Lecture 6: Editing

Lecture 6: Editing Professor Aaron Baker Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein

Previous Lecture • What is Cinematography? • Framing • Focus and Depth of Field • Camera Movement • The Long Take • Central Station (1998)

This Lecture • What is Film Editing? • Dimensions of Editing • Continuity Editing • Discontinuity Editing in Breathless (1960)

What is Film Editing? JFK (1991), Directed by Oliver Stone Lecture 6: Part I

Editing • Coordination of one shot with the next • A shot is one uninterrupted film image • First films (1890s)just one shot 1896 - Edison's film entitled The Kiss saw May Irwin and John C. Rice re-enact the final scene from the Broadway play musical The Widow Jones - it was a close-up of a kiss.

Four Shot Transitions • A straight cut is when one shot goes directly to the next • A fade-out gradually darkens the end of a shot to black. A fade-in lightens the next shot from black. 3. A dissolve briefly superimposes the end of shot A and the beginning of shot B. 4. In a wipe, shot B replaces shot A with a line moving across the scene, which “wipes away” the previous shot.

Examples • A Wipe from Seven Samurai (1954) • A Dissolve from Eyes Wide Shut(1999)

Editing within the Formal System of Film • A Hollywood film contains between 1000 and 2000 shots; an action movie can have 3000 or more. • This large number of shots suggests how important editing is in shaping viewers’ experience of the film--even if we aren’t aware of it.

Assembling the Footage • Throughout film history most sequences were shot with only one camera. Today, many films are shot with several cameras running simultaneously, producing a great quantity of footage. • A film editor must assemble a large number of shots. To ease this task, most filmmakers plan for the editing phase during the preparation and shooting phases.

Ways to Edit • Storyboarding: shots and transitions preplanned. • In-camera during shooting • On the editing table • Now mostly computerized

Digital Editing • Avid and Final Cut Pro are two widely used editing software packages • Final cut goes back on the film negative.

Dimensions of Film Editing Bonnie and Clyde (1968), Directed by Arthur Penn Lesson 6: Part II

Shot Relations Four Principles by Which to Connect Shots: • Graphic – based on shots’ composition • Rhythmic – in terms of shots’ length • Spatial – to build space • Temporal Relations – to define time

Graphic Editing • Editing based on what’s in the image: • Continuity • Contrast • Pictorial Composition • Movement/Stasis Traffic, 2000

Rhythmic Relations • Each shot, being a strip of film, has a certain length that corresponds to a measureable duration onscreen. • A shot can be as short as one frame or thousands of frames long, running for many minutes when projected. • Editing allows the filmmaker to control the duration of the shot. When s/he adjusts the length of shots in relation to each other, s/he is controlling the rhythm of editing.

Rhythmic Patterns • The rhythmic possibilities of editing emerge when several shot lengths form a discernable pattern. • A steady rhythm is established by making all the shots approximately the same length. • The filmmaker can also create a dynamic pace. Lengthening shots can gradually slow the tempo, while successively shorter shots can accelerate it.

Effects of Rhythmic Editing: • Long Shots – contemplative e.g. Citizen Kane (1941) • Short Shots – energy e.g. Mission Impossible II (2000) • Average Hollywood shot length now: a few seconds • Clips 1 and 2

Spatial Relations • Editing Can Create Story Space • Spaces Juxtaposed to Suggest They’re Contiguous

Spatial Relations • Editing usually serves to control not only graphics and rhythm, but also to construct film space – that is, editing permits the filmmaker to juxtapose any two points in space and thus imply some kind of relationship between them. • The director might, for instance, start with a shot that establishes a spatial whole and follow this with a shot of a part of this space.

Crosscutting • Also Called Parallel Editing • We See Simultaneous Actions in Different Spaces • Spaces Linked • Cause and Effect Relationship Between Actions in Two Places

Clip 3: Crosscutting • Unrestricted Range of Knowledge • Pause to see e.g. of crosscutting in Syriana (2005).

Four Spaces Paralleled Editing Here Connects Four Spaces: • Convoy • CIA • Oil Execs. at Banquet • Clooney Character

Temporal Relations • Like other film techniques, editing can control the time of the action denoted in the film. In a narrative film especially, editing usually contributes to a plot’s manipulation of story time. • Specifically, the filmmaker may control temporal succession through the editing. • Such manipulation of events leads to changes in story-plot relations. We are most familiar with such manipulations in flashbacks and flash-forwards.

Elliptical and Overlapping Editing • Editing also offers ways for the filmmaker to alter the duration of story events as presented in the film’s plot. • Elliptical editing presents an action in such a way that it consumes less time on the screen than it does the story. • It’s also possible to expand story time. If the action from the end of one shot is partly repeated at the beginning of the next, it’s overlapping editing that prolongs the action.

Editing and Time • Controls Time of Story • Supports Plot’s Manipulation of Story • Determines Order, Duration, Frequency of Story Actions

Continuity Editing Raging Bull (1980) Directed by Martin Scorsese Lesson 6: Part III

Continuity Editing • Graphics, rhythm, space and time are at the service of the filmmaker through the technique of editing. They offer potentially unlimited creative opportunities. • Yet most films we see make use of a narrow set of editing possibilities – so narrow that we can speak of a dominant editing style throughout film history. This is called continuity editing.

