1. Zoe Mack
The History of Editing
There are many editing techniques that have been used throughout history and I will
be explaining them in this piece as well as informing you about the history of editing.
I will be talking about the very first forms of editing and special effects as well as
comparing the works of the Lumiere Brothers and George Melies, explaining Murch's
Rule of 6, and much more.
One of the very first forms of moving picture was achieved using the Kinetoscope
which was invented but Edison in 1888. This was static images shown at a fast frame
rate and viewed through a viewing hole. This tricked the eye of the viewer and gave
the illusion of movement. A magnifying lense in the peephole enabled the viewer to
see the film that was being moved as if it was a conveyor belt to show each individual
still image at the fast frame rate required to provide the illusion of movement. This is
quite alike to how stop motion works.
The Lumiere Brothers used a device called the Cinematograph, a camera and
projector in one, which they did not invent but own the patent to, to release the first
ever moving picture in 1895. This was a 49 second clip of The Arrival of a Train at La
Ciotat Station, which is its name. When people watched the clip they panicked
because they thought the train was coming out of the screen which really explains
how amazing this technology was at the time.Unlike the Kinetoscope, the
Cinematograph enabled multiple people to view the clip at the same time so people
could enjoy it together. The brothers didn’t figure out how to use stop the camera in
the middle for filming which meant that their work was mostly documentation.
Le Squelette joyeux (1897) is short clip of a dancing skeleton by the Lumiere
Brothers. This clip is 40 seconds long and features a short loop at the end. This loop
is an effective way of lengthening the clip but is also not too long so it doesn't bore
the audience or make the clip overly repetitive. Personally i think that this is a good
thing because the way that the loop is used adds to the video.
The camera is static because it would have been fixed on a pedestal which means
that there was no way for the Brothers to tell the story in the ways we do in our time
using different camera shots and angles. As well as this they didn’t have zoom lenses
or use depth of field which means that the only way that they could a story across to
the audience was by using the subject and its movement as well as using lighting.
There isn’t really a story to this clip however it does show how entertaining simple
things can be. I see the video as more of a documentary or demonstration of how
something as simple as a skeleton can be entertaining.
George Melies was a french magician and film maker. He is credited as the
grandfather of special effects because he used elaborate sets, trap doors and smoke as

2. Zoe Mack
well as stop tricks to make his work more entertaining. A stop trick is when the
camera is stopped and then restarted tocreate a seamless edit.
The One Man Band is a 1 minute 41 second short story about a one man band. This
clip features one person (Melies himself) as every member of the seven member band
which would have been done by filming one person and then stopping the film. After
Melies swapped props and sat back in the same place the film would have been
rewound and filmed over the top from the beginning again. This created the effect of
multiple versions of the same person as different characters. Also the fact that the
new version stands up from the chair of the version before it makes it seem as if the
new version is a ghost of the one before it. I think that this is an amazing example of
the his work and definitely lives up to Melies’ reputation as the Grandfather of
Special Effects.
However, despite how good Melies was at special effects, he didn’t have zoom lenses
and couldn't move his camera just like the Lumiere Brothers. This means that his
story really had to be told through use of movement by exaggerating every little thing
he did. Personally I think that the way Melies acted his part makes up for the fact
that the camera couldn't be moved and really gets across an enjoyable story just like a
theatre production.
Some more “grandfathers” of the cinematic world are Charlie Chaplin, Fritz Lang and
Griffiths. These men are known as the grandfather of comedy, the grandfather of
drama and the grandfather of science fiction respectively. They were all makers of
silent films and the first users of the splicer. The splicer enabled them to have a more
precise and allowed them to use a variety of camera shots. Splicing is when you cut
up pieces of film out and stick them back together to replace scenes the went wrong
on the original film roll or to add different camera angles and is an early form of the
cut.
D.W Griffiths, the grandfather of drama, made a film called ‘The Birth of a Nation’
which was released in 1915. It told the story of the KKK in the civil war and was
outwardly racist with its portrayal of african-americans. It showed the KKK as a
positive role in society to the point where the film caused a of the KKK. This was the
first influence media had on the people. The film featured the first use of the
establishing shot, which is a shot that shows the setting and sets the scene. Griffiths
used lots of cuts but used other edits such as fades to black. As well as the racist
portrayal of african-americans, Griffiths used blacked up white people to play the
coloured characters because at the time they weren’t allowed to use people of colour
in cinema and they weren’t even allowed into the cinema either. As well as this,
Griffiths used cross cutting and panning shots along with sound. The use of sound
enabled the film to be more interesting and allowed the audience to feel like they
were part of what was happening on screen.

