The Hong Kong Institute of Education Department of English ENG 5219 Introduction to Film Studies (PDES) Week 3 Editing

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1 The Hong Kong Institute of Education Department of English ENG 5219 Introduction to Film Studies (PDES) Week 3 Editing References: Chapter 4, The Critical Eye Chapter 4, Film Analysis Handbook (Editing) The cut is the most common edit and the standard way of separating one shot from another. One shot ends and the next begins immediately. Cuts often go unnoticed because they are so common. A dissolve is a brief overlap of one shot into the next. The shot that ends dissolves into the next shot. Dissolves can be used simply to connect one shot to another and give meaning to this connection. For example, if two characters are discussing a third person, and the scene then dissolves into a shot of another person, we would assume that this is the person being discussed by the two original characters. Dissolves are also used to signal the beginning of a dream sequence. If a close-up of a person lying in bed asleep then dissolves into an image of monsters attacking them, we would assume that the shot of the monsters is the person s dream. (example: Caldwell, 83) Fades are dissolves to or from black. A fade out is when the shot ends by dissolving into black (also known as a blackout); a fade in is when the screen starts as black and then dissolves into the next shot. Shots fading to white is called a whiteout. Fading interrupts the smooth flow of edits created by cuts, and often marks a significant change in the pace of a film. For example, if a major aspect of a film is over, or the film itself has finished, then there may be a fade out. Whiteouts are rare but have any alarming effect because they are unusual and give the effect of the screen either burning up or fading away. Whiteouts have been used to create a sense of the world blowing up, or to show that a character has been physically or metaphorically obliterated. (example: trailer of Blindness: 1

2 You are allowed to make use of Blindness (Fernando Meirelles, 2008) as an example in your key term quiz and essay. Part of the movie available here: Graphic matches As well as making sure the shots make sense in terms of the story and dialogue, the editor also makes stylistic choices based on visually matching various elements in a shot with corresponding elements in the following shot. Graphic matches are shots edited together based on a visual similarity between them. A graphic match may be based on colours, on a prominent object or on actors that have a similar shape. Example: The three different stories in Stephen Daldry s The Hours occur in different time periods (1923, 1951 and 2001), yet graphic matches create important links between the stories that are essential to the film s meaning. Early in the film there is a series of graphic matches, including shots of three characters handling a bunch of flowers. Each shot is from a different time period and features a different flower arrangement, but the cinematography is the same for each shot, making the three shots, when edited together, a graphic match. (example: THE HOURS DVD) You are allowed to make use of The Hours (Stephen Daldry, 2002) as an example in your key term quiz and essay. Speed of editing The number of edits in a scene influences the rhythm of the scene. To give each scene a particular rhythm, the editor varies the time between edits in other words, the length of each shot. Changing the rate at which edits occur can create various sensations for the audience. Quick edits is editing brief shots together so that no shot lasts for too long before the film cuts to the next shot. Having many quick edits can add pace or tension to a scene. Many contemporary action films are entirely composed of very quick edits in other words, the length of each shot is no more than two or three seconds (and sometimes even less). This gives the whole film the sense of pace which is so crucial for generating the on-the-edge-of-your-seat excitement of action films. Slow editing allows shots to continue for a long time before they cut to the next shot. It allows the audience to more thoroughly absorb each image and perhaps contemplate more carefully what is happening in the scene. (example: Gus Van Sant s 2

3 Elephant) Spatial editing Editing generates the space of the film in terms of generating a relationship between the elements in one shot and the elements in the shots before and after it. Invisible editing is the common expression for editing that goes unnoticed by the audience in order to create the space of each scene. Especially in Hollywood cinema, editing is a skill of concealment the better the film is edited, the less the audience notices the editing. Invisible edits are nearly always straightforward cuts, since a cut is a conventional editing technique that does not draw attention to itself. Other editing techniques, such as dissolves, fades and wipes, stand out and are noticeable edits often used to indicate that a scene has ended. Editing can also fool the audience in the way the shots are arranged. Sometimes, directors like to deliberately problematize the sequence of events and therefore mislead the audience. (example: ending of American Beauty. Who kills Lester Burhnam?) temporal editing. Temporal editing Editing affects how time, as well as space, is perceived in film. A coherent and logical sense of time is created when the shots are arranged in an order consistent with the passage of time. For example, if a scene involves somebody building a house, we would expect the shots of the person laying the bricks to come before the shot of the completed house. Reversing the order of these shots would make no sense. Flashbacks occur when scenes portraying earlier events follow scenes that portray more recent events. They are also used to fill in gaps of a story or to reveal an important event in the past that affects effect in the present. Murder mysteries often use flashbacks at the end of the film to show the murder and to reveal the killer s identity. Flashforwards occur when scenes portraying events that occur at a point in the future are edited to precede the scenes depicting events leading up to that point. When action is manipulated by editing to occur in less time than it would actually take, the effect is known as ellipsis. Instead of showing a long take of a person crossing a street, which may taken seconds in real time, an ellipsis may be used to condense the time. A cutaway shot is a shot of a contrasting element inserted between two principal 3

4 shots to break them up. By inserting a cutaway shot the filmmaker can make the two principal shots shorter and decrease the length of the entire sequence. A long boring lecture could be depicted by a shot of the lecturer speaking, a cutaway of the students sleeping on their desks, and then a further shot of the lecturer finishing the lecture. Common invisible editing techniques Two shots linked together can be known as shot/counter shot, referring to the initial shot and then the counter-shot immediately following, which is therefore assumed to relate to the initial shot. A shot/reverse shot is a shot/counter shot pattern used to create the impression that two characters, shown in separate shots, are talking to each other. An eye-line match is used during a shot/reverse shot pattern where the actors look out of frame to where the person they are speaking to would be. Making editing visible A jump cut is a stylized edit created by editing together shots that are not sufficiently different to warrant an edit, and therefore the image simply appears to jump. If the camera is stationary at a train platform and randomly turned on and off, then the resulting footage would be of the same train platform with people appearing and disappearing throughout scene. 4

5 (Example, clip at A non-diegetic insert is a shot of something unrelated to the narrative elements of a film that is inter-cut with other shots. Nondiegetic inserts are usually images that have a symbolic or metaphorical significance but are otherwise unrelated to the events depicted by the film. Those inserts can indicate the mood or feelings of a character. A scene may depict a person receiving bad news. To emphasize how devastating this news is, a nondiegetic insert of a plane crashing to the ground may be used, suggesting that the person s dream have collapsed. (e.g. the sky sequence of Gus Van Sant s Elephant) 5