Film Editing

 EDITING

Film editing is a creative and technical part of the post-production process of film making.lmEditing is the art and craft of cutting and assembling finished film.

Editing is performed in the post-production process.  The editing procedure is like any creative job. The editing process is view, re-view, re-view, review, and view again.

 This work is done by a film editor who helps complete the director's vision of the movie. The creative choices of an editor are usually a combination of what they think is best for the film and what the director (and producers) want for the finished project. 

The history of film editing starts in the early cinema days of the 1890s, the purpose of editing in film was simply a matter of putting frames together to create scenes 

 The Soviet Montage movement emerged in the 1910s and ‘20s, with filmmaker Lev Kuleshov pioneering his famous Kuleshov Experiment.

What does a film editor do:

• Cuts, splices(join), (re)arranges raw footage to create shots, scenes, and more.
• Makes choices that affect the film’s pace, atmosphere, narrative, music, etc.
• Works with the director and producers to make a final cut.

• A  shot is defined as a short, continuous single run of the film. 
• A scene is composed of numerous shots  and they are joined together. 
• A sequence is a number of scenes joined together.

Editors select sounds and images from all the film that has been shot and arrange them to make the movie. 

The film editor shaped the scene into its final form.  The editor works closely with the director during different phases of the editing process. 

  The editor begins with all the film footage.  (Footage is the raw, unedited material as it was originally filmed by the movie camera or recorded by a video camera, which usually must be edited to create a motion picture.) 

 The Process

Editing film used to literally be a cut-and-paste process, involving splicing and glue by hand. Splicing was the way film editors made their edits, working with copies of negatives and creating workprints. Later on came what were known as “flatbed” machines that made cutting up and splicing film strips much easier, quicker, and precise.

Decades later, digital film editing technology helped make the editing process easier than ever, removing the need to touch the film at all. 

SHOOTING IN THE ROUND. 

A rough cut is the first edited version of a film, which make include unfinished visual effects and a temporary musical score. Rough edit and assembly cut are also terms that can be used to refer to this initial cut. 

The first cut of a film, called a "rough cut," takes up to three months to complete. The final cut may take another month to finish. Sometimes the editor works alone, sometimes with the director

All of the main pieces have been assembled in sequential order, but it may not contain all of the finer details, such as finished CGI.  Rough cuts, and especially assembly cuts, tend to be far longer than the finished film.

  

 The sound designer and music composer join them for the final cut, adding sound effects and the musical score. When the editing is complete and the director and producer have approved the final version of the film, this final cut is sent to a negative matcher.

 Cuts and Transitions

CUT

If the camera moves from one shot to another directly without fading out that technique is called cut.  Editing often begins as soon as film has been shot.    Today most editors use computers or nonlinear digital editing systems to compile a film.

A “cut” in editing refers the splicing of two shots together. This cut is made by the film editor at the editing stage of a film. If the camera moves from one shot to another directly without fading out that technique is called cut.

 FADE IN  AND FADE OUT

Fade in  and fade out are opposite effects. Fade in is a shot that begins in total darkness and gradually lightens to full brightness. This is a type of transition is similar to “dissolve,”

DISSOLVE

Dissolve is a transition between two shots during which the first image gradually disappears while the second image gradually appears. 

Dissolve was used for capture the time difference between this shot and the next shot. In dissolve one image fade out gradually and another takes its place. The execution of a dissolve naturally takes a little longer than a cut.

     CROSS-CUTTING

Cross-cutting is cutting a scene between different sets of action that can be occurring simultaneously or at different times. Cross-cutting is used to build suspense or to show the relationship between the different sets of action.

WIPE

The third type of transition is the wipe. A wipe is a type of film transition where one shot replaces another by travelling from one side of the frame to the other or with a special shape.

JUMP CUT

A jump cut, which is a term that viewers often hear, is a cut in film editing in which two sequential shots of the same subject are taken from camera positions that vary only slightly. This type of edit gives the effect of jumping forward in time.

 

CONTINUITY EDITING

Continuity editing is a system of cutting to maintain a continuous and clear narrative action. Continuity editing relies upon matching screen direction, position, and temporal relations from shot to shot. The film supports the viewer’s assumption that space and time are contiguous between successive shots.  Logical coherence is achieved through continuity editing. 

 

Read More

Advertising Theory

 

Read More

THE EFFECTS OF THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF CAMERA MOVEMENTS

 

Read More

Film Techniques -Camera Shots-

 Film techniques is the term used to describe the ways that meaning is created in film.

Camera Shots

A camera shot is the amount of space that is seen in one shot or frame. Camera shots are used to demonstrate different aspects of a film's setting, characters and themes. As a result, camera shots are very important in shaping meaning in a film. 

 

An extreme long shot contains a large amount of landscape. It is often used at the beginning of a scene or a film to establish general location(setting). This is also known as an establishing shot.

 

A long shot contains landscape but gives the viewer a more specific idea of setting. A long shot may show the viewers the building where the action will take place.

 

A full shot contains a complete view of the characters. From this shot, viewers can take in the costumes of characters and may also help to demonstrate the relationships between characters.   A full shot displays the character from head to toe, without showing much of his surroundings.  A full shot distances the character from the viewer both physically and psychologically. They carry less emotional weight, and therefore they are not the best choice during emotive scenes.

A mid shot contains the characters or a character from the waist up. From this shot, viewers can see the characters' faces more clearly as well as their interaction with other characters. This is also known as a social shot.

 

Medium shots are the most common types of shots in the movies. The medium shot also encompasses two other famous shot types: The two-shot, with two actors facing the same screen direction, and the over-the-shoulder, showing a conversation in which the actors sit or stand across from each other. To record medium shots, a normal lens will suffice.

