It's all in the edit!

Film editing is part of the creative post production process. It is all about; creation, manipulation and juxtaposition. 

The main purposes and principles of editing are:

• To elicit/convey appropriate emotion to add to the story.

A good editor can piece together images, like a puzzle, that draw in the audience to such an extent, they don't realise the editor's work through shots. From just a few shots put together an editor can create an overwhelming emotion in an audience member. For example, in a scene where two characters are saying goodbye to each other for the last time. Shots between the characters as they portray their feelings really keep an audience members attention, the shots will get seconds longer as if they are savouring those last minutes together and this will also drag it out for the viewer. 

• To maintain continuity in terms of storytelling.

An editor must make sure that the whole sequence makes sense. There cannot be parts of the story missing or random shots included or there will be no continuity. 


This clip from Eastenders,shows how the audience are shown more than the characters on screen. We are the only people seeing her reaction, at this moment we are the only people who know she has found out about the affair. The emotion distress is emphasised by the shots from her, to the affair, her, affair, her.  

• To maintain 2-Dimensional plane of screen and 3-Dimensional space of action.
  

Conventions and techniques in editing:

Continuity editing is editing that creates action that flows smoothly from shot to shot without visual inconsistencies. This establishes a sense of story for the viewer. 

The 180 degree rule is a basis for editing. It is when two characters are in the frame and on either side; one left, one right. In this particular scene from Avengers, Vision is always on the left of the screen and Ultron on the opposite.

An imaginary line called the axis connects the characters and thus, this line is never crossed by the camera. This does not confuse the audience as that particular character is always on the same side of the frame. If the camera does cross the line this is called, jumping the line. A viewer rarely feels confused when the 180 degree rule is used, as when continuity editing is used.

There is one exception for crossing the 180 degree rule, a technique called crossing the axis. This is used for effect; mostly in action films to leave the audience puzzled. A great example is in the chase scene from Bourne Ultimatum. 

A cutaway shot (also known as an insert shot) is when the editor cuts away from the primary subject to something relevant. This shot is used to establish context. A specific cutaway shot that shows a character's reaction is termed a reaction shot. In this scene from Back To The Future we see Marty Mcfly's reaction to learning his own father is sat next to him in the past.

Eyeline match is a technique associated with continuity editing. It's used to show the audience what the character is seeing. It begins with a character looking of screen, followed by a cut to what they are looking at. This is also called a look-off shot. In this scene from Pirates of the Caribbean we see what young Elizabeth has seen in the water - a boy. The audience and Elizabeth are the only people to see the boy in the water. This is used because it's a key moment in the storyline. This is the moment two of the main characters meet for the first time.

A shot reverse shot is a continuity editing technique used in conversations or to show characters looking at one another. These are normally a point of view shot or an over the shoulder shot; which is followed by a reverse angle shot of the other character looking back at them.  This example from Spider-Man shows a conversation between the same character but his two personalities through the use of a mirror.

Cross-cutting is used to build suspense as it cuts between two events. Parallel editing is the same but it cuts between events happening simultaneously in different locations. The opening scene from The Dark Knight emphasises how well this edit can work to link shots. This is used in The Dark Knight to add to the storyline and carry it along, by keeping the intense atmosphere in the different shots.

This particular scene from Inception also uses parallel editing. In Inception it is used to show the two events happening at the same time, in two different 'Worlds'. One in real time  to show what is happening as their bodies are in a deep sleep and the other to show what is happening in their subconscious as they run out of time.

A match on action shot is a continuity editing technique when one shot cuts to another shot portraying the same action as the subject in the first shot. This technique gives the impression of a 'visual bridge'. This fight scene from The Matrix relies on cutting on action to maintain continuity.

Editing has taken giant leaps in developing over time. In 1985 the Lumiere Brothers began their idea of in camera editing. They would of had to film their videos using one real of film and in a linear order; they had no way to change the sequence around.


This is a film shot by the Lumiere Brothers. It emphasises the fact they had to stop the film to change scenes because the screen turns black. They always shot with a diagonal relationship to the action, and pioneered the moving shot - the same techniques used today. The brothers also pioneered the idea of charging money for the cinema experience. They created the first motion picture, which people ran out of the screening. It terrified them because they had never seen anything like that before; they literally thought the train was coming towards them. Since 1985 editing has changed dramatically. These days, we can now edit in a non-linear order. This means filming and editing can be completed in any order; this makes the editor's job easier as they can continuously pick shots from different points in the film to help create the storyline and continuity. 

DW Griffith pioneered seamless editing. He developed the idea of putting together different types of shots to give the film a sense of pace. 


This example is A Birth Of A Nation, it shoes seamless editing as it shows the shots flowing in order to match the action. His work has influenced today's films greatly, the majority of films now flow as one and the different scenes make sense. In action movies, like Bourne Ultimatum, (see previous link) the seamless editing is highly noticeable in the iconic chase/fight sequence.

A Russian man, Sergie Eisenstien, developed editing techniques by inventing montage. It consists of shots that are put into a sequence to show how much time has passed but make it shorter for the audience to watch.

An example of this is Rocky 4. In 5 or so minutes we learn of Rocky's time training and how over time he has become a fighting machine!! However we haven't had to watch hours and hours of his training, it's been condensed. This has been slowly developed and used more and more over time in many films that want a long period of time to pass.

The Kuleshov Effect is a film editing (montage) effect demonstrated in the 1910s and 1920s. An audience gain more meaning from the interaction of two shots in a sequence than from a single shot by itself. Kuleshov edited together a short film in which a shot of the expressionless face of Ivan Mosjoukine was shown along with various other shots (a plate of soup, a girl in a coffin, a woman on a divan). The film was shown to an audience who believed that the expression on Ivan'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 on the divan, showing an expression of hunger, grief or desire. The footage was actually the same shot each time. The audience "raved about the acting... the heaviness of his mood over the forgotten soup, were touched and moved by the deep sorrow with which he looked on the dead child, and noted the lust with which he observed the woman". But watching closely we know that in all three cases the face was exactly the same.

The implication is that viewers brought their own emotional reactions to this sequence of images - now the basis of editing today. This editing effect has been developed over time and is now used more effectively. This is shown in Silence of the Lambs.


Not only has the Kuleshov effect been used it also adds more as we are left with a twist and what we as an audience think will happen (the man opening the door to be greeted by the police) after putting the shots together, are proved wrong. 

Edwin S Porter's film The Great Train Robbery; a one-reel film, with a running time of twelve minutes, was made in twenty shots, along with a startling close-up of a bandit firing at the camera. It used as many as ten different indoor and outdoor locations and was ground-breaking in its use of cross-cutting in editing to show simultaneous action in different places. No earlier film had created such fast movement or variety of scene. The Great Train Robbery was enormously popular for it's time. These days the film is incredibly boring as films are full of action and fast improved editing, thanks to the latest technology available.