Task 1 - Editing in Early Cinema

Thomas Edison - ran a film laboratory where the kinetographic camera and the kinetoscope were invented.

He developed the 35mm film strip that came to be the industry standard. 
He also eventually developed the projector to play it.

The Lumiere Brothers - Edison worked with the Lumiere Brothers and produced short films that were one long, static, locked down down shot.
Motion in the short was all that was necessary to amuse an audience, so the first films simply should activity such as traffic moving on a city street.
This can be seen in the film Sortie d'usine (1895) by the Lumiere brothers.

G.A. Smith - Initially, there was no story and no editing. Each film ran as long as there was film in the camera.
An example of which is The Miller and the Sweep by G.A. Smith. In 1899 later Smith made The Kiss in the Tunnel.
This film is said to mark the beginnings of narrative editing (creating a story). Smith "felt some extra spice was called for" in then popular "phantom ride" genre. He took advantage of the brief onset of darkness as they went into tunnel  to splice (cut and then stick two pieces of film together) in the shot of the couple.

George Melies - was a magician who had seen the films made my the Lumiere Bros. Melies saw at once the possibilities of a novelty more than just motion its self. He acquired a camera, built a studio, wrote scripts, designed sets and soon he discovered and exploited the basic camera tricks we know so well today. It is rumoured that he discovered the art of stop motion purely by accident when a camera of his broke down for a brief second. In 1896 he made The Vanishing Lady using a technique known as in-camera editing. Sadly it never occurred to him to move the camera for close-ups or long shots and so his work was soon overlooked. The commercial growth of the industry forced him out of business in 1913, and he died in poverty. Elements of his life are depicted in the recent film Hugo. 

Porter & Edison - Edwin S. Porter worked as an electrician before joining the film laboratory of Thomas Alva Edison in the late 1890s. He and Edison worked together to make longer more interesting films.

Edwin S. Porter - Porter made the breakthrough film Life of an American Fireman in 1903. The film was among the first that had a plot, action and even a close up of a hand pulling a fire alarm. Porter discovered important aspects of motion picture language: that the screen image does not need to show a complete person from head to toe. That splicing together two shots creates in the viewer's mind a contextual relationship. These were the key discoveries that made all narrative motion pictures and television possible. 

The Great Train Robbery - Porter's (then) ground-breaking film, The Great Train Robbery (1903) is an excellent example of how early films began to resemble the types of films we see today .

Charles Pathe - In the film The Horse that Bolted (1907) Pathe introduces the first example of a technique known as parallel editing - cutting between two story lines: The Horse The delivery man.

Task 2 - In Camera Editing

Task 3 - Developing Editing Technique

In Camera Editing - In camera editing is a technique of video production, in which the camera operator shoots in the exact order that they will be viewed in. It was a technique used a great deal in the early days of film making before 'splicing' (the art of cutting /reconnecting film strip) became easier. The film is 'edited' by simply switching on and off the camera. One of the most famous in-camera editors was George Melies. 

Pros of in camera editing - its done quicker, it's more selective, makes you plan ahead and your film is made more efficiently.

Cons of in camera editing - it's all done in one go so therefore you can't make mistakes, the planning takes time as well. 

Editors moved on from in camera editing because the process takes immense amounts of planning so that the shots that are filmed are the ones that will be viewed in directly that order. There is no cutting out and editing scenes later on. When the very last scene is filmed by the camera operator, the production is completely finished. 

Task 4 – From Analogue to Digital Editing

Editing has developed overtime due to new technology being invented.

Analogue editing is the cutting together of pieces of celluloid film. Traditionally films are made up images printed on to acetate negatives. These are then 'spliced' together to form a reel of film. These are then feed through a projector at a constant speed of 24 frames a second which makes the picture appear to be moving. This is known as analogue. A Moviola was the first device that allowed a film editor to view film while editing. It was invented in 1924 by Iwan Serrurier. It was the first machine used for feature length motion picture editing.

Video Editing - Before digital technologies became available magnetic tapes were used to store information - these are known as video tapes. Video editing is the process of editing segments of these tapes using a device that mechanically puts pieces of video tape together. The film has to be edited in the correct order. This is called linear editing.

Linear editing is a  video editing post-production process of selecting, arranging and modifying images and sound in a predetermined, ordered sequence. Regardless of whether it was captured by a video camera, tape less camcorder, or recorded in a television studio on a video tape recorder (VTR) the content must be accessed sequentially. For the most part video editing software has replaced linear editing.

