The purpose of editing

1. What is it?
Editing

2. What is editing
Video editing is the compiling, cutting and altering of raw footage to create a
narrative and allow for each and every shot, scene and moment in a video to
create the feeling that the director or editor intends you to feel.
Editors have a lot of power, Editors in comedy are entirely responsible for the
timing of the jokes, editors in actions movies make sure every hit has impact
and power behind it, and essentially write the rhythm of the fight. Editors take
the raw unchanged footage and turn it into the final product we see in cinemas,
at home, and on our TV every day.

3. The principles of Editing
Editing, much like any art, has rules, but much like any art,
its rules can be broken for the sake of effect and impact,
keep that in mind

4. Storyline and narrative
• Storyline is the story in its linear order, AKA in the order the events shown in
the movie actually happened, while narrative is the story in the order it is
shown to the audience, Aka how the story is told. In a movie like memento,
the movie actually shows the audience the Storyline backward, Therefore the
narrative of the movie is backward, as that’s how we see it, while the storyline
is in normal order, as that is how it actually happened.

5. Types of Storyline and Narrative
Linear Narrative: where the events of the story are told in
order of their happening. One example of this is the movie
Birdman. That is pretty much shown in real time
Non-Linear narrative: Story is not told in the order it took
place, one example of this is the non linear Pulp Fiction
Open-ended storyline: A cliff-hanger or incomplete end,
mostly found in movies confirmed to have sequels or TV
shows with multiple episodes. An example of this Lord Of
The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring, witch ends rather
bleakly, and leaves non-readers to wonder what happens
next
Closed storyline: Story is resolved at the end, and example
of this is Star wars episode 6, return of the Jedi, that
resolves the story tightly in a bow.

6. Coherence
One of editing’s largest uses is making sure that the video is cut together in a
way that makes sense to the viewer , and pieces the scenes and shots together
in such a way that it feels natural and coherent. Like the other rules, this can
be broken to give a feeling of unease, and incoherent and jarring shots can be
used in order to make the audience feel uncomfortable. An example of when
the rule of coherence is broken is in the movie is the Omaha beach scene from
“saving private Ryan”

7. In this scene we see how editing can be used to make the video more coherent
and better to watch, in one shot, Jackie is kicked across the room onto a table,
when the shot cuts, he is in the same position on the screen, and we do not
have to move our eyes unnaturally to remain focused. This principle is used
again later in the scene, where Jackie spins sideways, it shows him starting at
the right side of the screen, move towards the centre, and when he hits the
centre the camera cuts and Jackie finished the spin, he is still in the centre of
the screen, but the angle has changed, meaning our eyes don’t have to move
as much.

8. Combination of shots
• a combination of shots are used to draw in the viewer in a way that is
comfortable to the eye. Generally going from a long shot to an extreme close
up is jarring to a viewer, but going from a long shot, to a medium shot, to a
close up, is a much better way, letting our eyes adjust to each new shot.
Once again this rule can be broken for effect, one example for this is in the
final scene of the good, the bad and the ugly, where the three characters are
all in extreme close up, until the shots are fired and it goes to a long shot,
surprising the viewer and creating an effect of shock

9. Creating pace 1
When editing, its important to make sure you time the cut perfectly. This is
especially prevalent in music videos, or movies and TV shows with music
attached. If the cuts don’t match the beat of the music, it creates a dissonance
between the audio and the visuals. We can see this most obviously in music
videos, where cutting to the beat is essential. One examples of this is the
White Stripes “Hardest button to button”, where there is a cut on literally every
beat the give the illusion that the group is moving.
https://www. youtube. com/watch?v=K4dx42YzQCE

10. Creating pace 2
Creating pace can also refer too the idea that the speed of the cuts can be used
to determine the pace of the scene and the mood the director wants you to feel.
In an fight scene, the speed of the cuts would be faster than that of a dinner
date. In this comparison, we see the shots that compose ten seconds of two
scenes, we can see in the battle scene, there are far more shots in the ten
seconds than the ten second of the peaceful scene of Aragon's crowning

11. 180 degree rule
• The 180° rule is a cinematography guideline that states that two characters in a scene
should maintain the same left/right relationship to one another. If the shot is shown
changing sides, or a new establishing shot is made is the only time the characters should
change sides, either that, or the possibility of purposely breaking the rule to unease the
viewer. We can see in the example below that no matter what, Hans is on the left ,and
Perrier is always on the right

12. Editing techniques

13. Continuity editing
• Continuity editing is
making sure that the
shots transition from
one to another, and the
set, actors and props
all stay the same from
shot to shot. When the
continuity manager
makes a mistake, it
causes a continuity
error, where the shot
does not match the
timeline or parts from
the same episode or
movie.

