Furthering the idea of racist themes the blockbuster movie was blatantly racist and distorted history with straying depictions of African Americans. The story line involved the creation of the Ku Klux Klan formed in vengeance over a women’s death. Although gaining a lot of criticism the film continued to run and spurred outrage in a variety of places leading to as an example: riots breaking out during the show.
Griffith was able to achieve this blockbuster due to his highly innovative with his filmmaking techniques utilizing close-ups, cross-cutting, cultivating a deeper emotional milieu (a person's social environment) and fade outs to distinctive effect which was a major breakthrough in filmmaking technology creating possibilities that would help develop film in a massive manor.
One other key participant in film history was George Melies. Melies being a performing magician at the time luckily owned his own theater and after being inspired by the Lumiere brothers Cinematogragh in 1895 he decided to add films to his program using a projector, from the English inventor R.W. Paul, to build his own camera as the Lumiere brothers were not as of yet selling machinery.
Melies over his time made films in all the genres of the day and during his first year of production he created 78 films (most of which is lost) this includes his first trick film 'The Vanishing Lady' in 1896:
In order to control the mise-en-scene and cinematography of his films he built a small glass enclosed studios in 1897 which gave him the ability to design and construct sets and bring them to life from canvas flats.
Melies' 1899 film 'The Dreyfus Affair' told the story of a Jewish officer that was convicted of treason in 1894 due to false evidence put forth from anti-semiotic motives. The controversy that was still raging when the Pro-Dreyfus picture was being produced. He then further released each of the ten shots as a separate film which when shown together, the shots combined into one of the most complex pieces of work of cinemas early years. However modern prints of 'The Dreyfus Affair' typically are combined with all the shots in a single reel.
In his first years of production his films involved very sophisticated stop motion effects which a recent discovery of utilizing editing supports this and cancels out criticism of Melies depending on static theatrical sets. He would cut the film in order to match the movement of one object perfectly with that of the thing into which it was transformed and these cuts were designed to be unnoticeable. Melies often also enhanced the beauty of his elaborately designed mise-en-scene using hand allied tinting.
Orson Welles caused a major shift in film editing for the better. His father was a well-to-do inventor, his mother a beautiful concert pianist; Orson Welles was gifted in many arts (magic, piano, painting) as a child. When his mother died (he was seven) he traveled the world with his father. When his father died (he was fifteen) he became the ward of Chicago's Dr. Maurice Bernstein. In 1931, he graduated from the Todd School in Woodstock, Illinois; he turned down college offers for a sketching tour of Ireland. He tried unsuccessfully to enter the London and Broadway stages, traveling some more in Morocco and Spain (where he fought in the bullring). Recommendations by Thornton Wilder and Alexander Woollcott got him into Katherine Cornell's road company, with which he made his New York debut as Tybalt in 1934. The same year, he married, directed his first short, and appeared on radio for the first time. He began working with John Houseman and formed the Mercury Theatre with him in 1937. In 1938, they produced "The Mercury Theatre on the Air", famous for its broadcast version of "The War of the Worlds" (intended as a Halloween prank).
His first film to be seen by the public was Citizen Kane (1941), a commercial failure losing RKO $150,000, but regarded by many as the best film ever made. The film is known in history for its innovative techniques never used before. Before Citizen Kane, most films were organized chronologically: they began at the beginning and ended at the end. Kane famously begins at the end, when a dying Charles Foster Kane whispers "Rosebud." From there, the film moves back to Kane's childhood, and tells the story of his life… from the perspectives of five different people. Welles explains: "They tell five different stories, each biased, so the truth about Kane, like the truth about any man, can only be calculated by the sum of everything that has been said about him."
Many of his next films were commercial failures and he exiled himself to Europe in 1948. In 1956, he directed Touch of Evil (1958); it failed in the United States but won a prize at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. In 1975, in spite of all his box-office failures, he received the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 1984, the Directors Guild of America awarded him its highest honor, the D.W. Griffith Award. His reputation as a filmmaker has climbed steadily ever since.
