Objectives:

  • Identify the difference between shots, scenes, and sequences

Intro to Editing (Chapter 3)

The editing process begins after all the camera work is complete. The editor's work requires creative self-expression. It involves making decisions about a variety of factors including, which shots stay in the film versus which shots are cut. Some directors may shoot a couple hundred hours of film. Normally, less than two hours of that original footage will remain as the final film. Deciding what stays and what goes makes up the bulk of the editor's job.

Editing involves watching all the takes and deciding which works best. Is that extreme close-up more effective than the medium shot? How should the different shots be arranged? Would it be more effective to show the scene at the beach in the first few minutes of the film, or would it be better to show it at the end? How long should the shot where the woman looks out the window last? Should we change it to a slow motion shot? Or, would it look better as a quick flash? These are the types of questions editors continuously ask themselves as they do their work.

The manner of editing a film greatly influences how the viewer will perceive the film. Do we want the film to seem smooth from scene to scene promoting a sense of order, or would it be better to dash from one scene to the next to create excitement? Should time seem to speed up, or do we want to drag the time second by second to create suspense. How do we want to transition between scenes, do we want to fade to black each time, or would it be better to superimpose one scene upon the next? The editor for every film project makes these, and a host of other decisions.

Early Editing

The earliest films of the 1890s often were made with just one shot. Films such as The Birth of a Nation in 1915, started to strive for a sense of making a complicated story flow scene-by-scene. By the 1920s, filmmakers started telling stories by placing different clips of film alongside each other.

The Basics

The fundamental building block of the editor is the shot. A shot is a piece of continuous footage showing a subject or action in time. A shot can last seconds or minutes. If the director never cut the camera, there could be one long shot.

The next largest unit is the scene. A scene is a length of film that takes place in one space or time. A scene will most likely consist of one or more shots. The first scene might take place in a car, the second in the street, the third inside a kitchen. The kitchen scene might have a dozen shots: a close-up of the fridge, a medium shot of two actors sitting down. A shot of the female lead talking.

The next largest unit the editor works with is called a sequence. A sequence is a group of scenes that make up a large chunk of the movie. For example, in Full Metal Jacket, we saw two major sequences, the training camp sequence and the Vietnam sequence.

Editors use many techniques for transitioning between shots. Dissolves, cuts, and wipes are just a few. Transitions are important to the editor because they can create a mood in the viewer of the film. Editors spend a great deal of time worrying about continuity: achieving the impression that one scene leads to the next without making any mistakes. The editor makes decisions about continuity that help the viewer understand how the people and places in the film connect.

Sometimes editors will create special effects, such as overlapping one image over another as we saw in the final shots of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Editors make use of visual metaphors and make decisions about the composition of the film. The editor's decision as to the placement of shots can highlight the differences between shots, or it can emphasize their similarities. The editor can shock the viewer or make the viewer laugh out loud. The editor will work with action shots and shots that show one how actor reacts to another. The editor can create surprise, suspense, or almost any other human emotion. The editor can make a year feel like a minute, or a minute feel like a year. In short, the editing of a movie is one of the most crucial elements of filmmaking.

Goals (Chapter three)

  1. Students will list and define the basic building blocks of a film.

  2. Students will summarize the fundamental decisions made through editing.

  3. Students will evaluate how editing decisions effect the viewer's reaction to a film.

  4. Students will judge how different editing decisions effect continuity.

  5. Students will identify montage and visual metaphor.

  6. Students will engage in editing actual shots of film.

  7. Students will edit shots of film to create a scene and measure how one arrangement of shots compares to another.

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