14. Parallel editing
• Parallel editing is the technique of having two or
more scenes running alongside each other, and
cutting between them. These don’t nesseserly
need to be happening at the same time, but
oftentimes they do. This technique is often used to
show juxtaposition between two events, or
compare them in some way. In this scene from the
infamous but nevertheless impressive for the time
movie, “birth of a nation”, we see John Wilkes
booth assassinating President Lincoln, we can see
that the scene switches between the mirth of the
play, and Booth getting ready to assassinate, the
bleakness of Booths scene contrasts with it.

15. Cutaway
• A cutaway is when you cut away from the
main subject to show other things
happening around it. This is used often
to show the publics, or specific
characters reaction to the events in the
main subject. We see this often in sports
movies, on the left we see the mighty
ducks, the main characters are forming a
flying V, and we see how the crowd
reacts as it switches between the main
subject and surroundings.

16. Jump cut
A jump cut is the act of reducing a long take by editing out one or more sections, causing it to jump from
section to section, oftentimes jarringly. In this scene from taken 3, we see that to add excitement to the
otherwise boring scene of climbing a fence, the director cut out several shots from the scene to speed it
up and create more tension.

17. Match cut
A match cut is having a scene transition when the person in the scene is In a
similar position or action than the last, it will general dissolve or fade between
the two scenes so the two similar objects fade into each other. If it is with
object its called the graphic match cut. It shows a link between the two
characters or objects or the contents of the two scenes. An example of perhaps
the earliest match cut is in the movie Citizen Kane, where throughout the
entirety of the intro, the candle in the window remains in the same place in the
frame, no matter how manty cuts are made

18. Shot-Reverse Shot
• When two characters are conversing, or reacting to each other, the camera
cuts between the two subjects as they talk or react in sequence, when facing
each other this creates a shot reverse shot, where the camera does a shot,
faces 180 degrees around and does another one. An example of this is in
The Hunger Games, we see Peta and Katniss talking to one another, and the
camera does a shot reverse shot.

19. Match on Action
Match on action is the act of editing so that when an actor performs an action,
the action from one shot continues on the other shot, making them seem like
one continuous action. It was one of the first editing techniques to be named
and understood, as it is a good way to cover up cuts and make them less
obvious. We see an example in friends, where Chandler is closing a door, and
the shot changes while he is making the motion of closing the door, switching to
the other side

20. Fast Motion
Fast motion is speeding up how fast the frames of the film are seen, so as to
make the film move faster. This is sometimes done to quickly go through an
event that would otherwise take a long time to show, or too show something
happening over the span of a long time if needed. We see here an early
example, with the 1988 film “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen”, where in
the colourful cast of characters, a man with superhuman speed is included, to
show the effect of him running, they simply filmed him run and sped it up.

21. Slow Motion
Slow motion is when Filmmakers use special cameras that allow video to be shot
at a higher framerate, meaning they can show the subject of their film at a slower
speed without skipping frames. Slow Motion now is mostly done via CGI, where
they simply slow the movements of a model instead of filming a slower reality, but
some films do in fact use real slow motion to achieve a desired effect, slow
motion can be used to put emphasis on a specific object or action. One example
of a practical Slow motion is the famous “this is Sparta” scene from the movie
300, we can see Leonidas kick the envoy down the pit, and it happens in slow
motion. https://www. youtube. com/watch?v=-qR0Uke2XNI

22. Superimposition
Superimposition is when the editor overlays a semi-transparent image onto the
shot, giving the effect that the two are running at the same time, and showing
multiple things at once. In this example, rocky IV, we can see Rocky fighting
Ivan Drago, while the crowed is superimposed onto the fight so we can see
their reaction, and then the two are shown being hit, each hit superimposed
onto the next.