3. Zoe Mack
Fritz Lang, the grandfather of sci-fi , was the first person to produce a big budget
film. The film took many years tocomplete and used a big set and multiple locations.
Hundreds of extras were used in the making of the film and Lang made them stand
in ice cold water to help them act like they were freezing. The film itself looked at
differences of social class and was set in a dystopian time which was representative of
post world war one Germany when industrialisation had increased. The set design
was very industrial and the acting was choreographed. Lang got his influence for this
from showgirls. The strong narrative of the film portrayed women as inferior to men
which was the view of the time. Lang was the first to use techniques such as dissolves
and painting on film which was when the effect was literally painted onto the film
over the top of what was already there. This was extremely impressive for the time
because no-one else had even thought about using film in this way.
Charlie Chaplin, the grandfather of comedy, was not just an actor but a composer,
director and editor. He didn’t use a script which meant he was a pain to work with
because everything was improvised. This meant that his films took a long time to
complete because he would send his cast away for days on end whilst he thought of
new ideas. He is cited being the first ‘amuter’ film maker who took full responcibility
for each of his productions. His short film ‘The Kid’ was released in 1921 and featured
his trademark vignette, which is a circular fade. His humor didn’t come from
bumping into a tree but from apologizing to it and in each of his films you will notice
that the same character keeps turning up. Chaplin’s films are not only recognisable
by the characters and humor but also by his trademark edit; the vignette. This
technique is a circular fade to black which starts at the edges of the screen and travels
inwards. The vignette is pretty much the only editing technique that he used but it
was very effective in his work.
Editing advanced through to the golden age which featured the beginning of
Technicolour. Technicolour was used during the 1930’s and 40’s and required
enormous cameras because of the different filters used to create the technicolour
effect. The cameras feature a beam splitter that split the image so it went through a
red filter on one side and a green filter on the other. This exposed two identical
frames simultaneously onto a single piece of black and white film. Technicolour was
characterised by highly saturated colours and was famously used in The Wizard of
Oz.
There are many different purposes of editing techniques and Murch explains them in
his rule of six. The rule of six is the percentages of each purposes of editing that
Murch believes are proportionate to each and every film, or there abouts. These six
rules are as follows: Emotion, continuity/story, rhythm, eyetrace, the two
dimensional plane if screen/180 degree rule and the three dimensional plane of
screen/360 degree rule.

4. Zoe Mack
Rhythm is the third rule and should make up 10% of the edits in a film or video. This
is because part of rhythm is speed which shows people how time passes. If you don’t
have a rhythm within your film or video the shots and story could seem disjointed or
not fit together well.
After rhythm comes Eyetrace. This is editing so that the audiences eyes follow the
action smoothly which means that, if action is happening on one side of the screen,
you make sure that the action in the next shot is starting in the same place. Without
eyetrace the footage can seem disjointed and
According to Murch emotion should be the reason for 51% of the edits in a film or
video. This means edits that show the emotions of the characters are most important.
I agree with Murch because if you don’t include the bits that show how the characters
are feeling you won’t really understand the reasons behind their actions or the plot in
general.
Continuity/story edits should be 23% of the edits in a film or video which means that
they are the second most important type of edits. This is because to enjoy a film or
video you need to be able to understand it. If you don't have the edits that explain the
story then the audience will be confused and won’t enjoy it.
Rhythm is the third rule and should make up 10% of the edits in a film or video. This
is because part of rhythm is speed which shows people how time passes. If you don’t
have a rhythm within your film or video the shots and story could seem disjointed or
not fit together well.
After rhythm comes Eyetrace. This is editing so that the audiences eyes follow the
action smoothly which means that, if action is happening on one side of the screen,
you make sure that the action in the next shot is starting in the same place. Without
eyetrace the footage can seem disjointed and the audience will get confused.
Murch believes that the 180 degree rule should make up 5% of the edits and the 360
degree rule should make up 4%. This isn’t too important but Murch has said in his
book that you should take time to understand these rules before you think about
breaking them to avoid a negative effect on the audience.
Transitions are another category that edits come under. They are any technique
which moves from one shot to the next such as wipes, fades and dissolves. However
cuts are not part of this category because they are the absence of a transition between
shots. Cuts are when clips are edited with no transition in-between them to add a fast
pace to a scene and you can see examples of these in pretty much every film or
program. Jump cuts are cuts in which two clips are edited together without the
events in-between the shots being shown. For example the clip at 1:32 in this video
shows excellent examples of jump cuts because they show progressions in stories
without all the details being shown.
A cut-away is where the scene is edited with the main subject of the scene in shot and
then it cuts to a different shot to highlight something that is happening behind or
next to the subject and then it cuts back to the main subject for the next shot. In this
clip of the film Divergent there are lots of cut-aways toshow the reactions of the

