History of Editing

History of Editing                      29/09/15

Filmmaking IQ – History of Cutting - The Birth of Cinema and Continuity Editing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uahjH2cspk

Primitive Cinema – In December 28^th 1895, the first public cinema screening occurred in the basement of the Grand Café, by the Lumiere brothers.

Animatograph – George Melies, who saw the first screening of a film, and who was a professional magician, saw much more potential for films than them simply being animated photographs. Owned and operated a Theatre. He attempted to by a cinematographe form the Lumiere’s but they refused as they saw him as potential competition. Unfazed by this Melies, who had also been a mechanic, he bought an English made projector, called an animatograph, for less money. He reversed the mechanics on this projector and made a camera. Melies shot and showed his own films. Whilst filming one of his films in 1896, Melies accidentally invented the ‘jump cut’. Melies put this to work in his films – using the ‘jump cut’ to create disappearing and reappearing effects. Melies also invented the ‘Fade in and Fade Out’, ‘Overlapping Dissolves’, and ‘Stop Motion Photography’. Melies started to tell actual stories through his films. Melies made about 500 films.

Primitive cinema and Animatograph work are like tableaux - they are done all from the same angle/a-fixed-positon, as if you were watching a play.

Beyond the tableau to the birth of the edit…

Beyond the tableau – Edwin S. Porter set up the first Edison projector – (Edison as in Thomas Edison) – in Koster and Bial’s Music Hall, in April 1896. He became head of production for the Edison Skylight Studio, New York, in 1901. For the next five year’s he served as Edison’s go-to Director and Camera-man. Porter was inspired by Melies and tried his hand at a narrative story told through film – and in 1903 his film ‘Life of an American Fireman’ was produced. At this time temporal overlaps were very common. In 1903 Porter’s next film, ‘The Great Train Robbery’, sees Porter cut straight between scenes without using fades or dissolves, and without letting the scene reach it’s logical end – it only shows you what you need to see. Here Porter is very decisive in his cuts. This shows how Directors were seeing the ability to compress time in favour of impact over reality. Porter was beginning to form a new cinematic language. Through Porter’s pieces we begin to the see that the most basic unit of cinema was not the scene as Melies contemporaries thought, but the shot. Meaning not just how things are arranged not he screen but how the shots are arranged in time.

In 1908, just before leaving Edison to start his own production company, Porter hired a young actor fill the lead part in ‘Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest’. This would end up being the ‘first break’ of a forty year long career for David W. Griffith.

D. W. Griffith’s stage-name was Lawrence Griffith.  (One of Griffith’s inspirations was Charles Dickens). Griffith’s plays and poems that he wrote were not brilliant, however he started to write scenarios for films and became good at it. He sent one of his movie production scenarios to Porter, however it was rejected for having to man scenes, but Griffith did get hired for an acting job in ‘Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest’. Griffith then found a positon at ‘Biograph’, a production company struggling with debt but looking to find Directors. Under a contract for ‘Biograph’ Griffith made over 450 films for them between 1908 and 1911, pushing cinema out of the primitive tableau mentality and into the multi-shot-medium that we would now recognise.

One of Griffith’s first inventions was the ‘cut-in’. Griffith also used alternating shot lengths and multiple camera set-ups to create a scene through continuity editing.

Continuity Editing – Cutting style that maintains a continuous sense of space and time.

180° Rule – Griffith, as well as his contemporaries, discovered that if you kept the camera on one side of the axis of action, you can avoid continuity problems of confusing geography, when cutting from one angle to another.

Griffith’s next invention in editing was ‘Inter-cutting’, or ‘Cross-cutting’: which is basically cutting between shots in different scenes in parallel action. (Griffith first put this to use in ‘After Many years’, in 1908).

Griffith also began to build up the tempo of his cuts to get to his cinematic climaxes.

Many contemporary film makers copied Griffith’s style. However, Griffith’s and some other contemporary film makers, brought about; ‘the Establishing Shot’, ‘Reverse Shots’, ‘Matching Eye-lines’, and ‘Cutting on Action’.

