Post 6: Media Language - Editing

Film Editing : Editing is the process of taking chosen material (footage) and arranging it to form a coherent finished product.
When it comes to film making editing is a vital part of the process and it's key that my group and I pay close attention on how to edit so that when the time finally does come, we are able to create a film to the best of our abilities. There are various effects that can be used whilst editing, below are a few examples of effects and how they came to be used.


Kuleshov Effect : The Kuleshov Effect is a film editing effect demonstrated by Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov in the 1910's and 1920's. 
Kuleshov edited together a short film in which a shot of an expressionless face of a man was alternated with various other shots; a plate of soup, a girl in a coffin, and a woman. The film was shown to an audience who believed that the expression on the man's face was different each time he appeared, depending on whether he was "looking at" the plate of soup, the girl in the coffin, or the woman, showing an expression of either hunger, grief or desire. Kuleshov used the experiment to explain the usefulness and effectiveness of film editing. He discovered that viewers brought their own emotional reactions to this sequence, and then attributed those reactions to the actor, investing his impassive face with their own feelings. I believe we can incorporate the Kuleshov Effect into our short film by using Alan's expressionless face in the swimming pool alternated with various shots of Sophie. This could help the portrayal of their relationship and make the audience connect emotionally to the characters, it could also help with them figuring out exactly what Alan and Sophie are.

Below is a film showing the Kuleshov Effect.

Montage (filmmaking): A Montage is a technique in film editing in which a series of short shots are edited into a sequence to condense space, time and information.
A Montage can also be a series of unrelated shots that leave the audience to figure out the meaning and connect the importance of the shots. Though a Montage is usually used to suggest the passage of time rather then hold any symbolic meaning. We hope to use more then one Montage in our short film in the hopes of cutting time, yet presenting the audience with the key information for them to guess about Alan and Sophie's relationship. One key Montage will be when we incorporate the Kuleshov Effect during a scene when Alan is with the girls at the swimming gala. We hope to present the audience with the knowledge of exactly how long Alan and Sophie have known one another and how close they've become in the last few months. This will hopefully explain to the audience the nature of the relationship and the possible changes it has had in the past months, as well as connect the audience to the pair emotionally and keep them guessing about the relationship.

Edwin Porter: Was an American early film pioneer, most famous as a director with Thomas Edison's company. His most famous films include, Life of an American Fireman (1902) and The Great Train Robbery (1903).Although his significance as director of The Great Train Robbery and other innovative early films is undeniable, he rarely repeated an innovation after he had used it successfully, never developed a consistent directorial style. Edwin Porter is still remembered as an important figure in motion picture history. As an early filmmaker he took ideas from others, but instead of just copying films he tried to improve on what he had borrowed. In "Life of an American Fireman" Porter created dissolves, the technique helped audiences follow complex outdoor movement. In his next film "The Great Train Robbery" the one reel film, with a running time of twelve minutes, was assembled in twenty separate shots, along with a startling close-up of a bandit firing at the camera. It was ground breaking in its use of jump cuts, cross cutting, and panning shots. No earlier film had created such swift movement or variety of scene.

French New Wave: The New Wave was a term used by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the later 1950's and 1960's.  Many also engaged in their work with the social and political upheavals of the era, making their radical experiments with editing, visual style and narrative part of a general break with the conservative paradigm. Filming techniques included fragmented, discontinuous editing, and long takes as well as a clear contrast between black and white featuring natural lighting. The combination of objective realism, subjective realism, and authorial commentary created a narrative ambiguity in the sense that questions that arise in a film are not answered in the end. The new flexible and creative New Wave showed alternative framing and the release of the camera from a tripod, giving it a more documentary and realistic look and feel.