Film Editing Techniques- Learning aim A

Editing Techniques

CONTINUITY EDITING 

Continuity editing in the film is the combining of different and related shots into a logical uninterrupted sequence to direct the viewer's attention to the narrative and keep a sense of the time and space of the scene. It keeps the viewer's in tune with the motion of the editing as they will not notice the cuts between shots, as a result of this smooth continuous way of editing the viewer's focus will not steer away from the narrative.

NON-CONTINUITY EDITING 

This is when shots are placed in a less logical way and it disrupts the viewer's sense of time and space. One reason behind doing this may be to draw the attention towards the cuts and fragment the illusion of reality that a viewer has been drawn in by.

Non-continuity editing was made popular in the 1950s and the 1960s by filmmakers such as Jean Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, who both wanted to push the limits of film editing and explore what is capable to do to an audience through editing. They produced a new 'style' of film editing called 'French New Wave' which was a carefree way of editing that deterred away from the traditional editing etiquette of Hollywood films. This way of editing often made the film have this very self-reflexive attitude towards itself and thus drawing attention to its cuts reminded the viewer's that they are watching a film.

Purposes of editing

MANIPULATION OF TIME- 

Expansion

This is the technique of making the sequence appear longer than real-time. Here are a few ways editors expand the length of time in films and television:

Slow motion

This is the editing technique of slowing down the video clip and making it appear longer, a clip that is only half a second long can be expanded to be 2 seconds long. This is often used in action scenes to enhance the information that is being shown, but other times it can be utilised to show dread, fear, love or even to drive attention to what the characters are focused on. 

Martin Scorsese likes to put the audience in the character's heads and by using slow motion we can connect with the characters as we can be drawn in by what they are focused on.  

Repetition

This is where the same shot can be shown from multiple angles or even repeated. The most common use of this is in action films when an explosion occurs and we see it happen from many different angles and repeated on each cut. 

Alternatively, plot points could happen simultaneously in different locations can be shown in sequence on the screen. For example in pulp fiction, multiple scenes are shown occurring one after the other but in reality of the storyline, they take place either at the same time or in a different order to what they are shown. 

Time remapping 

This is the technique that became popular in the 21st Century when editing software became more capable of more things and allowed the editors to assemble footage in a creative and much easier way then they would have done before. It is a method of editing where the time can be manipulated many times in one clip so the editors are not limited to setting one speed per clip but rather where the speed can be varied over the course of time, and the editor can change the speed up and down as they please.

An early example of time remapping is in 'The Matrix' as this method is used in many of the fight scenes to add impact to the scene and to distort the idea of time. 

PERCEPTION OF SPACE 

These techniques are used to create a logical and believable environment for the viewer to orientate the scene which helps them in the perception of the story. This is also important when establishing a space between different characters or objects.

There are a lot of ways an editor can help develop an accurate understanding of the environment for the audience, this can involve showing cuts of where an object has been placed or to show where two characters are in distance from each and making sure this is perceived in continuance throughout the scene.
Controlling Rhythm 
When editing it is vital to maintain the correct pace that fits the scene, in order to keep the audience in rhythm with the story or scene. For example, if there is an action scene in the film that needs the audience to feel the energy and excitement of the scene, there will be many cuts from different shots as this keeps up with the pace and makes the audience feel more enhanced with the action.
This is extremely important in film editing as it keeps the audience in tune with the scene and if the pacing is off and the cuts and editing become noticeable and irritating, it distracts the audience from the narrative.
The key to this is to not keep the same pace and timings for cuts throughout a particular scene but to know when to change shot and cut to the next to create a more engaging experience for the audience.