By 1911, Griffith was ready to pursue bigger and more ambitious projects. He left ‘Biograph’ and became more adventurous with his filming. After a bit Griffith struck out on his own. In 1914/1915 Griffith made and showed an independent film that was cinema’s most expensive film to date, and the world’s first blockbuster: ‘The Birth of a Nation’. A major hit, but condemned as racist even during it’s time – because of the pro-views on the Klu Klux Klan. This film was a combination of all of Griffith’s cinematic techniques. Censorship boards requested alterations and many states actually banded the film, as riots broke out in places such as Boston. Griffith couldn’t understand his charges of racism and saw this as an attack on him personally; he responded by publishing a pamphlet, ‘The Rise and Fall of Free Speech in America’. In this publication he defended his film and his right to make it, against what he though was intolerance. In 1916, he created another film called ‘Intolerance’ that intercut four separate narratives, and cost 2.5 million dollars to produce. This sunk most of the profit from ‘The Birth of a Nation’, which costed less to produce. Intolerance did not make enough at the box office. Griffith went on to Director 26 more features and died still in debt from ‘Intolerance’. Griffith was/is a controversial figure.

Soviet film makers studied and picked apart Griffith’s editing style and developed a new style of editing. This theory was the Montage theory.

Montage Theory – Using juxtaposing images by editing. During the 1920s, the pioneering Russian film directors and theorists Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov created, demonstrated and used this theory in their work.

Analysing the camera shots, editing and tempo of the car chase scene from Bourne Supremacy, and a fight scene in Merlin

Analysing the camera shots, editing and tempo of the car chase scene from Bourne Supremacy, and a fight scene in Merlin

This scene is overall, a very fast tempo scene, it slows down at one point, after the police officers call for back-up, because we see the Mercedes Benz undercover police cars drive out of a different area and join the car chase. This is slower to allow the audience to understand where these cars are coming from, why they are coming, and who they are representing/transporting. However, the fast tempo quickly returns – the rate at which the shots change usually gets faster when Bourne does a swift gear change. The editing in the scene is amazing – it switches from an outside view of the chase to an inside view of the car and Bourne’s expressions, to get an understanding of who he is extremely resourceful, an excellent driver, but he is still nervous. The editor has also managed to string about 100 shots into one scene, that is easy to follow and engaging to watch, that only lasts a few minutes. We also see that Bourne is shot – he has a gaping wound in his shoulder which he pours alcohol on at the beginning of the scene before the car chase picks up the pace.

 The music in this scene is very upbeat and fast tempo as well – this adds emphasis to the speedy car chase. Fast scenes usually indicate a quick get-away, urgency, desperation, and a fear/anxiety of capture.

We understand that during this scene, Bourne’s adrenaline must be very high.

I have also analysed the camera shots, editing and tempo of a scene of my own choice. The scene I have chosen is the fight scene in the market, episode 1 of Season 1 of BBC’s Merlin.

In this scene there is quite a lot of dialogue as well as action. This slows the pace of the action down – this insinuates the fight is not serious and is more of a play-fight than one where they intend to seriously injure each other. However, the pace of this scene – because it’s a fight, and because there is some running and hiding – is quite fast, as a faster tempo creates a sense of desperation and urgency and so builds excitement.

As soon as Arthur takes the first swipe at Merlin, with his mace/flail, an upbeat, yet historical sounding music begins – this signals that the fight has begun. (The music does not sound like there it uses any electrical instruments – this is relevant because Merlin is set many centuries ago when electric technology did not exist). The music however changes at the end of the scene when Merlin is beaten by Arthur, because Gaius distracts his attention. The music changes to a more mysterious music because Arthur tells his men to ‘let [Merlin] go’ and we as the audience do not quite understand this decision as we presumed Arthur would punish Merlin for his behaviour. Arthur then says; ‘There’s something about Merlin, I can’t quite put my finger on it’ – which emphasises the mysterious melody of the music.

Within this scene there are a lot of camera shots used – however, due to the active nature of the fight they are usually moving shots – this implies that camera shooting methods such as the use of a ‘dolly’. A few of the camera shots are also wobbling around and shot from behind a table – the camera almost mirrors where Merlin runs and hides from Arthur.

Furthermore, this scene of Merlin uses several cut-away shots. For example, we see Arthur aim and lean forward swinging his mace at Merlin, and then we see merlin jump back out of the way as he is almost hit by the mace.

Moreover, in Merlin there are a lot of sound effects - such as smashing eggs when Arthur hits them - these sounds have most probably been added after the scene was filmed and edited into the scene at the right moment. The majority of sound in films and TV is added during the editing process.

Analysing a clip from Superman Returns - The Bank Robbery Scene

Analysing a clip from Superman Returns – The Bank Robbery Scene

In class we watched a scene from Superman Returns, on YouTube, to try and identify as many different camera shots as we could and explain their significance in the scene.

The scene begins with an eye level shot – this emphasises the policemen’s focus as he aims through the sight of his gun.

This then switches to a high angle shot, where we look down on the policemen – this would have been effective if the policemen was about to shoot and we were looking down the barrel of his gun, however, we don’t. He lowers the gun, and swears – this lets the audience know that something is wrong with the operation – in addition, the policemen appears belittled.