A close-up contains just one character's face. This enables viewers to understand the actor's emotions and also allows them to feel empathy for the character. In close-up shots, the subject dominates most of the frame, allowing very little observation on the locale of the scene. Close-ups are much more dramatic than long or medium shots. They are preferred when conveying someone’s emotion: This is also known as a personal shot.

 

An extreme close-up contains one part of a character's face or other object. This technique is quite common in horror films, particularly the example above. This type of shot creates an intense mood and provides interaction between the audience and the viewer. 

 

Insert shots. Insert shots are tight shots in which objects fill most of the frame. Even if inserts don’t reveal anything new, they are still welcome during the editing phase, as they smooth transitions between shots, often serving as a neutral shot that allows a breach of the 180-degree rule.

 

Read More

Camera angles

Difference between Camera shots and angles?

Camera shots are used to demonstrate different aspects of setting, themes and characters.

Camera angles are used to position the viewer so that they can understand the relationships between the characters. These are very important for shaping meaning in film as well as in other visual texts.

 

A bird's eye angle  is an angle that looks directly down upon a scene. This angle is often used as an establishing angle, along with an extreme long shot, to establish setting.

A high angle is a camera angle that looks down upon a subject. A character shot with a high angle will look vulnerable or small. These angles are often used to demonstrate to the audience a perspective of a particular character. The example above demonstrates to us the perspective or point of view of a vampire/politician/owner. As a viewer we can understand that the vampire feels powerful.

An eye-level angle puts the audience on an equal footing with the character/s. This is the most commonly used angle in most films as it allows the viewers to feel comfortable with the characters.

 

A low angle is a camera angle that looks up at a character. This is the opposite of a high angle and makes a character look more powerful. This can make the audience feel vulnerable and small by looking up at the character.

The low angle can also be used in combination with any camera shot type, but the camera must be positioned down low at an angle looking up at the subject. Generally, a low angle is used to make the subject within the frame seem large, imposing, daunting or more powerful. The extremity of the angle can be altered, often causing the desired effect to be more or less impactful. In this case, the low angle wide shot of these trees makes them look dominant, reinforcing the power of nature.

This can help the responder feel empathy if they are viewing the frame from another character's 

 A Dutch angle is used to demonstrate the confusion of a character. The example should confuse you.

 

What is the Dutch angle?

The Dutch angle, also known as a canted angle or Dutch tilt, is achieved when the camera is rotated diagonally. When two characters are having an intense conversation,  the camera was slightly canted during the scene to give audiences a feeling of unease.  The Dutch angle is most common in the horror genre

Read More

Feature films and Short films

 

 Differences between Feature films and Short films

The biggest and most obvious difference between short films and feature films is of course, the length. For a short film must be less than 40 minutes in duration.

Another point we need to consider is budget, a successful feature film will have a considerably larger budget than an short film. This is due to the need to pay the cast and crew, rent or purchase of equipment and props, land rent, studio rent, marketing and so much more.

Feature films are shown in cinemas to generate revenue whereas Short films are intended for dvd/Tv because they are made to convey a message, not make money usually. 

Also Short films usually have a lesser known cast and crew, the reason is there are more purposes, all of which can be seen in the purposes section.

Finally, when seeing a feature film people will expect to see an ending but in case of short film there is no need of ending if there was not enough time to tie up every loose end.

Documentary Films

Documentary Films strictly speaking, are non-fictional, "slice of life" factual works of art - and sometimes known as cinema verite. 

Documentary films have comprised a very broad and diverse category of films. Examples of documentary forms include the following:

• 'biographical' films about a living or dead person (Madonna, John Lennon, Muhammad Ali - , Stephen Hawking in A Brief History of Time (1992), or Glenn Gould)
• a well-known event the Holocaust, 
• a sociological or ethnographic examination following the lives of individuals over a period of time ( Steve James' Hoop Dreams (1994))
• a sports documentary such as Extreme (1999) such as in The Endless Summer (1966))

The Earliest Documentaries:

Originally, the earliest documentaries in the US and France were either short newsreels, instructional pictures, records of current events, or travelogues without any creative story-telling, narrative, or staging. 

The first attempts at film-making, by the Lumiere Brothers and others, were literal documentaries, e.g., a train entering a station, factory workers leaving a plant, etc.

The first official documentary or non-fiction narrative film was Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North (1922), an ethnographic look at the harsh life of Canadian Inuit Eskimos living in the Arctic, Flaherty, often regarded as the "Father of the Documentary Film," also made the film Moana in1926.

Rock Concert/Music-Related Documentaries:

Michael Wadleigh's Woodstock - 3 Days of Peace & Music (1970) provided a definitive look at the three-day counter-cultural rock concert held in upper-state NY in 1969 - it was the Academy Award winning documentary film of its year

Biographical Documentary Films:

        The Oscar-winning documentary by Richard Kaplan, The Eleanor Roosevelt Story (1965), was a tribute to one of the most influential First Ladies in US history.  Bruce Weber's Let's Get Lost (1988) was a biographical account of the life of jazz trumpeter 

   

  Documentaries of The War Years:
Documentaries during the Great War were often propagandistic. Innovative German film-maker Leni Riefenstahl's pioneering masterwork epic Triumph of the Will in 1935, Germany. was explicitly propagandistic yet historical horrifying documentation of the Nazi Party Congress rally in Nuremberg in 1934. It was a revolutionary film combining superb cinematography and editing of Third Reich propaganda. She also documented the 1936 Berlin Olympics in the stunning film Olympia (1938, Germ.) - with graceful and beautiful images of 'Aryan' athletes in competition.

 To respond to the Nazi propaganda, Frank Capra was commissioned by the US War Department to direct seven films in a Why We Fight (1943) series of narrated WWII newsreel-style films.

Read More