Early 20th Century Editing:
His first film to be seen by the public was Citizen Kane (1941), a commercial failure losing RKO $150,000, but regarded by many as the best film ever made. The film is known in history for its innovative techniques never used before. Before Citizen Kane, most films were organized chronologically: they began at the beginning and ended at the end. Kane famously begins at the end, when a dying Charles Foster Kane whispers "Rosebud." From there, the film moves back to Kane's childhood, and tells the story of his life… from the perspectives of five different people. Welles explains: "They tell five different stories, each biased, so the truth about Kane, like the truth about any man, can only be calculated by the sum of everything that has been said about him."
Welles also compressed most of Kane's life story into a fictional newsreel segment that was incredibly realistic for its time. Editor Robert Wise blended 127 different clips of film into the newsreel: Some were clips of actual news footage, others were staged shots of Welles and other actors. Welles "aged" the news footage by dragging the negatives across a concrete floor, giving them authentic-looking scrapes.
In another famous sequence, Welles illustrates the breakdown of Kane's first marriage with a montage of scenes of Kane and his wife at the breakfast table. The first shot shows the newlyweds madly in love with each other; over the next several scenes, they age gradually, denoting the passage of time, and become increasingly distant. In the last scene, they sit at opposite ends of a long table in stony silence. The sequence is less than three minutes long, but it took six weeks to put together.
Welles and cinematographer Gregg Toland spent weeks setting up Citizen Kane's scenes and planning camera angles. "This is unconventional in Hollywood," Toland wrote in Popular Photographyin 1941, "where most cinematographers learn of their next assignment only a few days before the scheduled shooting starts."
Toland used "deep-focus" camera techniques, including special film, lenses, and lighting developed especially for Citizen Kane, that made everything on screen appear in focus at the same time, an unheard-of practice in Hollywood. "The normal human eye sees everything before it clearly and sharply," Toland wrote. "But Hollywood cameras focus on the center of interest and allow the other components of the screen 'fuzz out'… The attainment of approximately human-eye focus was one of our fundamental aims …in some cases we were able to hold sharp focus over a depth of 200 feet."
Toland used "deep-focus" camera techniques, including special film, lenses, and lighting developed especially for Citizen Kane, that made everything on screen appear in focus at the same time, an unheard-of practice in Hollywood. "The normal human eye sees everything before it clearly and sharply," Toland wrote. "But Hollywood cameras focus on the center of interest and allow the other components of the screen 'fuzz out'… The attainment of approximately human-eye focus was one of our fundamental aims …in some cases we were able to hold sharp focus over a depth of 200 feet."
Early 20th Century Editing:
Walter Scott Murch (born July 12, 1943) is an American film editor and sound designer. With a career stretching back to 1969, including work on Apocalypse Now, The Godfather I, II, and III, American Graffiti, The Conversation, and The English Patient, with three Academy Award wins (from nine nominations: six for picture editing and three for sound mixing),he has been referred to as "the most respected film editor and sound designer in the modern cinema.
Along with all his work behind the big screen, Murch has been the subject of numerous books and documentaries over the years and was also the first filmmaker awarded an Academy Award for editing on a digital system (Avid).
Along with all his work behind the big screen, Murch has been the subject of numerous books and documentaries over the years and was also the first filmmaker awarded an Academy Award for editing on a digital system (Avid).
Within Murch’s book In the blink of an eye: A perspective on film editing he discusses something he calls the ‘Rule of Six‘.
Six elements to building the story within the edit, which he describes as a list of priorities:
1. Emotion
How will this cut affect the audience emotionally at this particular moment in the film?
Telling the emotion of the story is the single most important part when it comes to editing. When we make a cut we need to consider if that edit is true to the emotion of the story.
Telling the emotion of the story is the single most important part when it comes to editing. When we make a cut we need to consider if that edit is true to the emotion of the story.
Ask yourself does this cut add to that emotion or subtract from it?