Functions of editing 

To Create A Narrative 
One of the main functions of film editing is driving the narrative, this is achieved by demonstrating the aesthetic theory, which, in a nutshell, is choosing to revealing elements that catch the audiences eye (objects, light, motion, focus. etc.). Which can also be reversed to hide certain pieces of information to make the story more mysterious. Having an understanding of this in editing helps the editor know what shots to show and how to arrange them which in turn, guides the viewer through the story and can make them more engaged with the narrative.
Classic example of withholding information from the audience could be that in Pulp Fiction we are never shown the contents of Marsellus Wallace's briefcase, which helps keep the audience interested as there is this absence of information that does not aggravate the audience but rather engages them through the narrative and created drama and tension between the audience and the characters as some people know the answer and some don't.
Purposely showing and withholding information is an extremely effective when driving a narrative, as it pumps the audience with an emotion that is linked with the genre of film, we can be shown a shot in horror film that reveals someone is standing behind a character which makes us feel fear for them as we know something they don't, but it can be used in the complete opposite way where we can see a character look and something a scream, then the audience is not shown what they were looking at, increasing the imagination but also driving fear and narrative.

Create Meaning 
In editing, a basic edit can assemble multiple different shots together in a chronological way, but if the editor was to do the opposite or change a shot that doesn't match the rhythm of the scene it can take the direction of emotions on a new path and create a new meaning for the scene.
Another editing technique is juxtaposing shots and/or cross-cutting, which is where two shots with a relationship are shown one after the other which can give a new meaning of the scene. One popular example of this is the Kuleshov effect which is seen all the time in the film but was fully demonstrated by Lev Kuleshov in the 1910s. It demonstrates the power that the audience has on deriving meaning from the two interacting shots.
Kuleshov effect video
I find this to be especially effective in not only sending a certain meaning for the audience to observe but to also open the film up for different perspectives as some people can derive different meaning from the same scene. If you watched the video on the Kuleshov Effect, you can notice that one person may watch it and see the man as, well.... creepy but others can interpret the scene and pull the information from the shots and may see the man as hungry, in love, mourning a death and even proud of something.
Film making is an incredible art form and just like any other forms of art it can be interpreted in many different ways and can make the audience feel an emotion and it's through the techniques and dedication the filmmakers have in giving each scene and shot a purpose on screen and everything we are shown in a film is there for a specific reason.

I will now analyse the following clips on editing techniques and choices and evaluating how effective they are in engaging the audience in a certain way.

The Battleship Potemkin 1925
Directed by Sergei Eisenstein, this film brought the attention towards Soviet cinema by the rest of the world and was considered to be so politically charged it was banned in the U.K till 1954. But it did not just receive attention for its content but also its new experimental editing techniques that made an explosive impact on the world of cinema.
American and European film making revolved around continuity editing and making the sequence of the film chronological and match reality, creating an immersive experience to hide the aspects of film making from the audience. Eisenstein developed his own theory of creating a montage which is still used today and he divided it up into different methods of how to make a montage and the effects it has on the viewer. The Soviet theory of Montage.

Sergei Eisenstein

• METRIC- Where the cuts are the same distance in time from one another which creates a tempo for the montage. 
• RHYTHMIC- This is where the cuts are made in relation to both the length of the shot and also in time with the action and events that take place on the screen.
• TONAL- This is where the cuts are dependant on the change of lighting, shadows and colour.
• OVER-TONAL- This method is when the montage is pieced together with a mic of the first three methods in a holistic approach.
• INTELLECTUAL- This method was Eisenstein's favourite, it creates a new meaning between shots through editing as there can be a conceptual connection made between them. 

I will be analysing the scene of the Odessa steps, it has been marked down in history as one of the most influential scenes of film history because of it's stylistic choices and editing techniques.
He starts off the sequence with a long shot which establishes the geography and scale of the

environment, the first one shows the people fleeing down the stairs and it juxtapositions with the shot from the top of the stairs, full of soldiers pushing their dominance towards the people. Not only does this show the difference in power between the people and the soldiers but also has the purpose of creating an understandable environment for the audience. We can clearly see who has more authority over one another. By showing this we understand the dominance that the soldiers have and we this is further demonstrated by the tracking shot of people running down the stairs cut to a close up of the guns being fired, we see that the people are unarmed and have nothing to protect themselves from the soldiers and are extremely vulnerable.

