Unit 9: Digital Editing For Moving Image

Unit 9: Digital Editing For Moving Image

Unit introduction

In this assignment I will be taking on the role of a researcher for the BFI (British Film Institute) to investigate the purpose of editing, the different ways that editors across history up until the present day have joined shots and to look at the different techniques used along the many years for film making.

The Great Train Robbery

This movie on the right used a lot of new techniques with editing and camera work

The 180- Degree Rule

Shot-Reverse-Shot

Match On Action

The 180-degree rule was developed so that the characters on-screen weren't constantly changing places in the different scenes. This is achieved by keeping the camera on one side of the pair of characters, by doing so you create a 180 degree line in which you can't cross unless you show the journey I.E. you show the camera move and change sides.

The example that I have provided shows a conversation between two people, both characters stay on their sides of the camera and don't switch.

This is where one character is shown looking at another character and then the other character is shown looking at the first character. since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer assumes that they are looking at each other.

The example I have provided shows a conversation between two people.

This is a cut that connects two different views of the same action at the same moment in the same movement by carefully matching the movement across 2 shots is seems the motion is uninterrupted.

The example I used is a character going to open a door in the first scene and then it cuts to the second scene without showing him opening the door.

Cut-away

Transitions

A cut-away is a shot of something related to but outside the main action in the main scene, the shot cuts-away to a separate scene therefore its name. A good example of this would be a classroom as the main scene and the separate scene would be a person looking through the window to that classroom and it would show his reaction t the events taking place in that room.

The example to the right shows this as well with the murder of someone and then another persons reaction to it from the window.

The Eye-Line Match

Transitions are used to blend different footage together to make it look more interesting. for example with the use of dissolve and fade you can make it look like there has been a passage of time or to cut out the ending of a scene.

Eye-line match is used to sell the reality of the film, for example if a character on-screen is looking at an object such as a painting the camera will cut to the painting on the eye level of the character, that's why its call eye-line match.

The example I created showed of the reaction of the character to the shoe moving away.

The purpose of Editing (1903)

Early Cinema (1896)

Continuity Editing (2014)

Dissolve

The Cut

A dissolve is used to indicate a change or the passing of time, a good example of this would be to show the ending to a scene.

It was the year 1896 and the Lumière Brothers had just made the first ever film ' L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat ' It was no longer than 30 seconds but it captivated the small audience in a cafe in Paris. The short film contained no editing, no narrative, continuous shot narrative and was a actual filmed event of a train pulling into the station. The viewers reaction would have been very unique, some people would have been terrified that an actual train was coming their way and might have dived out of the way.

The cut is the most common edit and is used within the same time frame, this provides instant change in the footage as part of a continuous sequence to keep the flow going.

For example this clip has been created to show off the use of a cut, this clip is of two people talking and the cut is used to show the two characters talking and their facial expressions.

In the short time period between the Lumière Brothers and 1903 there had been a lot of different uses of editing but in 1903 Edwin Porter had made a new film containing lots of different editing techniques which are still widely used today. He showed that you could used editing with a purpose, the purpose to make films look even better, his film used a number of innovative techniques, some of them even used for the first time for example; jump-cuts, cross-cuts, pan shots and ellipsis most of these techniques are still used in modern day filming. In comparison to ' A trip to the moon ' the film that inspired Edwin he used a lot more techniques to make the film more believable and made it flow more smoothly. Edwin's use of time, space and rhythm made his film very successful and it also stressed the importance of using them. The way he showed the use of time was through jump-cuts and cross-cuts to show two separate line of action or events happening at identical times but at different locations. His use of space was very well done, more than ten locations were used in the filming of 'The great train robbery' and his use of continuity editing was unprecedented he cut together different shots of various distances to make narrative connections. The general flow of Edwin's film was smooth but with quick transitions, it flowed well but sometimes I felt that the transitions were too quick but it didnt really effect it too much.

The continuity system is the new standard system of editing, it is now virtually universal in commercial film and television but it was associated with Hollywood cinema.

The continuity system aims to present a scene so that the editing is "invisible", the viewer is never distracted by the jumps between shots or the lay-out of the scene.

Classical editing achieves a smooth and seamless style, its used as the normal now because we are so used to it and because it employs a number of techniques designed to maximize a sense of continuity.

The Fade

A fade is used to indicate the beginning or the end of scene or even a cut into darkness

2000

1902

L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat

On the right is the first ever movie made in France, is was shown in a small cafe to no more than 15 people

1896

2014

1903

Technical Developments in Editing (2000)

Alternative Editing Styles (2014)

Early Cinema (1902)

Alternative editing techniques are used to make 'visible' editing techniques to show off how good the editors were when creating this film, such techniques include transitions and special effects to make the films more lively and spontaneous. Alternative editing also breaks the norm on continuity editing by breaking the 180-degree rule.

