By Jack Tanner

Principals and purposes of editing

Alfred Hitchcock was a pioneer in collage editing with such films as Psycho.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJcQgQHR78Q

Above is an informational film about early editing

Alfred Hitchcock was a pioneer in collage editing with such films as Psycho.

Creating meaning through collage,

tempo and timing

Tempo is a rapid form of editing that switches between long shots and slow edits with longer cuts lasting closer to 20 seconds and the shortest being less than a second.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ETruidd5lQ (Bourne identity Paris car chase scene)

It is believed that shots are increasing in pace is a direct correlation with the golden age of Hollywood.

Tempo editing is key to the changing of the ways that films are made.

Tempo

It is argued that it takes a viewer an average of three seconds to adjust to a new cut so what happens when the cuts are less than three seconds apart and the audience cant keep up?

It is argued that younger generations do not enjoy old classic dated films because their brains are to used to really fast editing so find slow shots really boring.

Problems with tempo editing

The second way editors can change up the tempo is shot transitions

Most of the time the transitions we see are fades, where one shot fades into another over a period of time, a cut where one shot goes straight to the other in a smooth transition and the dissolve when one clip dissolves into another.

A scene that uses cut transitions - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE9Qm8mShik

Shot transitions

These shot transitions either represent a passing of time or simply a transition to another shot at the same time, for example cutting between two characters as they speak to each other with over the shoulder shots to have whoever is speaking in the shot

Fades slow down films, often used in sadder more solemn moments when the editing should be slower to suit the mood of the scene.

Continued

Timing of shots can be different to gain different effects on the audience for example a shot at the beginning of a film that keeps on being reverted back to in order to put the film into context such as a story being told by a character in the film or a narrator.

Timing

Narrative sequencing is when the story is told in chronological order which is the most common way of showing a film when the events happen from beginning to end.

Media res is the term used when a narrative is not in chronological order.

Story centred editing and the construction of

meaning

Condensing and expanding time is something that is very often used in editing, for example perhaps one of the most famous montages that makes it seem like a lot of time has past in one quick montage is the world famous training scene from Rocky .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP3MFBzMH2o

Expanding time happens usually when a scene is more intense and time needs to go slower, for example in an action film there might be a slow motion scene of the protagonist being blasted in the air by an explosion that is edited to be in slow motion for the audience to fully appreciate the action.

Condensing/ expanding time

In the beginning of transformers there is a flashback in which megatron is discovered deep in the ice roughly 100 years before the events of the film took place, this is one way in which the editors can play with the arranging of time, another way but not seen as much is flash forwards however they tend not to make sense until the film reaches the part that was previously flash forwarded too.

Arranging the order of events

Editing causes the audience to pay attention to specific details, this can be done by using editing techniques such as the ‘close up’ where one thing is the main focus of the scene taking up the majority of the space available in shot.

The establishing shot simply establishes the scene and tells the audience where that scene is taking place.

Time and space

The shot reverse shot typically takes places during conversations between two characters most commonly used in an over the shoulder shot style to capture the emotion on the characters faces.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y78wMl1jXkM (star trek into darkness)

Shot reverse shot

This type of shot causes the audience to engage with a character on a more emotional level, understand what they are going through and see the world through their eyes, overall it’s a more personal shot than most other shots (example left from doctor who)

Eyeline match

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