It is important to consider if the cut is distracting the audience from the emotion of the story, Murch believes that emotion “is the thing that you should try to preserve at all costs”,
“How do you want the audience to feel? If they are feeling what you want them to feel all the way through the film, you’ve done about as much as you can ever do. What they finally remember is not the editing, not the camerawork, not the performances, not even the story—it’s how they felt.” (i)
2. Story
Does the edit move the story forward in a meaningful way?
Each cut you make needs to advance the story. Don’t let the edit become bogged in subplot (if it isn’t essential) if the scene isn’t advancing the story, cut it.
Each cut you make needs to advance the story. Don’t let the edit become bogged in subplot (if it isn’t essential) if the scene isn’t advancing the story, cut it.
Remember what Faulkner says “Kill all your darlings” (yes, he’s talking about writing but it’s also true in filmmaking).
If the story isn’t advancing, its confusing or worse – boring your audience.
3. Rhythm
Is the cut at a point that makes rhythmic sense?
Like music, editing must have a beat, a rhythm to it. Timing is everything.
“it occurs at a moment that is rhythmically interesting and ‘right'”
If the rhythm is off, your edit will look sloppy, a bad cut can be ‘jarring’ to an audience. Try to keep the cut tight and interesting.
These top three – emotion, story, rhythm – are essential to get right.
“Now, in practice, you will find that those top three things on the list…are extremely tightly connected. The forces that bind them together are like the bonds between the protons and neutrons in the nucleus of the atom. Those are, by far, the tightest bonds, and the forces connecting the lower three grow progressively weaker as you go down the list.”
4. Eye Trace
How does the cut affect the location and movement of the audience’s focus in that particular film?
You should always be aware of where in the frame you want your audience to look, and cut accordingly. Match the movement from one side of the screen to the other, or for a transition, matching the frame, shape or symbol, e.g. Murch when editing Apocalypse Now uses the repetition of symbol, from a rotating ceiling fan to helicopters.
Break the screen into four quadrants, and try to keep the movement in one of those quadrants. For instance, if your character is reaching from the top left quadrant, and his eyes are focused to the right lower quadrant that is where your audience’s focus will naturally move after the cut.
5. Two Dimensional Place of Screen
Is the axis followed properly?
Make sure your cuts follow the axis (180º line). This will keep the action along it’s correct path of motion and maintain the continuity. Looking at your quadrants again, be sure the movement flows along the same path, for example a car leaving the left side of frame, would enter again via the right. Sticking to the 180º line (I’ll explain this more below) allows the audience to keep track of the spatial place of characters and objects in your film.
6. Three Dimensional Space
Is the cut true to established physical and spacial relationships?
During shooting the 180º rule states that you draw an imaginary in between your characters and keep the camera on just one side of that line, this is true for editing also.
This rule should always be adhered to, unless you purposely break it. Breaking the 180º line works really well if you want your audience feeling confused, or to disorientate them.
A great example of which is Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, scattered throughout are reverse-angle wide shots between characters, the freezer door opens from both sides of frame (from one cut to the next), even the architecture of the set makes no sense with doorways to rooms that spatially would be somewhere mid-air above stair ways. The managers office (where Jack is interviewed) has a window with a view to outside despite being located in the middle of the hotel/set.
The point is, stick to the 180º rule, and spatially your edit will work, unless you really want to mess with your audience’s minds.
Moving on..
Focusing on his well known work, I studied the opening of 'Apocalypse Now'.
Apocalypse Now - 1979
Apocalypse Now was released to universal acclaim. It was honored with the Palme d'Or at Cannes and nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama.
It is considered to be one of the greatest films ever made.
The film was also ranked No. 14 in the British Film Institute's Sight and Sound greatest films poll in 2012. The film ranks #7 on Empire magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time.
In 2000, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".
Upon the rebuild of music the diegetic noise of the helicopters comes back as the camera begins to turn on the character from upside down to a normal posture. This then makes his current location more predominant than his thoughts, It shows us typical war imagery of pictures of women, hand written letters, cigarettes, alcohol and finally a gun found lying in the bed next to him.
