Research Paper 1

Abhishek Thapa

Creative Media Production

14 September 2020

HISTORY OF EDITING

Before we had the technology and advances to edit, the earliest off
filmmakers were afraid to edit their shots add in cuts since they believed it
would confuse their audiences. However once filmmakers discovered that
they were able to tell more complex stories as as result of editing many other
filmmakers caught onto the trend. Before computer and technology, film-
makers worked out if they had stopped cranking the camera and starting
cranking in a different area or scene, it Ould result in a cut or some special
effects. For example George Mlis stops cranking the camera after detonating
a puff of smoke, and then starting to crank once the actor had left the state
to make it look like the actor had magically vanished.

‘The lumiere Brothers’ were the first ever filmmakers to

use and create moving pictures in a silent movie called ‘Arrival
Of a Train at La Ciotatat’ While only being a short clip of a
train entering the station to then leave again, it was revolu-
tionary for it’s time. When they had filmed the 50second clip
they had positioned the camera lower to the ground on the
platform to make the train appear bigger to create a sense of
scale to the audience. While nowadays this may seem like
nothing, and only really a essential basic in film making, it
had changed their view on editing and filming as a whole as
this was classed as “Special Effects”.

However in 1902 George Melies made a huge dent In the film

industry when he had released a 18 minute film called ‘A Trip to
the Moon’ At that moment in time, it was the longest running
movie and it was stated as his most piece of work he had done,
and said it had taken him 3 months to make. It was also the
first ever movie to include special effects and even though the
movie was silent, George had a live orchestra to play alongside
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with the movie as a accompaniment piece. One day George had also acci-
dentally created then well known, essential editing technique that everyone
uses nowadays called the Jump Cut. He was out filming one day on a busy
street and had a jam In his camera, however once he had fixed the jam and
started rolling again, he had noticed a bus was parked during his jam and
sometime while he was editing a jeep had taken the parking spot of the bus
and made it look like the bus had magically transformed into a smaller car.
He then later moved on to using this technique in his film The Haunted
Castle (1896).

However since technology has advanced, we have seen many big

filmmakers move to editing on computers and laptops using certain soft-
wares like ‘Premiere Pro, Final cut pro etc..’ This is alternatively known as
“nonlinear editing” Since this big change the whole industry and audiences
as a whole have had a new experience in filmmaking. Nowadays we are see-
ing more cuts, effects and skills used in editing, with different types of soft-
wares making it easier for people to edit and make films themselves. Even
though we have the right equipment and the ability to make many cuts and
special effects, some filmmakers still chose to not edit or add in as many
cuts, this is known to filmmakers as the ‘Death of 1,000 cuts’ for added real-
ism.

HOW HAS TECHNOLOGY IMPACTED EDITING?

Many editors/filmmakers will agree that technology has changed the way we
make films, but some may argue it’s not ‘for the better’. For example editing
before computers and technology was done by a contraption called the ‘guil-
lotine tape splicer’. Before this tape splicer was introduced to people, every
time an editor made a cut into the tape, the whole process was irreversible,
however since the guillotine tape splicer was introduced, it had allowed the
editor to simple peel of some tape and remake a piece of the splice.

Now with the introduction of offline editing mainly done on computers and
many other machines available in the 21st century, we are simply just able to
undo a mistake just by a push of a button. Video editing allowed us to have
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the freedom and the opportunities to be a lot more creative with what we
film and shoot. For example you are able to slow things down pithing a video
clip (slo-mo) and given the right equipment and training, it’s very possible to
manipulate a video and add in assets that weren’t there in the first place,
also known as CGI. Apples Final Cut Pro and adobe’s Premiere came when
‘Film editing’ had started to fade out of history, film editing rooms changed
from messy and scruffy rooms filled with cans to a desk at homer in a office
with a laptop running a video editing software. Alongside the technological
advance in editing video the expectation is for people to edit very quickly and
this can put a large amount of pressure onto a person and potentially put
them at a health risk.