Contextual Studdies: Editing

Editing defenition: The assembly of visual material in to sequences.

Its pupose is to construct narative (both linier and non-linier)

It is aslo used to manipulate time (condense, lengthen, flashback, flash foward).

It juxtapositions ideas and concepts. 

Most editing is "invisible editing" and designed to be non conciouse/noticable and cuts where the action naturally requires them

Four Key Elements Of Editing

Spatial-relationship between diferent spaces and the editors manipulation of tehm e.g. cross cutting.

Temporal-manipulation of time within the film in relation to order, duration and frequency, e.g. montages, dissolves, wipes, and fades. 

Rhythmic-manipulation of duration of the shots: accents, beats and the tempo, e.g. action and suspense scenes, jump cuts.

Graphic-the relationship between pictorial qualities of shots or scenes e.g. graphics match cuts.

Why Editing Is Important

Creates strong visual naratives from simple script descriptions or unedited rushes.

The most creative aspect of filmmaking

A good editor can make mediocre shots work; a mediocre editor can ruin (or ignore) good shots

Shooting Ratios have an impact on editing (film is 10:1, documentries 60/100:1)

Editing can be used to convey particular messages and ideoligies. By including shots from certain perspectives or biast towards objects veiws and colours you can easilly promote beleifs in an audiences through bias'.

Eisenstein argues that montage, especially intellectual montage, is an alternitve to continuity editing.

"Montage is conflict" (dialectical) where new ideas emerge from conflict in a montage sequence.

Five Principles Of Soviet Montgae (an alternative aproach to editing:

Metric- editing which follows a specific tempo (based purly on frame count), cutting to the next shot regardless of action in the frame.

Rhythmic- similar to metric but allows for visual continuity from edit to edit.

Tonal- uses emotional meaning of the shot e.g. sleeping babies to denote calm.

Overtonal/Associative- a fusion of the above three.

Evidentiary Editing

In evidentiary editing, expositional images "illustrate, illuminate, evoke, or act in counterpart" to what is happening.

In dynamic editing, concepts of matching and continuity rarely apply. Shots are ordered by meaning but not neccesarilly by their relationship to one another in time or space.