Editing Lessons 1 -3

Editing is arguably the most important aspect of filmmaking as it is when a film in constructed. Until a film is edited it remains a series of unconnected shots with no particular meanings. By combining two or more shots directors are able to communicate an idea or a concept in a short space of time.

Lesson 1,2 & 3

Slow Paced Editing - Drive

Dynamic Editing - The Bourne Identity

Shot Reverse Shot

Battleship Potemkin - The birth of montage editing

To fully appreciate just how significant Battleship Potemkin was you should watch ‘The Great Train Robbery’ from 1902. Widely considered to be the first ‘narrative feature film’ TGR uses basic editing techniques and is a good example of how editing was used in early cinema.

Very few shots are used and the camera is used to simply capture the images, not add meaning or be a part of the storytelling mechanism. It is almost as if we are watching a play, rather than a film.

Now watch Battleship Potemkin again and make notes on just how different these forms of editing are. Potemkin introduced the concept that the camera is an ACTIVE part of the story telling and can be used to create meaning in its own right.

For example – we see a shot of a woman clapping, then a close up of a gun barrel, and then cut back to the woman character looking afraid. These shots do not have any inherent connection and seem totally random. By when they are quickly shown one after the other the audience make their own connections and identify they meaning – the woman is afraid of the gun.

Alfred Hitchcock explains montage editing:

You must remember to put historical examples in to context!

This form of editing is the norm for modern film audiences but at the time it was a revolutionary change – the impact of which is arguably greater than the introduction of sound and colour.

 

'Montage'

An editing technique that allows directors to convey a lot of information in a short space of time. Montage can also be used to link different scenes / actions / plot lines that would have otherwise been disconnected.

During the Rocky IV Montage we see how Rocky's natural training method is just as effective as the technologically advanced of Russian, Ivan Drago. The montage also informs us both characters are using similar methods and that they are developing their skills at the same pace.

To show all of this information in real time or in a linear fashion would have taken up a substantial amount of time. The montage allows the director to convey big ideas and concepts in a short and basic way.