In the sequence, we can see that the stairs could represent society as the government soldiers appear from the top and the citizens are made to go to the bottom, we can analyse this to be the case and furthermore show the dominance of the soldiers. One part of the sequence we see a little boy falling after wounded and his mother turned back to see him being trampled on, there are many ways this part of the sequence triggers horrific emotions for the viewer. We have already been linked emotionally to the citizens through camera angles that place the audience as if we're fleeing from the soldiers alongside the citizens and the psychological idea of one's child being killed in front of you this gets any member of the audience filled with sorrow and despair, so will link our emotions with the mother. What helps amplify these emotions is that the shots are made more empathetic and elaborate as we are given the reactions from both ends of the horror. The clips on their own are still sending information to the viewer but since they are cut between one another in a shot-reverse-shot order we can see the effects both of the two events that are seen in two different shots have on one another. We see the mother screaming in a close-up (To show more detail of the terrific sight the mother has just seen) then we have an eyeline

matching cut to the son, we are presented what exactly the mother is so horrified at and then when it cuts back we can feel loss and sorrow for both characters. We see a young boy lose his life and then we are presented with the effects it has on the mother which both are powerful enough images when they stand alone but when placed together, the impact on the audience acts as a truly phenomenal catalyst of emotion. After the boy falls, each shot of him gets closer and closer and I believe the purpose on doing this was to furthermore show what the mother is focusing on, that she doesn't care about the guns and the soldiers as she is only focused on her child. Throughout the sequence, we see that there a rhythmic method to its cutting, as the shot's get shorter and shorter to give the feeling of rush and thrill of the event. The build-up to the brutal killing of the baby is shown by an increase in the tempo of the editing towards a close up of the baby, where the

sequence ends abruptly with another close up to show blood on a woman's face.




Way Down East  1920
Directed by D.W Griffith, Way Down East is an American silent film from 1920, I have been appointed to analyse this film because of its example of parallel editing, which is an early example of this editing technique, in particular, the scene where the character David saves Anna as she is floating unconsciously on a piece of ice towards a waterfall.

To kick off this analysis I would like to point out that in my eyes this scene does not only have tremendous cinematic action but it is a representation of the actress' dedication and devotion to this film. This scene took two weeks to film in an actual snow blizzard, the actress Lillian Gish floated on
an actual piece of ice in the middle of freezing cold pool of water, the actress dived into an ice bath every morning leading up to the filming day. The actress was devoted to making the audience see what they wanted to see "They want to see a real blizzard" and it was even her own idea to drape her hair and place her hands in the river. She wanted there to be a painful authenticity to her character.
Parallel editing was first introduced in The Great Train Robbery 1903 by Edwin S. Porter but it wasn't used to its full potential so it allowed other filmmakers to build to it, and one of those filmmakers who loved the technique was Griffith and he used parallel editing in his movies to mainly provoke suspense.
In this scene, the purpose was achieved by making a tense and suspenseful action and it does this by the use of shots and the editing technique. In one of the first shots, we see the character Anna in the distance on a piece of ice but she appears isolated from any other character and this kicks off the audience's anxiety and worry as they fear that no one is around to save her.

