Voice over for the history of film editing

When you see a great movie, you instantly think it looks amazing, that
it’s all to do with the camera work and the acting, but that’s where
you’re wrong, the success of every film is in the editing. The editing
is key. It always has been from the horse in motion to 1917. But I think
it’s time we learn about the beginnings of editing.
Alright, so let’s see what a film editor actually is. A film editor is a
mechanic that removes the unneeded and fits pieces of film as well as
capturing a director’s vision and telling a compelling story. The Editor
is the most important artist of filmmaking because they’re the ones that
make us feel emotionally connected to the characters, they’re the ones
that make us feel like we’re there with them, they’re the ones that
really make the movie click.
Let’s start with the Lumiere Brothers, Auguste and Louis, they were
French inventors who manufactured different types of photographic
equipment such as the Cinématographe. Together, they shot almost 1400
short films between the years 1895 and 1905, luckily not many of them
have been lost. One of the quotes by Louis is that “The cinema is an
invention without any future” which compared to now is a little ironic.
A few examples of the movies they made were “La Voltige” and “Les
Forgerons”.
Onto one of the next practitioners of film editing, George Méliès, He
was known for special effects, time-lapse photography and he was one of
the first filmmakers to use storyboards when creating a film. One of
cinema’s most important pioneers, Méliès worked in an age when the
medium was changing rapidly and when the whole world was obsessed with
scientific discovery, explorations, and expeditions to the furthest
reaches of the planet. If you’ve ever watched a science fiction movie,
let’s just say you owe this man a debt of gratitude. A few examples of
his movies include “A nightmare”, “The Mysterious Portrait” and “The
Doctor’s Secret”.
Next on the list is Edwin Porter, he was particularly skilled in taking
ideas already in existence and developing them; reworking themes or
techniques. The most impressive of Porter’s films was The Great Train
Robbery in 1903 and is widely acknowledged to be the first narrative
film to have achieved such continuity of action. Due to all this, Porter
retains a place in history as one of the most influential filmmakers at
the beginning of the 20th Century. A few examples of the films he
created are “The Artist’s Dilemma”, “Laughing Gas” and “Sold”.
A man named Lev Kuleshov pioneered one of the major developments in film
editing called the “Soviet Montage Theory”, The word ‘montage’ is rooted
in the French language as a term to describe the connection of
individual pieces, whether they be film, music or images, into a united
whole. There were 5 examples of the theory. The first one was the
“Intellectual Montage”, this was where the combination of shots would
use different images to create a different emotion. This was also known
as the “Kuleshov Effect”. The second of the montages was “Metric”, this
was where the film would be cut in the pacing of a song or a piece of
music for establishing a visual pace whereas the third one, “rhythmic
montage” kept a pace in not just a visual pace but an auditory pace as
well. The next montage, “Tonal” was the use of multiple shots that
support each other into making one theme, to have one aim in the scene.
The last of the montages is called “Over Tonal Montage”. This is almost
a fusion of all the other montages so it keeps to the pace, it awakens
an emotional response and exaggerates that response through supporting
and contrasting images. Additionally, Alfred Hitchcock’s definition of
montage means the assembly of pieces of film which (when) moved in rapid
motion before the eye creates an idea. Some of the most famous montage
scenes in history include “The Karate Kid”, “The Godfather”, “Mulan” and
the “Rocky” film series.
We also have Orson Welles, one of the most noteworthy and innovative
compositional techniques Welles used in his work was “The Dutch Angle”.
This was to create tension or make the action in a scene feel more
imposing than it already was. Orson once said in an interview that “The
only time one is able to exercise control over the film is in the
editing.” A quote he said was that “for my vision of the cinema, editing
is not simply one aspect, it’s the aspect.” A few examples of his films
are “Citizen Kane”, “Touch of Evil” and “F for Fake”.
Another important figure in the history of editing film is Alfred
Hitchcock, Hitchcock believed that information and suspense went hand in
hand, he believed in showing the audience what the character was unaware
of. If something was going to harm your character in the future, show it
at the beginning scene then remind the audience of the looming danger.
This way you continuously build up the suspense level. Hitchcock only
used straightforward plotlines which could easily be followed. When
reviewing a film script, he removed anything that was considered boring
or irrelevant to the story. A few examples of his movies are “Rear
Window”, “Vertigo” and “Psycho”.
