History and Purpose of Editing:

The Lumiere Brothers: Editing wasn’t seen to be something that wasn’t professional and was often unintentionnally used by many people many years ago. In 1895, the Lumiere brothers invented Cinematographe. It was a 3 in 1 device which recorded, captured and projected motion pictures. They had invented their own device combining camera with printer and projector, before calling it Cinematographe. They decided to incorporate the principles of intermittent movements by using a similar device that was often used in sewing machines.

The first of such screenings occurred on 22nd March 1895 at 44 Rue de Rennes in Paris at an industrial meeting where a film especially for the occasion, Workers leaving the Lumière factory, was shown. Unlike Edison, the Lumière Brothers were quick to patent the Cinématographe outside of their native France, applying for an English Patent on April 18th 1895. The brothers continued to show their invention privately, again on June 10th to photographers in Lyon.

Such screenings generated much discussion and widespread excitement surrounding this new technology - in preparation for their first public screening on 28th December at the Grand Cafe on Paris’s Boulevard de Capuchines. The programme of films on show that day was as follows:

La Sortie de usines Lumière (1894)La Voltige (1895) La Peche aux poissons rouges (1895) La Debarquement du congres de photographie a Lyons (1895) Les Forgerons (1895) L’ Arroseur arrose (1895) Repas de bebe (1895) Place des Cordeliers a Lyon (1895)La Mer (1895)

Edwin S. Porter: Although the Lumiere Brothers had a great invention, Edwin S. Porter came along and showed that film didn’t have to be one long still film in 1901. Edwin S. Porter also used various footages from different days of editing to tell a different story, unrelated to what the footage originally was meant to portray. He joined the Vitascope Marketing Company in 1895 where his experience with electrical engineering was called into use. He continued to use his engineering skills in the laboratory at Edison’s Manufacturing Company but decided to leave and become a freelance projectionist at the Eden Musee Theatre in 1898.

Porter also had a skill with editing and some methods of projection were used to create a great effect to put some of his own footage in films that he created himself, such as the film “The Execution of Czoyosz” which he made with George S Fleming, a painter and actor. He also used his skills in the film “Life of an American Fireman” which he had filmed each part of the film at different times, by the different amount of horses in each of the scenes and different weather conditions. The audience actually ran out of the studio at one point as they believed that the horses were going to jump out of the screen and attack them.

The “Life of an American Fireman” film combined actual footage of fires, fireman, fire engines and horses and dramatised the scenes which Porter shot. This juxtaposition added a

lot of tension and release to the film, making it truly dramatic in contemporary setting, unlike Melies whose filmatic drama was derived from his films of that decade.

He was convinced that his audience leant a lot from his films and that he had secretly discovered a new way of telling stories. He also decided to develop his ideas the following year with his newest release of “The Great Train Robbery”, which was the first Epic Western film he created, boasting a cast of 40 actors, working to an actual script.

Thomas Edison: Edison made many films for the company he was working at. He left the company in1909 and he took senior posts with a number of new independent companies. In 1915, Porter returned to his first enthusiasm and ambition, but remained involved with projection for the rest of his working life, before he passed away.

D.W Griffiths: D.W Griffiths made his premier film in 1908, called “For Love of Gold”, which was first ever featured film where a scene was trimmed. Griffiths realised that emotions could also be portrayed through the different camera angles and the pace of the editing, but it wasn’t all down to the actors, but also where the props and the staging of the scene was taking place.

He was given credit for the narrative of a film, the production of the first American feature film and the discovery of the close up shot.

Lev Kuleshov: Kuleshov also made an effect on the editing processes within film. He was a Soviet director and film theorist. His effect was a montage feel on a film which would get the audience to move. Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov also demonstrated the potentials of montage, as seen in Eistenstein’s film in 1925, “Battleship Potemkin”.

Analogue Editing- This type of editing was used before computers were invented. The film negative when completed was cut down and pasted into the correct order. It went through a machine such as “Moviola” or “K.E.M”.

Digital Editing- This type of editing is used by a computer and is much more efficient and faster to use. Many programs could be used such as “Final Cut Pro”, “Adobe Premiere, “iMovie” and “Windows Movie Maker”.

Development of Editing- Editing has allowed films to this day to grow and become more interesting for audiences through aspects such as camera angles, narratives, actors, script writing and many more. In D.W Griffiths film “House of Darkness", he used aspects of editing and fades, but compared to the 21st Century films, they have changed a lot due t the new types of software that we have, and the type of technology and the knowledge.

Although more modern films such as “Batman”, “Avatar” and “The Hunger Games” use lots of special effects, camera angles and many more to create a film that the audience want.

Purpose of Editing- The purpose of editing allows the film to flow so that the audience stays interest. It also allows there to be a narrative of time with the use of camera angles, the pace of the film and the narrative structure. When editing was being tried and tested in the early 1900’s, many film producers and directors realised that they needed to create their films in a different way to get people to enjoy them.