Digital Editing - Digital media is a form of electronic media where data are stored in digital (as opposed to analogue) form. Digital editing is the use of computers to order and manipulate this digital data. There are many different editing programs such as; Adobe Premier, Avid, Final Cut Pro. Digital film making uses bits and bytes (strings of 1s and 0s) to record, transmit and reply images, instead of chemicals on film. The whole process is electronic so there is no printing or 'splicing' involved. Digital Editing soon over took Video Editing as it is much quicker and therefore cheaper. The biggest pro is that you can edit digitally in any edit.

Non-linear Editing - Editing in any order is called non-linear editing. You can edit a sequence from the end of the film before you have started editing the first scene. The process uses electronic files so it makes it as easy as cutting and passing text in a word document. 

Pros of Traditional Methods (splicing or video) - thinking the editing through leading to better results, more accurate and successful film. 

Cons of Traditional Methods - Big and heavy to carry, expensive, if you something wrong you can't undo it, time consuming and hard to transport.

Pros of Digital Editing - cost effective - cheaper, easier and less time consuming.

Cons of Digital Editing - technical difficulties, not thinking it through enough may not lead to better results.

Task 5 - Montage

The term montage has a slightly different meaning when referred to in the following three contexts:
- French film
- Hollywood cinema
- Early soviet filmmaking

The French Montage - In French film practice 'montage' simply has its literal French meaning - Assembly. Therefore, in French film the term simply identifies the process of editing. 

Hollywood Style Montage - Used to condense a long narrative sequence into short compact sequence. E.g. weeks of training condensed into two minutes.  e.g. Rocky

Soviet Montage - In early Soviet filmmaking in the 1920s, 'montage' had a different meaning. Film makers started juxtaposing shots to create new meaning that did not exist in either shot alone.

Lev Kuleshov (a young Soviet film maker) did an experiment in around 1920. He took an old film clip of a head shot of a noted Russian actor and inter-cut the shot with different images. 

An example of this would be Strike! (Eisenstein). Strike Sergei Einstein 1925. At first the two scenes seem unrelated. The butcher is working in a slaughter house. The striking workers being pursued by Russian troops

Task 6 - Creating a Montage

Task 6 - Creating a montage



Style of montage - Hollywood 
Intention behind montage - the intention behind this montage was to portray a normal school day within a short period of time.
How our montage made meaning - we chose shots that showed us going in and out of the school. In one of our scenes, we hear a voice shouting "Sarah, pay attention!" which shows a classroom environment and makes it more meaningful  as to why it portrays a school day. We also showed a group of us talking together which shows break time or lunch time. This is a successful example of a Hollywood montage because it clearly shows a full school day because of what the actors were doing.




This style of montage is Soviet. The intention behind this montage was to portray bullying and show a dominant figure over another. Our montage made meaning because we filmed shots of a person getting paper thrown at her and she was covering her face with a book which showed her sadness. We also filmed shots of the person being bullied sitting in the corner in the dark which further shows her upset feeling of being bullied and depression. We also got some shots of wildlife which shows a lion attack on his prey. This creates meaning to our montage because it represents the bullies as the lion and the prey the person getting bullied. It also represents the bullies being a more dominant figure than the person getting bullied as the lion is dominant more than anyone. This Soviet montage was successful because it clearly demonstrated a person getting bullied by the ways the person getting bullied was reacting and the added shots of wildlife increased that because it reflected on what we were creating the montage for.

Task 7 - Understanding Continuity Editing

Continuity editing is what became known as the popular 'classical Hollywood' style of editing. It was developed by early European and American directors, in particular D.W. Griffin in his films such as The Birth of a Nation. The classical style ensures temporal (time) and special (space) continuity as a way of advancing narrative, using such techniques as the 180 degree rule, Match on Action and Shot, Reverse Shot. It's important because it helps retain a sense of realistic chronology and generates the feeling that time is moving forward. It doesn't mean you can't use flashbacks or flash forwards, as long as the narrative will still be seen to be progressing forward in an expected or realistic way.

Eye-line Match - This technique links two shots together. We see a character looking at something off screen and then we cut to a shot of what they are looking at. This allows the audience to experience an event in the film just as the character is experiencing it.

Match on Action - This technique links two shots together. We see a character start an action in one shot, the camera then cuts to a different angle and we see the character finish the action in the second shot. This technique ensures that the action seems like one natural and realistic movement even when the actor may have really performed it twice.

Shot, Reverse Shot - This technique links two shots together. The first shot reveals one character and then the second shot reveals the second character. This allows the audience to connect the two characters and realize that they are interacting with each other.

180 Degree Rule - The 180 degree rule is a basic guideline that states that two characters (or other elements) in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line.