This shot is then partnered with a similar yet completely different shot of David jumping across the shattered landscape of ice and we see no sign of any other characters, this is a powerful way of adding suspense because it keeps the audience guessing where the two characters are and what exactly is the distance between them. Griffith distorts our perception of space as we struggle to identify and locate each character and in a way we connect emotionally to Anna as we are left in a state of helplessness and panic because we are left arguing with our ideas and conclusions of the scene and this is where the fear and suspense originates from, the unknowing, unspecified and potential end of Anna's life.
What adds to the emotion are the shots of the waterfall being repeated throughout the scene. We get a glimpse of ice breaking and falling victim to nature and then in juxtaposing shots, we see close-ups of Anna screaming helplessly. This use of parallel editing causes the audience to begin self-conflicting with their own depictions of the scene; dreading what is yet to come for Anna. The editing becomes more rhythmic as the cuts back to Anna are shown as the ice is breaking, relating the two shots together. The repercussion of these shots makes the audience predict Anna will be destroyed by the environmental conditions and the waterfall just as the chunks of ice are.
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The Silence Of The Lambs (1991)

The film editing technique of parallel editing was still very new to the film industry in the twenties but Griffith adapted it provoke suspense in Way Down East but it still had lots of potential and was still to blossom into an amazing element of editing which we all know and love today. It enhances emotions of the audience and through the years it evolved to become a powerful technique used in many films and The Silence of the Lambs showed how much this technique matured and could be used in a more serious and sophisticated manner.

In the scene, I am analysing its use of parallel editing and how it affects the audience. This scene alone has the audience experiencing fear, suspense, tension and the editing technique used is the main reason behind why the audience feels these negativities as they have been influenced by the misleading nature of the scene. The scene shows two different locations with action that is happening simultaneously, we connect the two together and make the following assumptions; That the FBI is waiting outside of buffalo bills house and preparing their raid and that buffalo bill is going to get caught in the act and arrested, this rise of tension is crucial to the conclusion of the scene as the audience are excited to see the FBI win. The first use of cross-cutting that establishes this connection between the two environments takes place as soon as the scene begins so that it the idea of the different cuts are happening in the same place is established from the very beginning, meaning it has a deeper effect on the audience as it is built upon throughout the scene.

 In the first shot, we hear a dog bark off-screen and the character reacting to it with a worried expression on his face which sets the tone for the rest of the scene and places the audience with the feeling of unease. We assume at first that the dog is reacting to an intruder or disturbance of it's home and this idea is given further fuel when we cut to the following shot of the FBI agents outside. We also see a very powerful element of this story being represented by the cross cuts, which is that one environment represents good and the other evil, this is translated on screen and interpreted by the viewer and helps give an artistic look on the division of both opposing sides of the story.

The use of parallel editing in this scene is extremely effective and the purpose is fulfilled as each shot is given extra meaning to them as it feels as if the separate locations shown in separate shots are interacting with one another and we see this again later on the scene.
I would also like to point out that the anticipation and tension are also amped up by the assistance made by the cuts becoming more rhythmic, which had the same effect in Way Down East, in that it makes the audience feel in tune with the action and helps motivate feeling and emotions of the audience.

The way this scene connects the two environments and gives off the impression that the two are interacting with one another is when the FBI agent rings the doorbell of the house. As he rings the doorbell we are shown a close up of a bell ringing inside Buffalo Bill's home, blossoms and expands the idea that the FBI is at the right place and are going to catch the criminal and save the day. But this scene represents how editing can inform the audience on a lot of crucial information and help them have a better understanding of separated shots to build a story and also shows how this can be swapped to mislead the viewer. As we see that when Buffalo Bill opens the door there isn't a raid waiting for him but our main protagonist isolated with no help and in an incredible amount of danger. As the audience has been awaiting this incredible capture of the villain since the beginning of the scene we realise that the editing has misled us and we are left with the feelings of hope ripped from us and instantly replaced with the fear for Clarice's life. An incredible yet subtle way of explaining her danger is that we know that Clarice is on her own but we feel as if she is completely defenceless and isolated from

the rest of the world and is face to face with evil (with help from the eye match  cutting and shot-reverse-shot between the two characters) as we have had multiple shots showing the number of agents that are sadly at the wrong place and we know that Clarice is at the right place with no help. In conclusion, we see that this scene takes in many different ways of editing, it creates meaning and synergy through the expert use of intellectual editing, which one could say this film shown a more modern approach to methods used many years prior in films such as The Battleship Potemkin.
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Rocky III (1982)