Freeze Frames

There have been many technical developments in editing over the past few decades but none more so than in the 21st century, their have been huge advancements in digital film and 3D technology. The filming to editing process back in 1900's was very linear, the process consisted of just filming the scenes the physically cutting, slicing and sticking them together to get the film they wanted. It later involved overlaying video together from more than one source, picking the footage you wanted in real time. these processes were very linear, a non-linear approach began in 1990's where everything was edited on computers digitally. computer systems such as an AVD, now film and video material can be organized onto a timeline in systems such as Premiere, where the editor can add transitions, effects and audio, then transfer the edited version to a DVD or the Internet.

Montage Editing

After the success of the first film ever made by the Lumière Brothers many people were inspired to make films on such person was Georges Méliès, inspired by the Lumière Brothers he decided to make his own film after lots of mini shorts he finally made the first ever sci-fi film; A trip to the moon. This film was a lot longer than ' L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat ' it was no longer then 20 minutes and contained a lot of editing techniques such as; editing in the camera, cutting at a workbench, surreal editing and continuity editing. Méliès was also the first person to develop the use of dissolves, time-lapse photography and multiple exposures. He is also responsible for the world's first colour movies by hand-painting his slides.

A freeze frame is used when a moving image is frozen like a picture mid scene to create the illusion that everything's stopped it's often used to add dramatic effect or to focus on an object.

This type of editing is used to show the passing of time in a sequence of shots are spliced together to make them connected and a sequence.

Jump Cuts

Breaking the 180-degree rule

Jump cuts are used as a transition between two shots to show a jump in editing, it's mostly used when showing old clips in films to show the film being damaged or old.

Slow-motion

Speedup-shots

This is now common among films due to new wave editing and alternative editing, you break the 180-degree rule by moving the camera around two people locked in the rule thus breaking it

These shots are used to speed up scenes to add suspense and a sense of hurry, they are used a lot in action movies.

Slow-motion is used to add suspense and to slow down the passage of time to elongate certain scenes and events.

Superimposition

Split-screen Editing

A superimposition is when two or more images are placed over each other in the same frame, this is used in dissolves and laying frames together to give it a ghostly look.

Split-screen Editing is mostly used to show two people in different scenes or to show a phone conversation between two people.

A Trip to the Moon

Editing technologies history

Types of Editing Used Now

In the beginning the very first instances of media were pictures span around on a device called a 'zoopraxiscope'. These devices simply showed the viewer a little clip of something by rotating a glass disk in rapid succession giving the viewer and impression of motion. This it self was the start of editing and the technology used within, another example of this style of editing was used in a similar device called a 'kinetoscope', this would show the viewer a little clip of a wrestling match or a dance routine for the price of 25 cents, it used the same style of technology as its predecessor the 'zoopraxiscope'. The next technological advanced in editing and film making was the thought of people being filmed while reenacting a play or story, and with this thought a young french man by the name of Georges Méliès created the very first sci-fi movie by using stationary cameras and editing on a work bench and for a while it was the best use of camera work and editing until Edwin S. Porter filmed and edited The great train robbery with its usage of setting time and rhythm it became one of the best edited films of the early 1900's. The next biggest step in film editing came from Steenbeck and his invention called the flatbeds, these devices would allow editors to lay down their reels horizontally on separate plates and thread them through its mechanical guides and sprockets. Eventually, many came to consider the flatbed superior to the upright Moviola film-editing machines in terms of speed, sound quality and monitoring. Theses machines were used for three decades before the revolution of the digital era of editing came around in 1971 when the CMX 600 was introduced, it was the first editing computer of its type and was a non-linear editing system its was primarily used to create video tapes but was to clunky and expensive to be considered useful, in 1980 lucas films created the editdroid which was similar to its predecessor. Now present day editing programs and systems lead the way with there seamless picture and sound editing processes and the technology is available to relatively available to everyone, programs such as adobe premiere and pro tools are used in film editing these days and this advancement in technology means the the films we match are crafted well and shown in a fantastic manner.

This movie of the right is the first ever Sci-fi film created, a trip to the moon contained some of the first ever uses of editing

There are many new and different types of editing that being used everyday;

• Single Camera Editing:

This uses one camera which is moved each time for a different shot, angle or movement. This is edited together one scene at a time when editing like the camera originally filmed it.

• Multiple-camera Editing:

Several cameras film a scene. Generally, there are two outer cameras that shoot close-up shots of the two most active characters while the central camera or cameras shoot a wider master shot to capture the overall action. In this way, multiple shots are obtained in a single take.

This reduces the time spent editing the footage as all footage is captured at once and you can edit them all together.

• Offline Editing:

Is the post production process of filmmaking  and television production in which raw footage is copied and edited, without affecting the original and digitally edited after filming.

• Live Editing

In some situations multiple cameras and other video sources are routed through a central digital mixing console and edited in real time. Live television coverage, such as the news, is an example of live editing.