Unit 16 Editing Techniques

Continuity Edit / Invisible Editing = Cutting with a characters movement to give it a seamless feel.
Jump Cuts = abrupt transition from one scene to another
Cutting on Action = cuts from one shot to another view that matches the first shot's action.
Cross Cutting = often used in films to establish action occurring at the same time in two different locations.
Matched Cut = a cut in film editing between either two different objects, two different spaces, or two different compositions in which objects in the two shots graphically match, often helping to establish a strong coninuity of action
Montage = Putting clips together usually over music to show things that would be too long to fit in normally

Continuity Editing

Jump Cuts

Cutting on action

Cross Cutting

Matched Cut

Montage

1903 - Basic Cuts in Film

Discuss what editing process was and why it was basic
Editing was basic in these days because film had to be physically cut and pasted by cutting the film reel with something called a splicer and stringing together the different shots all on a Steenbeck. This was tedious and took quite a lot of time but they didn't yet have the technology to edit on computers on editing software. This meant that the shots were long and they only used jump cuts.

1920s - Silent Film

Needed to allow audiences to understand time and space because we can see things from a different perspective because the black and white stops us from knowing what time of day it is in the film so it's hard to know the difference in hours/days. The shots changing allow us to know when the time has change because the location has changed and the characters are in a different place.

1940s - Hollywood Studio System

Sound was introduced in the 1940s, which meant films with more complex stories could be made because people could talk and basically tell a story. This made cinema become a lot more popular because they now had sound and people wanted to see more and more of it. Film makers used desirable, good looking characters to hook people into watching their films because it made the audience feel like they were watching a kind of dream like life where they had the characters looks and life. Films were still in black and white though so the problem with showing time was still there, but filmmakers began to use music as a way of distinguishing time. The music would change when they wanted to indicate a different time of day.

1960s - American New Wave

The american new wave was a time period when new young film makers were making history with their films in america. Their editing was different to before using things like cross cutting and cutting on action. Cross cutting allows us to see more of the narrative at one time, usually to show us two things happening at once. Cutting on action was starting to be used to make films look seamless. This is when films became more realistic and made you feel like you were there. Montage's were also used a lot in the american new wave. They allowed us to see a lot more of a narrative in shorter amount of time but in an effective way to bring the narrative forward.

1980s - High Concept cinema

High concept cinema was the era of action films. Action-packed, loud, flashy, simplistic, and tightly-structured films defined 80s cinema. Films such as back to the future, the terminator and top gun were some of the most popular films in the 80s. These films were all futuristic and full of special effects. Cross cutting was used a lot in 80s action films along with tense music and more exciting loud music during action scenes being cross cut to make the film more exciting. 

1990s - Digitial editing software introduced

Indie films were at the centre of 90s cinema. This meant that these films were reasonably low budget and meant that more and more indie film makers were trying to get their films out there. This made film festivals become more popular and gave indie film makers a shot at stardom. The digital editing rised in the 90s which was why so many independent film makers became famous because editing was more accessible for anyone who wants to make a film.

00s - Today.

In cinema today pretty much any type of editing is used. A lot of special effects are used to create stunning cinematography. Today its all about high budget, big company films.

CGI today has brought forward the animated world. Animation has become more clear and life like. It is now less pixilated and makes animated films more real. CGI has also allowed us to see unrealistic situations in real life, in a realistic way. It can enter us into a world we could never see in real life with things such as Avatar where humans can visit an alien world and also become an avatar.