The History of Editing BY RYAN TURNER

What is editing?

Film editing is when the editor works with raw footage, selecting shots and combining them in to sequences to create a motion picture.

Early Editing

Early films used to be shot in a one long static shot and locked down shot. Motion in a shot was all that was needed to entertain the audience, so the first films only showed activity such as traffic moving on the city street. There was absolutely no story or editing, film only ran as long as the film in the camera

The use of film editing to establish continuity involving action moving from one sequence into another, is attributed all down to British film pioneer Robert W. Pauls Come Along, Do!, made as far back as 1898, one of the first films not to feature just one shot.

The Lumiere Brothers

The lumiere brothers, Aguste and Louis born in France, where the earliest film makers in history.

There father Claude-Antoine Lumiere (1840 – 1911), ran a photographic firm in which both brothers worked there. Louis had made some improvement's the still photograph process, notably the ‘Dry plate process’ this was a huge step in creating images that move.

It was not until their father retired in 1982 that the brothers began to create moving images.

The brothers designed a camera which is both a recording device and a projecting device it is called the cinematograph.

The device uses flexible film cut into 35mm wide strips and used an intermittent mechanism modelled on the swing machine

It shoots at 16 frames per second which became the standard film rate for nearly 25 years

Edwin S. Porter

Edwin Stanton Porter was an American early film pioneer

He was most famously a director with Thomas Edison's company

Over 250 films where created by porter, the most important include ‘Life of an American Fireman’ and the great Train Robbery’.

D.W. Griffiths

David Llewellyn Wark Griffith was an American film director, mostly remembered as the director of the 1915 film ‘The Birth of a Nation’ and the subsequent film intolerance

His film ‘The Birth of a Nation’ made pioneering use of advanced camera and narrative techniques and its immense popularity set the stage for the dominance of the feature – length film in the United States.

Development Continuity Editing

Seamless editing that was used was also known as invisible editing. This meant that the cuts between the shots were matched to the action, this technique was usually used by D.W. Griffiths, with the seamless editing it makes you watch something and not even realise that its been edited. Continuity editing focuses on creating a clear continuity for the final piece that you have created. The idea of this is to create a smooth flow between all of the clips so the narrative of the story will be obvious without any interruptions and will flow smoothly

Montage Editing

Montage Editing is cutting up the footage and editing it into the screened sequence, montage editing also uses close ups, dissolves, superimpositions, fades and jump cuts. It was primarily introduced to cinema by Sergei Einstein.

Soviet Montage Editing

The Kuleshov experiment, Sergei Einstein. Battleship Potemkin (1925) is a silent film directed by Einstein and produced by most film. It presents a dramatized version of the mutiny that occurred in 1905 when the crew of the Russian Battle ship Potemkin rebelled against their officers of the Tsarist regime. This film is considered one of the greatest movies of all time due to the montage editing used, it pioneered a whole new way of editing.

Classic Hollywood Montage Editing

Classic Hollywood realism uses continuity editing so it is a lot easier and it also respects time and space.

Development of Alternative Editing Methods

French new wave is a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French film makers of the 1950s and 60s

The movie featured unprecedented methods of expression such as long tracking shots (like the famous traffic jam sequence in Goddard's 1967 film week end). Also, these movies featured existential themes, such as stressing the individual and the acceptance of the absurdity of human existence. Filled with irony and sarcasm, the films also tend to reference other films.

Another new technique that was introduced was a jump cut, it’s a cut in film editing in which two sequential shots of the same subject are taken form camera positions that vary only slightly.

Development of Sound Editing

One massive mile stone in the development of sound editing was ‘The jazz singer’ a 1927 American musical film. The first feature – length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences, its release herald the commercial ascendance of the “Talkies” and the decline of the silent era. Directed by Alan Crosland and produced by Warner Brothers with its vitaphonedsound – on – disc system, the movie starred Al Johnson, who performs 6 songs. The film is based on The Day of Atonement”, a play by Samson Raphnelson.

Film Editing Technology

The Moviola is a device that allows a film editor to view film while editing. It was the first machine for motion picture editing when it was invented by Iwan Serrurier in 1924

Non linear video editing is a video or audio editing system that performs non destructive editing. Non- linear editing is the most natural approach when all assets are available as files on video servers or hard disks, rather than recordings on reels or tapes – while linear editing is tied to the need to sequentially view film or here tape