Unit 16 - Development of the Principles of Editing

Development of the Principles of Editing

How Editing has developed over time

Early Development in Editing - 1895 - 1910s
Antoine Lumere was father to Auguste and Louis, the Lumiere brothers, both of the boys were technically minded and went to Techical School. Their father owned a business which manufactured photographic equipment. Louis and Auguste worked for the company and began experimenting with their father's photographic equipment. They both helped the business develope and become sucessful. By 1894 Antoine was a well known businessman and was invited to Paris to watch a demonstration of Thomas Edison's Peephole Kinetoscope. The kinetoscope was a large box with a viewfinder. The box would have a 40ft long film reel which would move past the view finder to give the illusion of movement. 

Returning back for Paris Antoine asked the brother to experiment with film. The brothers identified two key prolems; the size of the kinetoscope and the camera used to film the footaged was massive as well. Secondly only one person could watch the film. With this in mind they set out to make their Invention. In 1895 made a device which comined the camera, Printer and Projector and it was called the Cinematographe. It weighed around 5kg and this was down to it's clever design which was enharsed by Louis's idea of using a device similar to a sewing machine. The Lumere brothers keep this secret and had private screenings. 


Brighton Pioneer
George Albert Smith was a British film pioneer and he played a very important role in the development of film editing. George saw the Lumere brother's camera in London after seeing it he got a camera of his own. In 1896 he acquired his first film camera and in 1903 he made a short film called “The Sick Kitten” in this George cuts to a close up of the kitten, which helped the development of film narrative by showing details and emotion. Geogre developed early edting techniques we use today. 



Edwin S Porter
In one of this short films “Life of an American Fireman” in 1904. He use cuts between to scenes to link them into one story. This is know as crosscutting. In one shot we see firemen rushing around and then in the next we see a scared women trapped in a room. With these shots next to each other it looks like the firemen are coming to help the woman. This evokes the audience to be concerned for this women’s safety.   



Hollywood Style

Pioneers like D.W. Griffits and Edwin Porter all helped establish Continuity Editing 'Hollywood Style. This Hollywood style focuses on a character that has a goal which to achieve they go on a journey which will involve problems for the character. At the end they will meet their goal but they would be slightly changed by the experience. To help the audience understand the story the film will be edited with rules and techniques to help the flow of the film. Techniques like starting the scene with an establishing shot so the audience knows where the scene is set. Also when people are in a room together the 180° rule is used. This is when the camera never goes across an imaginary line between the characters. This means that the characters are on the right side of the screen looking the right way, meaning the viewer is not confused. They used shot reverse shot when people were talking and close ups to highlight emotion.

 
Soviet Montage Theory / Discontinuity editing - 1910s - 1930s


Kuleshov Effect

In Russia Lev Kuleshov worked at VGIK (Moscow Film School), which used film not to entertain but to get their audience to support political parties.  It also looked at the sociology of film and how film can make people react by moving around shots. The Kuleshov workshop (Kuleshov’s class) looked at D.W Griffiths’ Intolerance and broke it down shot by shot and rearranged them to see the effect that different edits have. This let to the Kuleshov Effect, this was a test where he use a shot of a man with a plank face and then put a different image after to see the effect.















The French New Wave - 1950s - 1960s


Nouvelle Vague was a term given to new French filmmakers of the 1950s and 60s. Some of the most prominent filmmakers were: Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard.

They promoted the idea of auteur theory. The director is the author of his films and they put their personal signature visible from film to film.

New wave film were linked by their self-consious rejection of the literary period pieces being made in Paris. These directors did not want to use the same old actors. They wanted young actors. These filmmakers had smaller 16mm camera, this allowed them to film on the street. The directors would also use long takes which involved the actors improvise dialogue.The filmming was more about the image rather than the storyline development like in Hollywood.

Because of these changes towards filming it allowed for the editior to became a big part of the production. Editors would have long pieces of footage that would not link to other pieces. This meant that the editor would create the story.

Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) was directed by Alain Resnais and edited by three people. It was a French New Wave film that used this type of editing style.

New wave outside of france
New Hollywood - Robert Altman, Martin Scorcese, John Cassavetes, Francis Ford Coppola

Key Films - Bonnie and Clyde, Midnight cowboy, Easy rider, Eog day afternoon, Chinatown

New Wave / New Hollywood
In the 1960’s young filmmakers were graduating around the world and they learnt all about the early pioneers, continuity and discontinuity editing. Directors like Martin Scorcese, John Cassavetes and Robert Altman were making films which used everything that they had learnt. Their lower budget films used styles and tecniques like the Russian discontinuity style, French new wave and old Hollywood style. This lead to them having a younger audience.    

Increased use of Computer

Since the birth of the computer it has helped editors work, save and store work easier. Also with the increase of technology editing is cheaper. Avid was the first editing software and it was a breakthrough in the way a editor works. It replaced the need for tools like the Moviola, Steenbeck, and KEM flatbed editors. Other companies like Apple introduced Final Cut and Adobe released Premiere Pro. The development of Premiere has allowed professionals and consumers to edit cinema HD footage at home with the use of computers. Editors can start projects can be saved online at home and can be accessed by people around the world with Adobe Creative Cloud. Before computers editor would work in a linear style where they would have to stich the footage in order by hand. Now they use non-linear where they can move footage around the project timeline freely. They can also copy and paste footage and effects easily. A modern editor will now have to edit greenscreen, sound, fxs, backup data and export different formats. This would have been done by a group of people before the increase use of computer editing. After the project is finished it can be exported to be uploaded online on a website or shown at a cinema.