5. Zoe Mack
other characters.It starts with an establishing shot of the kifes impacting on the
targets and then shows the iniciates throwing the knives. This is the main subject at
the beginning of the scene so when, at 0:08, the scene cuts to a shot of an instructor
it would be an example of a cut-away. This is because the instructor is not the main
subject of the scene at this moment in time but he is watching the initiates progress.
Therefor the cut-away is used to add more detail into the beginning of the scene and,
in this example, would fit under the category ‘emotion’ in Murch’s rule of six.
Throughout the scene there are multiple other examples of cut-aways and at the end
of the scene there is a conversation between Tris and Four which is an amazing
example of Shot-reverse-shot.
Shot-reverse-shot is where the camera changes between the twosubjects. In this clip
at 3:02 the shots cut between Tris and Four during their conversation to show the
reactions and feelings of the two characters towards what the other one was saying.
This is also used to highlight the fact that they are the only two in the conversation
and the only two that it matters to. In relation to Murch’s rule of six this edit would
also be under the category of ‘emotion’ because it shows the reactions of the
characters to what each of them were saying.
POV is a clip or film shot in the point of view of a character. Multiple POV is shooting
in the points of view of multiple characters. Chronicle is filmed in POV using a
camcorder owned by one of the characters and it switches point of view when
different characters hold the camera. This technique can be used to show emotion
and story and really add to the audience's understanding of what the characters are
feeling and what's going wrong.
Parallel editing creates perception of multiple things happening at the same time and
is used to show the story of what's happening throughout the scene in multiple
places. This scene in Inception is an example of parallel editing as well as cross
cutting. Cross Cutting here the shot changes between different settings in order to get
to one outcome and ties into parallel editing really well in this scene. This edit is used
to show the story and make sure that the audience isn’t confused about what's going
on.
The opening sequence of Hot Fuzz is an example of a montage and also has an
example of seamless editing. This clip is 2 minutes and 19 seconds long and clearly
shows how montages are used to show the passing of time in a few minutes. The
opening sequence tells the story of how the main character Nicholas Angel got his
qualifications, which in real life would have taken years, condensed into just over two
minutes. You will see an example of seamless editing at 1:01 where Nicholas Angel
shows his police badge to the camera, which is a close up shot, and then it cuts to a
shot of his feet walking through the station. This is seamless editing because you
can’t tell where the cut it between the two shot as the badge is in front of the camera
in the same position and then is moved out of the way for the shot of the feet. The

6. Zoe Mack
montage was used, not only to show the story but to show the progression of time
until the start of the main plot without being too long and boring the audience.
180-degree rule is when you have keep the camera within a 180 degree radius of the
subject. This is important because the audience needs to understand where
everything in the scene is or comes from. Sticking to the 180 degree rule means that
there are no objects or people appearing out of nowhere and confusing the audience.
A dissolve is when one shot fades into the next and a fade is when the picture slowly
disappears. The Wizard of Oz’s opening credits is an excellent example of dissolves
and features a fade to black. These edits are used as transitions during the credits.
Editing Rhythm is the pace of the edits. In some cases, such as action scenes, the
edits are quite fast paced and reflect the pace of the action and story within the scene.
However, in some cases, the opposite pace is used to create tension or to convey a
story in a clearer way. You can use dissolves and fades to show a slow pace or a slow
passing of time whereas cuts and montages are examples of fast paced edits.
Youtube Rewind 2015 Contains loads of examples of cuts and wipes which are used
as transitions between shots. Wipes are where the previous scene is pushed out of
frame to make way for the other shot and are used throughout this video as a
transition. There are also lots of examples of seamless editing, such as at 2:46,
because you can’t find a cut and therefor it’s hard to tell where the edit actually is
which creates the seamless effect. The editing rhythm in this video quite fast paced
and cut to the beat such as the section at 0:59 where the peoples clothes change each
time there is a noticeable sound in the song, such as a clap or sound effect. Cutting to
the beat is a technique that is used a lot in music videos or videos made to music
because makes it seem like the video is in sync with the music, which is why it was
used in this clip. As well as editing rhythm there is an example of shot-reverse-shot at
3:16 showing two sides of a dance battle and their reactions to each other.
Throughout the process of writing this I found that, compared to the days of silent
films or the golden era, modern hollywood films use a wider variety of editing
techniques but that’s not necessarily a good thing. I think that, in some cases, the
uses of editing techniques and special effects have taken away from stories. For
example, I believe that Iron Man 3 could have been a lot better if it didn’t include so
much mindless violence. I agree that it looks cool, however I feel like it was overdone
and took focus away from the story.
If you compare Iron Man 3 to The Wizard of Oz then you will find that you remember
The Wizard of Oz for the story and use of simple edits as well as the change from
black and white to technicolour. When watching Iron Man 3 all I took away from it
was that Stark got rid of some shrapnel from his chest and the president almost died.
I found that the use of special effects in The Wizard of Oz was much more effective

7. Zoe Mack
because it was done in such a simple manner that it didn’t take away from the story.
However, if I compare Les Miserable to The Wizard of Oz, I find it very hard topick a
favourite because the special effects used in Les Miserable don’t take away from the
story they just make the picture more realistic.
In conclusion there are many different editing techniques used by different people
throughout the ages but each of them are as important as the others because of the
purposes and used they have. I believe that modern directors and filmmakers need to
be careful with the amount of special effects they use and make sure they don't take
away from the story. As well as this, Murch’s rule of six is an important part of
editing and shouldn’t be ignored in modern filmmaking, unless you want to confuse
your audience.