Narrative Continuity • Around 1900-1910, as filmmakers started to use editing, they sought to arrange their shots so as to tell a story clearly and coherently. Thus editing, supported by specific strategies of cinematography and mise-en-scene was used to ensure narrative continuity. • So powerful is this style that, even today, anyone working in narrative filmmaking is expected to be thoroughly familiar with it.

The Purpose of Continuity • As its name implies, the basic purpose of the continuity system is to allow space, time, and action to continue in a smooth flow over a series of shots. All the possibilities of editing we have already examined are turned to this end. • Since the continuity style seeks to present a story, it’s chiefly through the handling of space and time that editing furthers narrative continuity.

The Axis of Action • In the continuity style, the space of a scene is constructed along what is variously called the axis of action, the center line or the 180 degree line. This line ensures • that relative positions in the frame remain consistent. • consistent eyelines. • consistent screen direction. • With the 180 degree system the viewers should always know where the characters are in relation to each other and the setting.

How 180 Degree Rule WorksShot one (cam. 1 below) sets up an imaginary line between the actors;all subsequent shots (cam. 2) stay on one side of line. Cam. 3 is a mistake.

Other Aspects of Continuity Editing • The establishing shot, usually taken from a distance, shows the spatial relations among the important figures, objects and setting in a scene. • Shot/reverse shot are two or more shots edited together that alternate characters, typically in a conversation situation. • In an eyeline match, the first shot shows a person looking off in one direction and the second shows the nearby space containing what he or she sees.

Establishment/Reestablishment of Space • Establishing Shot – Whole Narrative Space • Breakdown (Coverage) – Closer Views • Restablishment Shot – New Character, Action Meet Me in St. Louis 1944

Shot/Reverse Shot • Pattern Used for Conversations • Shot 1: First Character Talking • Shot 2: Other in Conversation • Part of Character Listening Shown Indicates Proximity

Eyeline Match An eyeline match from Hitchcock’s Vertigo 1958.

Continuity Editing • Dominant in Hollywood Films • Directs Our Attention As We Watch • Emphasizes Dialogue, Reaction, Cause and Effect • Creates Clear Space and Time to Tell Story, Narrative Continuity

Intensified Continuity Editing • 1930-60 Classical Continuity Style • 300-500 Shots • Now 1-3 K • New Continuity to Match New Faster Pace Jerry Maguire 1996

Contemporary Editing • More Close Ups, Medium Close Ups • Closer Framing Easier to Understand When Shots Short and Fast

1960- Present Films Seen on TV • Faster Editing, Moving Camera Energize Smaller Image • Holds Viewer Attention in Era of Distraction • CUs Present More on Smaller Screens

Discontinuity Editing The Limey 1999 Lesson 6: Part IV

Discontinuity Editing • Connections Between Shots Foregrounded, Not Invisible • Objective Not Continuous Flow of Story—Rather to Push Viewer Out of Involvement into Critical Distance

Discontinuity Devices • One Discontinuity Transition: Jump Cut Cut from one shot to next “jumps” on screen • Makes viewer aware of editing, ask-- “Why filmmaker presenting these shots in this way?

French New Wave • 1958-63 • Break with Cinema of Quality in France -Too Slow -Too Reliant on Literature • 170 First Time Directors • Truffaut and Goddard

Liked Hollywood • Its Energy, Action, Genres • But Not to Entertain, Excite • Rather to Disturb, Provoke • Didn’t Adopt Hollywood’s Coherent, Optimistic Stories • Favored Existential View of World as Fragmented, Absurd

Breathless 1960 • Michel (Jean Paul Belmondo • Patricia (Jean Seberg) • Small Time Crook and His American Girlfriend in Paris • Clip 4: The Bogart Poster and Editing

Shot/Reverse Shot • S/RS, But Not A Conversation • Underlines Artificiality of Editing/Iris Transition • Michel Imitates Bogart’s Outlaw Hero • Post WW II: Existential Idea of Self Creation • But Unlike Bogart’s Hollywood Characters, Michel Doesn’t Create Justice, Happy Ending

Hollywood Continuity • Tells Stories • Brings Outlaw Into Society • Connection,Community, Connection to Women • E.g. Casablanca 1942 • Rick helps Lazlo and Ilsa

In Breathless, Jump Cuts • Michel and Patricia Talk in Car • No Establishing Shot, No Eyelines, No Shot/Reverse Shots • Discontinuity Transitions: Jump Cuts • Clip 5

In Breathless, Jump Cuts • No Eyelines, S/RS Suggest Characters’ Disconnection, Lack of Agency • No Establishing Shots, Jump Cuts Create Spatial Disorientation for Viewers

Summary • Editing • Dimensions of Editing • Continuity Editing Hollywood Storytelling • Discontinuity Editing in Breathless -No Clear Story -Existential, Fragmented World That Needs Analysis, Rebuilding by Viewer

Lecture 6: Editing