Discussion Leader: Film Editing
Imagine the world without television, cinema, and theatres? Isn’t it dull to fathom the absence of visual entertainment? Nowadays, it is apparently obvious that humanity is dependent upon the digital technology. In fact, the trends in the cinematography and moving pictures are quite fast paced in terms of advancement and progress.
So how did the world of film industry started? The film history can’t be credited to one person. It is founded by a lot of people contributing to the discoveries of motion picture. Thomas Edison is given credit for the invention of motion picture camera in the year 1891. His ideas culminated the birth of camera (Manley). Films started very humbly through silent films, focused on costumes, actions and adventure with the absence of dialogues. Then goes the star system where the basis of getting on screen is based on beauty to attract viewers regardless of the sense of the movies (Straubhaar).
Films developed gradually leading from simple to complex movies. Films became more dynamic, sensible and worth viewing. With the rise of technology and meeting audience expectations, films started to be edited, cut and produced in a more dynamic, cut short scenes weaved with continuity. How did the art of film editing exactly started? Great credit goes to D.W Griffith, who influenced the birth of the art of editing. This was later on adapted by Sergei Eisenstein, a Soviet filmmaker who transformed the classical editing to montage- an intellectualized conscious editing technique. Montage is a way of putting a number of shots together in a quick manner to develop an idea. Montage allows an idea of actions in a compressed time (Winokur and Holsinger).
What film editing rise up with so intensive application? The Classical Hollywood cinema is a cinematic editing form built on the principle of continuity that made it in the limelight of cinematography. Camera and sounds are considered invisible and don’t call attention. Scenes are taken one by one. Stories follow classical narration driven with psychological motivation. This style is most commonly used in Hollywood cinema which later influenced the cinematography all over the world. Various shots of scenes are taken and presented with continuity. It achieves a smooth and seamless style in narrating the overall story ( Donaldson)..
Now let cut short to the present trends in film editing. There are indeed a lot of editing techniques offered today as the art of editing paced into modernization. Pudovkin, a Russian film theorist, introduced styles which include: parallelism, symbolism, simultaneity, and leit motief. Modern movies such as Iron man 3, Terminator 3, The Matrix, and The Departed are famous films applying Pudovkin’s films theories. His style is greatly influenced by Kuleshov, his teacher. His technique includes splicing bits of films to form a coherent story. His style is seen in the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gGl3LJ7vHc (Renee).
It is amazing to note that modern movies are relatively more complex than the contemporary way of editing. There are films that require deep analysis where the total effect gets appreciated only when understood mostly at the end. However, the contemporary Hollywood style is still the most overused way of film editing. The dramatic structure from the Classical period remains the universal foundation of films. Though the modern day editing such as nonlinear editing is soaring high in applications in various movies, with the help of digital technology and special effects, still Hollywood contemporary style is rooted in films. Are there more editing techniques still yet to be discovered? How many techniques are there in film editing? What difference does it make when different editing is used? Does the success of films depend upon the quality of the techniques used? To what extent do editing influence movies? Does the thin line between the contemporary film editing and modern film editing techniques slowly fading away? Will the classical way of editing vanish with the emergence of modern techniques? What drives the rise of several film editing techniques? Is it possible that Hollywood classical way of editing be forgotten in the coming years? Do film editing techniques contrast with one another? What is the considered best film editing technique?
Works Cited
Donaldson, Peter. “Film Lexicon. N.d. Cla.calpoly.edu. Web. 4 March 2014.
Manley, Brian. Moving Pictures: The History of Early Cinema. ProQuest Discovery Guides. July
2011. Web. 3 March 2014.
Renee, V. Pudovkin’s Montage: 5 Editing Techiques That Speak Louder Than Words. 2013.
Web. 3 March 2014.
Straubhaar, Joseph. Media Now: Understanding Media, Culture, and Technology. 8th Ed. Print
Winokur, M. and Holsinger, B. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Movies and Films. 2001. USA:
Penguin Group Inc. Web. 2 March 2014