There is then a low angle shot - there is a man at the top of a building pointing a giant machine gun down at the people below. This low angle shot symbolises that the ‘bad’ guy has the power here.

There is then a close-up on the ‘bad’ guy’s hand as he pulls the trigger and starts repeatedly firing on the people below.

We then see the effects of the unfriendly fire on the policemen and the car below. This shot is medium long shot.

The scene then switches back to the ‘bad’ figure in the scene, with another low angle shot – so that we look down the barrel of his gun: it is almost like he is shooting at the audience. This shot reinforces his power and authority in this scene. This low angle shot is twinned with a high angle shot from behind the mad-man with the gun, so that we see the destruction he is causing. This could be interpreted as a reverse angle shot.

After a few more shots, where they cut to the streets to see the effects of the giant machine gun. The scene then cuts to inside the building where two men – who we know are security guards because we can see ‘security written on their caps – are quietly climbing the stairs. The audience assumes that they are going to launch a surprise attack on the ‘bad’ character. The scene switches between the two men and the bad guy a couple of times – this created tension: will they defeat the evil, dangerous man? We see the two security guards shoot the ‘bad’ guy in the back – and we see a quick extreme closed up on the face of him as he is being shot in the back. Here the extreme close-up is effective because we see the facial expression of the evil man; he is in shock and pain. In this shot we think that he has been beaten. However, the next shots prove us wrong. The stereotypical, dark, mad, destructive ‘baddie’ is not defeated, he has prepared for this situation by wearing a bullet-proof vest, and so he turns around and turns the machine gun on the two security guards.

 There is then a very effective close-up shot of the villain’s eyes staring over the top of his gun, aiming at the two security guards. This is followed by a serious of slow-motion shots, to emphasise the desperation and horror of the situation. These scenes also emphasise Superman’s speed, he suddenly appears out of nowhere before a bullet can reach its target. When Superman lands in front of the bullets, letting them bounce of his chest and ricochet across the top of the building, he brings everything back to a normal speed. The big close-up of the bullets bouncing off of Superman’s logo on his chest highlights Superman’s strength, supremacy band peace-keeping abilities.

A medium long shot of Superman walking towards the villain, whilst being shot, so a very powerful statement; nothing can stop Superman. The gun then runs out of bullets and there is a medium close-up of the villain and the red-hot end of his gun, still pointing at Superman. The villain, out of desperation, comes out from behind his gun, brings out a hand gun and fires it at Superman. This shot is then seen in slow-motion, again. The bullet, reaches Superman’s eye and instead of killing him it crumples against his eye lens and falls to the floor. This is significant because the eye lens is meant to be very sensitive, and so making one of the weakest points of someone seem so strong, must mean that the rest of Superman is practically invincible. The special effects in this part of the scene are incredible. What makes this so impressive is that, in the extreme close-up when the bullet hits his eye, Superman does not even bat an eyelid.

There is then a low angle shot of the bullet falling to the floor, this could symbolise the failing of the villain’s plan – we see this in the worry and fear on the villain’s face when there is a big close-up on him looking down over the barrel of his small hand gun, which has no effect on Superman. This shot contrasts massively with one of the first shots in the scene where he is seen from a low angle, with a huge gun, looking deliriously happy as he fires on the civilians below him. The power has shifted from the bad to good. The clip ends on a close-up of Superman’s smug and strong glance towards the defeated villain. Ending the scene like this shows that good has overpowered bad, and Superman had saved the day: as per usual. 

Camera Shots

Camera Shots

This Power Point includes myself and Yasmin's first attempts at the various camera shots that are incorporated into professional films.

Media Studies Introduction

In our first practical lesson we set up our blogs. The class was also briefed on the AS Media Studies course. We were given these web-links to useful websites that have a lot of updated information about the media and topics that link to our course.

www.theguardian.com/uk/media  – The guardian have a media section that is updated every Monday.

www.bfi.org.uk – The British Film Institute (BFI) is a charitable organisation, ‘We use Lottery funds to support film development, production and distribution in the UK’.

www.bbfc.co.uk – The British Board of Film Classification; they are Britain’s trusted age rating system/company.

www.artofthetitle.com – This website explains the design of film and title sequences.

www.movieclip.com – Here you can watch clips, and find out information about the clips you watch.

https://vimeo.com/channels/staffpicks  – This site is good for downloading and watching films and clips.

YouTube, (www.youtube.co.uk) is another website that can be useful to download videos from as evidence of work, and to vary the media included in our own posts.