The sound of the helicopter is then used as a sound bridge between the helicopter and the ceiling fan as he is bringing the character and the audiences view to his current location. This idea of the only diegetic sound within the imagery is actually the ceiling fan helps heavily exaggerate the idea of all the war imagery being in his thoughts. The whole sequence establishes his location, the situation and tells us a lot about the character just through his state of mind.
The juxtaposition in this sequence seems to have 6 layers with 3 of them being the characters thoughts and more than likely, memories. The 3 other layers establish the character and his surroundings, and using all the layers you can extract information about this character and their current physical and mental situation. This clever editing puts you into he mind of this character. We can also figure out with general knowledge that the character is a current of past soldier from the Vietnam war. The different types of editing shown in the 3 layers of memories helps us to establish they are his thoughts. this sequence relying massively on flash backs to really emphasize the characters state. This all combined with the set size of the room, relative lighting and elements help us establish the impression that this character is both physically and mentally trapped.
Video Editing Techniques
Seamless Editing/Continuity Editing:
When the cuts between shots are fluid and barely noticeable.
Fade Out:
The gradual fading from the picture and sound to black ( or another color) and silence.
Fade In:
The opposite of fade out.
Dissolve:
The Superimposition, a quick overlapping/mixing of two images (one image over the other) - usually implies a passage of time.
Superimpose:
The mixing, blending of many shots over one another to combine various different images. Created during the post production digital editing phase.
Cut:
A stop, or break in action usually indicated by moving from one camera angle or shot to another.
Slow Motion:
Slow Motion is a stylistic edit, which serves to slow down fast action and draw our attention to it.
Fast Motion:
The Speeding up a shot by its frame rate - to make things seem like they are moving faster.
Shot-reverse-shot:
A series of shots between two characters in a continuous fashion.
Match on Action (Reference 1):
Filming the same action from two different points/perspectives and editing them together to make them look seamless and as one although the clips could of been filmed weeks apart. If a character begins an action in the first shot and completes it in the next shot it creates a visual 'bridge' which disguises the cut.
Cross Cutting:
Cutting back and forth from one location to another, telling two stories t the same time between cuts, usually building up to similar climatic events.
Montage:
A single pictorial composition made by superimposing many pictures or designs.
In filmmaking, a montage is an editing technique in which shots are juxtaposed in an often fast-paced fashion that compresses time and conveys a lot of information in a relatively short period. (1)
Parallel Editing:
Parallel editing (cross cutting) is the technique of alternating two or more scenes that often happen simultaneously but in different locations. If the scenes are simultaneous, they occasionally culminate in a single place, where the relevant parties confront each other. Used often to create tension and suspense. (2)
(Following shots taken from the popular TV show: Peaky Blinders)
Parallel Editing:
Parallel editing (cross cutting) is the technique of alternating two or more scenes that often happen simultaneously but in different locations. If the scenes are simultaneous, they occasionally culminate in a single place, where the relevant parties confront each other. Used often to create tension and suspense. (2)
(Following shots taken from the popular TV show: Peaky Blinders)
Establishing/ Master Shot:
A shot, at the head of the scene that clearly shows the locale the action is set in. Often comes after the aerial shot.
Aerial Shot:
Birds eye view shot, usually computer generated.
Crane Shot:
Crane Shot:
A shot where the camera is placed on a crane or jib and moved up or down. Think a vertical tracking shot.
Hand Held: A shot in which the camera operator holds the camera during motion to create a jerky, immediate feel.
Dutch Tilt: A shot where the camera is tilted on its side to create a kooky angle. Often used to suggest disorientation.
Medium Shot: The shot that utilizes the most common framing in movies shows less than a long shot, more than a close-up.
Close Up: A shot that keeps only the face full in the frame. Perhaps the most important building block in cinematic storytelling.
Long Shot: A shot that depicts an entire character or object from head to foot. Not as long as an establishing shot. Aka a wide shot.
High Angle: A shot looking down on a character or subject often isolating them in the frame.
Low Angle: A shot looking up at a character or subject often making them look bigger in the frame. It can make everyone look heroic and/or dominant. Also good for making cities look empty.
