Development of editing styles

Elliot Jones

The Lumiere Brothers

"The cinema is an invention without a future." -- Louis Lumiere Auguste and Louis Lumiere are two of the most famous men in film. Theyre famous because of their film which was the first to be publicly screened in December 28th,1895. The film was only 10 short films lasting 20 minutes in total. The premiere of it was held in the basement lounge in the Grand Caf on the Boulevard des Capucines in Paris. Not only were they to have the first public showing of a film ever, but they also invented a device called the Cinematograph which was a camera, projector and printer all in one! You can see this style of filming in this video of L'Arrivee d'un train a La Ciotat by the Lumiere brothers in 1895. At this point the audience knew nothing about film and therefore were afraid when they saw this as they thought the train was actually going to hit them. The very earliest filmmakers were afraid to edit film shots together because they assumed that splicing together different shots of different things from different positions would simply confuse audiences.

"It is my arrogant belief that we have lost beauty." -- D.W Griffith

D.W Griffith

D W Griffith was best known for his controversial film called Birth of a nation, which is still thought as today as the most racist film ever made. This was because of the way he glorified the KKK group. But some people do believe that he can also be named the most important figure in American cinema. Growing up with a father that was a confederate army colonel and Civil War hero eventually changed his perception on life and the human existence.

Sergei Eisenstein
"Language is much closer to film than painting is." -- Sergei Eisenstein

The Russian Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (23 January 1898 11 February 1948), Eisenstein joined up with the Moscow Proletkult Theatre as a set designer and then director. His strong use of symbolism and metaphor in what he called intellectual montage sometimes could lose his audience. Eisenstein only made 7 films in his time, but these 7 films demonstrated how cinema could move beyond its 19th century state. October 1917 (Ten Days that Shook the World) is one of Eisenstein's most recognised films. It is a Soviet silent film. The editing together of shots of seemingly unconnected objects in order to create and encourage intellectual comparisons between them created a new way for people to see films.

"If you have a fucking clue and a passion, people will get out of your way because people want someone to follow. -- David Fincher

David Fincher

David Fincher was born in 1962 in Denver, Colorado, and was raised in Marin County, California. When he was 18 years old he went to work for John Korty at Korty Films in Mill Valley. David Fincher has many trademarks that he tends to use, for example; he uses Single Frame Inserts. His films often include numerous single frames that flash on the screen in the middle of a scene. An example of this is in Fight Club one of the films he directed where he uses this technique. 8 Images of Tyler Durden (Bradd Pitt) shoot up before you have even met him in the film. Also towards the end of the film an image of a penis is shot for no time whatsoever (more as a joke).

How editing has developed and changed over time.

Film first started out in the 1800's with no editing whatsoever. Nowadays we would look at these films and see them as almost home videos if we were to film them ourselves. In the 1920s film editing was all done manually, editors used to physically cut the film and then paste them back together using a splicer and threading machine known as the Moviola. Todays editing is all done digitally which allows us to be more versatile with the footage. In past films editors used to use positive film instead of using the original negative film so they could experiment with the footage as much as they wanted to without actually damaging the film as it could not be replaced once played with. Anything can be put in, and taken out of films nowadays whereas it used to be a one shoot deal. Because of this people are using high definition cartoon to enhance film. Such as The recent film Avatar, it is 60% cartoon and 40% actual filming.