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IB Film Image Editing Notes
IB Film Image Editing Notes
● Transitions
○ Cut: graphical & spatial coherence
○ Wipe: stylistic transitions, usually to indicate jump fwd in time, space, & location
○ Fade to black: often used to suggest lengthy passage in time, or in moments of
drama to indicate smthn significant has happened
○ Dissolve: fade b/n 2 shots, can be used to show briefer passage of time than ^ or
suggest 2 events happening at same time
■ Can show interconnectedness of 2 events
○ Graphic match: 2 shots graphically composed in same manner
○ Match on action: when movements or placement of objects match over edit (e.g.
cut to next shot when the character opens the door)
● Editing decided by how long you wanna give an emotion
Montage
● From French word “monter”, meaning to assemble
● Came from Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, student of
the Kuleshov workshop
● Marxist dialectic collides w/
● Combining shots that are depictive — single in meaning,
neutral in content — into intellectual contexts & series
● All montage = editing, but not all editing is a form of True
Montage
● Einstein’s 5 methods:
○ Metric: cutting according to exact measurement &
length, regardless of content — can be used to
create sense of chaos & tension when cut into rly short shots
○ Rhythmic montage: cutting according to shots, concerning rhythm of action in
shot
○ Tonal: cutting according to emotional tone of the piece — visual or aural (audio)
characteristics such as lighting, shadows, & shapes in the frame; creates Marxist
dialectics
○ Overtonal: cutting according to the various tones & overtones of the shots —
combines metric, rhythmic, & tonal montage: essentially how whole sequences
play against each other
○ Intellectual/ideological: cutting according to the shots’ relationships to an
intellectual or abstract concept by creating relationships b/n opposing visual
elements
● Kuleshov effect: how 2 clips placed together creates meaning & evokes an emotional
response from the audience (intellectual editing)
● Kuleshov experiment: filmed a man w/ a neutral face & intercut it w/ various objects &
showed it to audience
○ When the man looked at soup the audience thought he was hungry
○ When he looked at a dead child they thought he was struck w/ grief
○ When he looked at a woman they thought he was overcome by lust
Films are made up of sequences. Sequences are made up of scenes. And scenes are made up of shots.
○ e.g. in Scorsese film: closes in on character to make him look tiny, anonymous, &
insignificant, but then opens out to show large police HQ to show the power that
has now been granted to him - the world has literally been opened to him
● 10:24 - Wipe: old-fashioned, most commonly seen in SW, can be to any direction
● 12:16 - Passing/mass: moving character or object to transition to next scene
○ Or has cam itself move past object
○ Momentum b/n scenes don’t skip a beat
○ Can be used to add hyper-stylized aesthetic
○ Mask in editing
● 13:19 - Whip Pan: quick horizontal cam rotation that blurs image
○ Can be used mid scene or as transition b/n scenes
○ Advantageous to maintain momentum
● 14:06 - Smash Cut: sharp, abrupt cut from 1 scene to the other using high contrast in
visual & audio
○ Can be b/n quiet & loud or chaotic & still
○ Typically used to shock or jolt audience, esp good in horror/thriller films
○ Very common application: when a character startles from a dream
○ Punctuating b/n v/ different scenes can be used for comedic effect
● 16:02 - J-Cut / L-cut:
○ J-cut: when audio of next scene precedes the visual, when audience hears next
audio before seeing it
■ Commonly used in dialogue
■ Can be used in flashbacks to bridge to the past
○ L-cut: the audio from a preceding scene carries over to a preceding scene
■ Often used in narration
○ Power of these 2 transitions: how they can create new context using sound &
image
● 18:11 - Honorable Mentions:
○ Push
○ Zoom in/out
○ Barrel roll
Resolutions
● Typical one today: 1080p (full HD)
● Began w/ 480i (too small)
● HD made resolution better but also standardized widescreen - closer to what our eyes
see
● 720p forgotten b/c came out at same time 1080i & 1080p did
● 4k: named as marketing technique to sound more epic
○ 3840 x 2160
○ 2x width & height of 1080p
● Always render in H.264 - splits frames into blocks