Over the Shoulder Shot: A shot where the camera is positioned behind one subject's shoulder, usually during a conversation. It implies a connection between the speakers as opposed to the single shot that suggests distance.
Two Shot: A medium shot that depicts two people in the frame. Used primarily when you want to establish links between characters or people who are beside rather than facing each other.
Subjective Point of View:
An individuals unique perspective through his or her own eyes.
Pans:
swing (a video or film camera) in a horizontal plane, typically to give a panoramic effect or follow a subject.
Tilts:
swing (a video or film camera) on a vertical axis - sky to floor or floor to sky.
Forward Tracking:
A tracking shot is any shot where the camera moves alongside the object(s) it is recording in a forwards motion typically using what is known as a Camera Dolly on a track.It is a shot that follows a subject be it from behind or alongside or in front of the subject.
Reverse Tracking:
A tracking shot is any shot where the camera moves alongside the object(s) it is recording in a reverse motion typically using what is known as a Camera Dolly on a track. It is a shot that follows a subject be it from behind or alongside or in front of the subject.
Vertical Tracking:
A tracking shot is any shot where the camera moves alongside the object(s) it is recording in a vertical motion up/down typically using what is known as a Camera Dolly on a track. It is a shot that follows a subject be it from behind or alongside or in front of the subject.
Zoom In:
To increase rapidly the magnification of the image of a distant object by means of a zoom lens.
Zoom Out:
To decrease rapidly the magnification of the image of a distant object by means of a zoom lens. To consider the essential points, rather than the details of a subject.
Arc Shot:
A shot in which the subject is circled by the camera.
Bridging Shot:
A shot that denotes a shift in time or place, like a line moving across an animated map.
Cowboy Shot:
A shot framed from mid thigh up, so called because of its recurrent use in Westerns.
Deep Focus:
A shot that keeps the foreground, middle ground and background ALL in sharp focus.
Dolly Zoom:
A shot that sees the camera track forward toward a subject while simultaneously zooming out creating a woozy, vertiginous effect.
Locked-down shot:
A shot where the camera is fixed in one position while the action continues off-screen.
Library Shot:
A pre-existing shot of a location — typically a wild animal — that is pulled from a library.
Matte Shot:
A shot that incorporates foreground action with a background, traditionally painted onto glass, now created in a computer.
The Sequence Shot:
A long shot that covers a scene in its entirety in one continuous sweep without editing.
Steadicam Shot:
A shot from a hydraulically balanced camera that allows for a smooth, fluid movement.
Top Shot:
A shot looking directly down on a scene rather than at an angle. Also known as a Birds-Eye-View shot.
180° Rule:
The 180° rule is a cinematography guideline that states that two or more characters in a scene should maintain the same left/right relationship to one another . When the camera passes over the invisible axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line and the shot becomes what is called a reverse angle. This rule is set when filming to avoid confusion of the audience and is established when the initial shot is set up.
All coverage should be shot from one side of this 'imaginary' line. Subconsciously the audience will form a mental map of where the characters are located in the scene from the first master shot. Crossing this line can be very disconcerting to an audience and, at least momentarily, takes them out of the story and leaves them re-establishing their understanding of of the scene which should be heavily avoided.
An example of this in a simple case is an actor walking down the street, if the first shot shows them walking from right to left, then all of the coverage should be showing the actor walking from right to left. If you jump to the other side of the actor, therefore crossing the line and breaking the 180 degree rule, it appears as if the actor has decided to return from where they came from now walking from left to right although not altering the actors actions.
A difficulty is posed when there is a circle of actors in the scene, the 'Line' will change position and alter to the dynamics of the conversation change which needs to be carefully planned so the shots can be edited taking the audience gently to a new understanding of the layout of the scene as the position of the line changes with each shot.
However the rule can be broken in creative and purposeful ways. It can be broken to add interest to a scene or exaggerate the producers/directors intentions of impact on the audience such as creating a feeling of disorientation to enhance the storytelling. Another example could be used to express character emotion such as confusion in the mind of one of the characters. It can also be broken without confusion by physically showing the camera movement crossing the line.
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