23. Ellipsis
Ellipsis is when a editor will cut out the boring bits of a scene, showing that time
has passed in order to keep it sharp and concise and to avoid showing parts of
the movie the editor thinks that we would not want to see, every time a cut
progresses through time as well as space it is an Ellipsis. We see an example
here in Pulp Fiction, in the Scene where Vincent takes a shot of heroin, it goes
through the process but just shows the important bits without the “boring” bits
in-between.

24. Transitions

25. Dissolve
A dissolve is the gradual transition from one image to another, where one
image gets slowly taken over by another, as if the other image was behind it,
and it was slowly getting more transparent. This was done often in the early
years of editing as it was an easy way to do a gradual transition, and is now
often done combined with Match cuts to show the match cut in a more obvious
way. An example of a dissolve is in “Orson Welles's” Citizen Kane. We see
here how the door transitions into a newspaper.

26. Wipe
A wipe is when one shot takes over another by traveling from one side of the
frame to another, or by getting larger in a certain shape and taking over the
other scene. There are many types of wipe, but the connecting idea is that one
scene “takes over” the other through wiping onto the screen.

27. Fade In/Fade Out
A Technique sometimes used to show the passage of time within the movie,
fade in/fade out is where the a shot or scene fades to black, before a new one
fades in slowly from the black. We can see here at the end of Harry Potter and
the Half Blood Prince, that at the ending, the three hero's stand stationary and
the scene fades to black, this is a fade out. The opposite (aka a scene fading in
from black) would be a fade in.

28. History of editing

29. When film was an early medium, the pioneers
of film such as the Lumiere brothers simply
had a single roll of film, and they focused the
camera on something that interested them,
and filming it until the film ran out, or they got
bored, it was done in a single take and rarely
had a story or structure, an example of this
type of early film Is too the left, some of the
Lumiere brothers earliest works, “workers
leaving the Lumiere factory” . Needless to say
once the novelty of film wore off, people like
the Lumiere brothers assumed the medium
would die. But luckily, a new form of film came
out that saved the entire medium

30. Western editing was changed forever when
Edward. S. Porter, an American director,
started using the technique of cutting,
something that had already existed
beforehand with films such as Robart. W.
Pauls “come along do”, widely credited as
the first edit in film. Where as Pauls simply
had one cut, Porter was the first to use
multiple reels and cut them together in
order to create a narrative and create
feelings within the audience, him and D. W
Griffith are usually credited as being the
creators of Hollywood and the narrative
film. Porters earliest edits can be found in
“life of an American fireman (1901), but his
breakthrough film was “the great train
robbery” (1903), as it had many cuts and
even some close ups.

31. First Analogue editing technology
• When Analogue editing just started, most of the film reel
was hand cut, holding it up to the sunlight so they could
see the cells, and editors where considered labourers, in
the same way cleaners were. But as people realized their
importance, they received new equipment to help edit.
The earliest film editing machines included the Movila, the
machine shown to the left, it allowed editors to look at
individual cells and cut when they wanted with ease. Due
to this the editing process sped up a little bit and cuts
came out cleaner and more precise.

32. Digital editing
Despite the existence of computer editing technology's, analogue editing did
not go out of fashion until 1999. With one of the earliest films to have computer
editing being the now infamous “star wars episode I”. Computer editing allowed
easier access to digital effects such as green screen and CGI. As well as
making it easier for the editors to experiment without fear of making changes
irreversible, and giving them options never available to editors beforehand. ,
Due to the invention of digital storage, we no longer have to use film reel to
store videos, and can simply use hard drives.

33. Amateur editing
Back in the day, Film editing was hardly an amateur art, it was much harder to
cut together film footage when you didn't have the right equipment or didn’t
know what you were doing, not to mention that the cost of both good cameras
and film reel. Now the invention of digital editing allows pretty much anyone to
pick it up and try to get good at it. Almost every phone platform comes with an
editing software, and pretty much every phone now records in HD, a higher
quality than even the most beautiful movies of the pre-digital age, meaning that
it is much easier for amateurs to create movies with cheap phone or computer
editing software and cheap cameras, as well as digital video allowing for them
to store everything they need on the computer. There are obviously downsides
to using armature equipment such as smartphones, including the lack of depth
of field, usually lower resolution, and often shaky cameras