I will be analysing the montage scene from Rocky III as it is a classic example of how modern films would present a montage sequence. One of the most iconic parts of this film is the soundtrack but more, in particular, the song 'Eye of the Tiger'. I think this song works with this scene extremely well because it can convey the dedication and determination of the main character and throughout the scene, I noticed that the cuts often match up to the beat of the song and also the training routines seem to look as if they were choreographed to it which gives the scene a nice pace to it and allows the audience to also feel in tune with the characters and the story.

This montage is given a meaning behind and to further drive the story, showing the struggle that Rocky faces in training for the fight and to show where he started and where he gets, I believe this scene is really triumphant and motivational. I find it extremely interesting how the montage is sequenced, it begins on an early morning and the last shot shows it on an evening, giving the flow of editing a time sequence to give the audience a sense of time. The montage is constantly comparing the abilities of the two focused characters Creed and Rocky, throughout the montage we see the same training routine of the two men running along a beach. The repetition of this is to show the training routine of Rocky and how he has to do this over and over until he reaches his goal and by doing this the audience emotional connects with the Character. The beach is shown throughout the montage to also give the montage a sense of structure, we see it at the beginning, throughout and at the end but every time we see the two men running on the beach, Rocky gets closer and closer to Creed until he wins the race and reaches his goal. The slow-motion shots are used to show the struggle on their faces and let the audience see more detail but when this is juxtaposed with the normal paced training routines, it is constantly keeping the audience on their toes and they become more excited throughout the montage due to the inconsistent cuts between shots and their differences.

I also noticed that as Rocky became more in tune with his training and his abilities have improved the shots become a lot more fluent in motion and don't seem to be as 'choppy' and they didn't look like jump cuts near the end compared to the beginning of the montage so this could mean that the audience is further linked with Rocky and go along with him, extremely effective and fulfils its purpose to create a relationship between the characters and the audience, leading in a more immersive and entertaining experience for the audience. The main function of montage is to make a long piece of time seem shorter on screen using time altering techniques such as montaging, it allows the audience to understand that a lot of time has passed but shows them what the characters have done whereas if we were to cut to months ahead then the audience would feel as if they're being left out on information.
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Team America 2004

The Last scene I will be analysing for its editing techniques will be from Team America: World Police for their obvious spoof of a 'typical' montage and it makes itself for directly parodying Rocky. You can see this through the montage layout and techniques and also the song playing has the lyrics "Rocky had a montage". We can closely identify editing techniques that were used in order to gain the same effect as Rocky III the first one being the repetition of shots to show the struggle and changing abilities of the characters as in this film we see the main character Gary struggling at some activities such as shooting. But throughout the montage, we are shown him repeating this piece of training to help the audience keep a good idea of the time scale of the film and also to showcase how the shooting is getting better. Just Like in Rocky III, Rocky can't beat Creed in the race and in Team America we see Gary doesn't have good aim but other the span of time he ends up accomplishing his goal and becomes a professional at it.
To also emphasise the effect at the end of the montage, we see the transition of a fade out, which subtly tells the audience that even more time has passed but a lot of the transitions and cuts in this montage seem to be very metric and occur with the same distance of time between them, excluding a few, which can be linked to the Soviet montage theory and the use of metric editing could be that it wants to establish a feeling of certainty. That the character isn't giving up and is constantly moving forward towards his goal and regardless of the obstacles he faces he is going with the same pace throughout, which in turn builds a relationship (just as the other scenes have done) between the character and the audience and we furthermore understand the determination of the character. 
Also relating to Rocky, we see that the character has his mentor and I believe that the cuts between the 'mentor' and the 'student' with eye match cutting show a great deal of care that the character has for one another and also that this montage is constantly comparing their abilities just as in Rocky.