Let’s talk about the main techniques of editing.
The most commonly used technique is the “Cut”, the cut is simply where
you replace a scene with another scene. They are used in every movie but
some you can’t see as well as others. If you have ever seen a film and a
scene is replaced with another scene. That is a cut.
Another example is “cross cutting”. This is where you edit two different
scenes, for example you split two scenes into two parts, and you then
put the first part of the first scene and then put the first part of the
second scene straight after and then carry on with the second parts. A
famous example of this is in Christopher Nolan’s science fiction
thriller Inception. During the climax of the film, there are several
different events occurring simultaneously. This is where the cross-
cutting technique came in handy, as it allowed the director and editor
the ability to seamlessly jump between the events, keeping the tension
from one scene at the same level as the tension from another. Meanwhile,
all the scenes move toward the ultimate climax.
The “J/L Cut” is also a commonly used technique. This is where you have
two scenes and you put the ending sound of the first scene and carry it
in to the beginning of the second scene or for the beginning sound of
the second scene you can hear it at the end of the first scene before
the second scene comes up.
The next technique is a “jump cut”, this is where we see a scene and
it’s replaced with something in the same place later in time or a
different place. An example of a jump cut is in the ring, the
antagonist, a young girl’s vengeful spirit, emerges from a television
screen and makes her way to her target, the protagonist’s potential love
interest. As he scrambles in fear, jump cuts are used to suddenly
position her right in front of him, only to cut away right before his
demise.
Another important technique is the “match cut”, this is where you
replace a scene with a different scene that isn’t the same but looks
similar. A famous example of this is in a space odyssey, where a
creature throws a bone into the air and as it spins in the air, the
scene is replaced by a space ship very similar to the bone in length and
width.
The last technique I’m going to talk about is the “invisible cut”, this
is where a cut is there but you as a viewer cannot see it. A famous
example of this is the film 1917, the whole film is supposedly one shot
but they have hidden invisible cuts so they didn’t have to film
everything in one.
Another film with high regards towards the editing side is Star Wars: A
New Hope. Before the editing happened, Star wars was an absolute mess,
it had tons of unnecessary scenes in orders that didn’t make sense. It
was originally made with Luke getting 3 additional scenes introducing
him in the midst of the beginning battle on board the rebel ship, those
scenes were completely pointless to the storyline, so the editors just
effectively cut them from the whole film itself. One of those scenes
that was cut out was where Luke meets up with his friend Biggs, this
would make sense because we see Biggs later at the rebel base when
they’re about to fight against the death star but it kind of works
better without that scene. Another one of the main things they changed
was the famous opening crawl, before it was edited it was about 3 times
the size of the released one with tons of information about the whole
backstory before A New Hope which the audience didn’t really need to
know. Due to all of the edits done to Star wars, it won the Academy
Award for Best Film Editing in 1977. So editing made Star wars into what
it is today.
A film well versed in editing techniques is the film “Dunkirk”, Dunkirk
is based on an actual event and is a non-linear three point perspective
which consists of the allies cornered on a beach in Dunkirk, Boats from
Ramsgate headed for Dunkirk to rescue the allies and three spitfires
bound for air support for the allies in Dunkirk. The main success of the
editing in Dunkirk is in the three perspectives itself. All of the
events of the allies on the beach happen in a week, the boat scenes
happen in a day and the air support happens in an hour. This was an
interesting part of the story because none of the scenes happen in
chronological order for example, on the boat perspective, the main
characters save a shivering man from the wreckage of another sunken ship
but then later on in the film in the “The mole” perspective we saw the
shivering man before the boat sank when he’s leaving the beach to go on
to the boat. Although the film can get quite confusing for a first time
viewer, it also tends to mix with your emotions. For example you see one
of the pilots hit the water early on and he seems to be in no danger but
later on when we see it from the boat’s perspective, the pilot is in
danger as he can’t escape the plane. All in all, this film was edited
for the audience to second guess everything they saw.
Film editing in the present day shows us that the editors main job is to
stick the story together befittingly but also can guarantee saving the
day even if the pre-production and production sucks entirely as well as
creating emotion in their editing through the characters and through the
story. All in all, the editor is what makes the movie groovy.
Though the future of cinema may be uncertain, one thing I do know is
that the magic of movies will increase ever more than it already is.