The develpment and Principles of editing

The develpment and Principles of editing

The development of Editing- editing has changed thoughtout the years as film technology has evolved.

The history of cinema is linked to Eadweard Muybridge, in the 1800s Eadweard got contacted to settle a bet by former California Governor Leland Stanford, Stanford believed that all four hooves of a running horse left the ground, the motion was to fast for the human eye to detect so in 1872 Eadweard began experimenting with an array of 12 cameras photographing a galloping horse pooin a sequence of shots His initial efforts seemed to prove that Stanford was right, but he didn’t have the process perfected but between 1878 and 1884, Eadweard perfected his method of horses in motion, proving that they do have all four hooves off the ground during their running stride.







The Frenchman Louis Lumiere is often credited as inventing the first motion picture camera in 1895.What Lumiere invented was a portable motion-picture camera, film processing unit and projector called the Cinematographe.

The Lumiere brothers were not the first to project film. In 1891, the Edison company successfully demonstrated the Kinetoscope, which enabled one person at a time to view moving pictures. Later in 1896, Edison showed his improved Vitascope projector and it was the first commercially, successful, projector in the U.S.

The films created with these cameras were not edited. they were usually one single shot from a single point of view.

The idea that you could use a variety of shot choices, use mulitple points of view and follow the action in a film didnt come along till the concept of editing in camera was invented.

Edited in camera means that the film is created shot by shot in camera and then you add the next shot in your story by filming it next.

Editing in camera is still around there is a website called www.straight8.net and this is were film makers compete by making a edited in camera movie on a single 8mm film cartridge.

This is an example of a film what was created by editing in camera its called Life of an American Fireman.

And here is a website to show each scene used and how they made it in production. http://www.tcf.ua.edu/Classes/Jbutler/T112/LifeOfAnAmericanFireman.html 

From My film i created and Life of an American Fireman you can see that it has allowed film makers do more than just show from one point of view. 

Editing-

Early film makers needed a way to trim shots and to alter of the shorter section of film, called clips becuase it is very difficult to assemble a finished film in camera.

The first idea what came around in early days of movie production was the idea of cutting up film and taping it back together, for many years this had to be done by hand, a pair of scissors and a magnifying glass until 1923 when Iwan Serrurier invited the first mechanical editing decks, used to cut up and ressemble clips.

This technique is called Linear editing this is becuase you are assembling the clips one after the other. The process is purely mechanical.

In 1920 film editing was done mostly on Moviola decks but then a comapany called steenbeck came along with their machine and this became industry standard.

Here is and example of the Steenbeck getting used- http://youtu.be/dUxbfiZ_-9Y 

The idea of recording to Video Tape was invented by Charles Ginsburg he led the research team at Ampex Corporation in developing the first practical videotape recorder In 1951.

the first videotape recorder  captured live images from television cameras by converting the information into electrical impulses and saving the information onto magnetic tape.

1956: Ampex VRX-1000 - The First Commercial Videotape Recorder

These editing systems were also linear editing systems, but instead of cutting the videotape the data was copied from one tape to another by a control deck which you could control the in and out points. This is so you could choose when to start and finish the part of the clip you are wanting to copy across.
Early days the image quality and editing techniques were only suitable for TV, it wasn't suitable for cinema use.
Julie and Julia was the first feature film what was shot on video in 1987. The first commercial video what was in HD was called Once Upon A time in Mexico this was in the year 2004.

In the 1970s was the first attempt to create non-linear systems, no one was able to bring a commerciaol system to the market. In 1984 Lucasfilm pioneers the first digital non-linear disc-based editing systems for picture the editdroid. The Editdroid was first used in poo Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom which won both an oscar and the BAFTA for Best Visual Effects. The EditDroid was never a commercial success, the software was eventually sold to Avid Technology in 1993. Only 24 EditDroid systems were ever produced.

Avid Launched the Avid 1 media Composer editing system in 1989 this was the first commercially successful,professional NLE system to capture and edit natively at 24fps,  Steven Cohen was the first editor to use Film Composer for a major motion picture on Lost in Yonkers. The Avid system was a hardware and software system based on Apple technology. This was the first computer based system that turned taped date into files. Files that could be moved around on a timeline.

In 1986 the Sony D1 came onto the market this was the first professional camera.

This allowed to change from linear to non linear. This was the idea that either film or video could be transformed into digital information and that the information could be altered without destroying the file, this is called Non Destructive editing. Once the images were digital it was possible to alter and manipulate that data in ways that were impossible using linear editing systems.

Purpose-

Whether it is drama, news or documentary the purpose of editing is the same which is to show effective storytelling. You can do this by controlling the audiences point of view.
Genre-
To define a film you must give it a genre, this can tell you what the content and style is going to be like. There are many different genre's which are : Horror, thriller, Comedy, Romance, action and si-fi.

Action-
Should contain numerous scenes where action is spectacular and usually destructive.

Horror-

Should contain numerous consecutive scenes of characters effecting a terrifying and/or repugnant narrative throughout the title.

Thriller-
Should contain numerous sensational scenes or a narrative that is sensational or suspenseful.

Comedy-
Virtually all scenes should contain characters participating in humorous or comedic experiences.

Pace and Rhythm- The pace and rhythm are used to control the tension in a scene, The more cuts in a scene means that the pace will be faster.here is an example of a fight scene from fast 5 were there are lots of cuts to show that the pace was fast. Usually fast cuts are seen in action films to show the tension.

Here is an example of a scene from Twilight were the pace is slow because there isn't much cuts, most romantic films use this effect to show the tension in the scene.

Here is a link from the first episode of The Walking Dead - http://walkingdeadseason3.net/full-episode-the-walking-dead-season-1-episode-1-days-gone-bye In the first opening scene you see a car driving down the road with nothing on the road except ricks car this shows straight away that the place is deserted and next you see a car upside down showing there is an accident but no one is around so the first couple of seconds you know something has happened.

Conventions and techniques-
Shot-Reverse-Shot: this is used mainly in dialoge sequences, the way the POV (point of view) moves from the face of one person to reverse view to the other person. Here is an example of the shot-reverse-shot used in Harry Potter and the dealthly hallows part 2, the images show the final battle with harry and voldermort and each point of view and a wide shot of them both.

Montage- The process or technique of selecting, editing, and piecing together separate sections of film to form a continuous whole, it can also show a characters development through time. Here is an example of a monatge sequence in southpark.

Here is a clip what i took using quicktime to make a screen grab showing how to put in and out points using final cut pro and placing the clip onto the timeline.

 Here is an example on how to cut into a clip.



 

 

Here is an example on how to add a transition to a clip, on the clip i show how to use the dissolve and wipe transition.