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| One of the earliest films (first Sci-FI) La Voyage Dans la Lune. 1902 George Melies |
Editing was not something that was available when film making began, the early films consisted of a single shot, usually the film would only last until the film reel ran out. As no narrative was constructed through editing, film makers often just filmed day to day activity, The Lumiere Brothers for example famously filmed a train pulling into a station, these became known as 'Actualities'. 'Arrival of a Train is one of the most famous due to the reaction of the audience. Film making was so new at the time people were unaware of what it could do and how it worked. So seeing a train rushing towards the screen caused the audience to panic, believing that the train would run through the screen. As you can see from the clip below, this footage is a single take, free of any kind of cuts or jumps, this was how films were created before the idea of cutting and editing began.
It was E.S Porter, that became known for his experimentation with editing, still we did have much in the way of camera movement (i.e. tracking or panning) but what we did begin to see was close-ups and cuts to different parts of the frame, for example close ups of a face during a conversation. This brought with it the idea of constructing plot within the film, through use of editing. Porter made, Life of an American Fireman (1903), in which he used several cuts, include the close-up of a hand pulling an alarm (around 39seconds in - see clip below). This was something of a breakthrough for film makers at the time. Though, as you can see, the came is still static, there is no panning of the camera, we are just getting closer to the image within the frame. The action stays within the range of the camera, whereas in modern film making the camera is more likely to follow the action. Camera movement came later still, as technology developed and camera became smaller and more portable.
This idea of editing to create narrative was developed further with the introduction of soviet montage. This type of editing involved more movement from the camera, we saw various shots of the same action, long and short takes and the use of cutting and in some cases even parallel narrative. Soviet montage was not concerned with spacial continuity, the editing was not a fluid form of editing.
Lev Kuleshov began theorising about cinema in the 1920s, he was particularly interested in the way editing was used, comparing editing to the construction of a building (each shot -brick- was adding to the final film -building). He was fascinated by the idea that editing could change the audience perception of the narrative. To prove this theory, and what he came to be so well known for is the Kuleshov Experiment. In this experiment, Kuleshov used shots of an actors face with a neutral expression and intercut different images (a casket, bowl of soup and objects of lusts) that should, in theory, evoke different emotions in the audience. The idea behind this was to prove how editing altered the viewers interpretation of images. Despite the fact that the image of the actor remained exactly the same between each cut, the images caused the audience to believe that the actor was showing/feeling different emotions towards each image. Therefore, proving that cutting between images changes the way an audiences perceives the images that they are being shown.
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| The Kuleshov Experiment |
(Equipment list, OH&S and shooting problems etc can be found in 'camera/lighting' blog posts - http://hncsmh.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/low-key-lighting-shoot.html)
Something that I feel we should have considered doing after this experiment, was to show the images cut together to an audience in order to get feedback on how effective the experiment was. This is something we could do at a later date.
In my opinion however, I feel that despite the fact I would agree with Kuleshov's theory of editing being an important factor in an audiences experience of a film, this particular experiment is less effective today than it would have been in the 1920s when Kuleshov first carried it out. This is due to the fact that cinema and the medium of film was still a new experience for most. Given this fact, images such as the ones posed by Kuleshov were a lot more shocking, they would have received a much stronger reaction (particularly to the casket) as people were not used to seeing such images, unlike todays contemporary audiences which in comparison are very desensitised to such images, therefore the do not experience it in the same way. This is not to say, however, that I am disregarding Kuleshov's experiment in any way, or saying that ours was completely ineffective, I am in complete agreement that editing is vital to the perception of any narrative or lack of narrative, as the case may be, I am simply pointing out that perhaps something would need to change in order to make it more effective in contemporary society.
French New Wave Editing Techniques:
The French New Wave movement or 'Nouvelle Vague' was a phrase used by a group of french film critics that wrote for 'Cahiers du cinema' in the late 1950s and 1960s. These included, Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Goddard and Jacques Rivette among others. It was these film makers that began to take film seriously as an academic subject, with serious discussion.
The new wave film makers were known for their innovation in camera movements and editing techniques. Take Goddards 1960 film, A Bout de Souffle for example, in one scene the camera is placed on an escalator in front of the actress. What is effectively a static shot then becomes a shot with movement as the camera is placed upon a platform that naturally moves. Goddard uses a similar technique when he places the camera in a moving car. They experimented with long takes, a well known example of this would be the final scene of Truffaut's Les 400 Coups, in this scene the camera tracks the young boy as he runs.
Another technique adopted by the new wave film makers was that of the jump cut. Something that is rarely used by other film makers. This conscious use of editing took the audience out of the world of the film, it broke the forth wall, drawing the audience out of the film world and reminding them that they are simply watching a film. They had the actors look directly into the camera, almost addressing the audience themselves, this had the same effect of drawing the audience out of the film world.
In the footage below, I have experimented with own camera and editing techniques taking influence from the directors of the nouvelle vague. (for additional experimental footage see link - http://hncsmh.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/camera-techniques-tracking-from-car.html)
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| Rendering footage |
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| creating bins for labelled footage |
Time lapse experiment:
sunset timelapse from Sammie Masters-Hopkins on Vimeo.
Classical Hollywood:
Classical Hollywood editing differs from that of the soviet montage due to its focus on continuity editing. Early european and American film makers began the use of continuity editing, one of the most famous film makers to begin using the type of film editing was D.W.Griffith, his film 'Birth of the Nation' being a key film. Continuity editing is used on the basis of ensuring temporal and spacial continuity with the use of techniques such as the 180 degree rule, shot reverse shot and eye line match.
Below is an example of how 'shot reverse shot' would be used.
Kuleshov Effect -Table Scene from Sammie Masters-Hopkins on Vimeo.
Editing a music video:
(Editing Decisions Log available as hard copy)
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| During my editing process I found YouTube tutorials for Adobe Premiere Pro Very Helpful. |
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| Adding Titles |
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| Overlaying footage |
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| Unlinking image and audio |
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| Renaming Clips before importing them to time line. |
To see final video please select link: http://hncsmh.blogspot.co.uk/p/music-video-production.html
Evaluation of the Editing Process:
One of the main problems I encountered when editing my final piece together was that the footage I had shot appeared to be missing some kind of narrative to link give the final video a purpose and direction. I feel this is one of the main issues I have with my final piece. When editing I attempted to rectify this problem by repeating the opening shots in reverse order at the end of the video as you can see above. I felt this may help tie together the images you see throughout giving the video a cyclic structure. If I were to shoot this again, I would definitely ensure I had more of a 'story'. One of the shots from my video is the young girl putting on her ballet shoes, this idea of getting ready and preparing for a dance would be something I would like to take further, had I the chance to do the video again. Hopefully this would add an extra dimension to my film in that it would aid it's purpose. As it is now, my video is more of a montage of images, this is less conventional of the music video than a narrative piece. However, when considering the audience that this style of music might meet, a more experimental or stylistic video can be appreciated.
Technically, I feel that the many of shots work well, I aimed to maintain the rules learnt through a short photography workshop, for example, the rule of three and the placing a subject on an eye line. By keeping to these rules, I feel many of my shots are aesthetically pleasing. However, the lighting of my footage needed to be improved, this is something that I had trouble with from the outset of my video and is reflected in my final piece. Lighting the subject in my frame is definitely something I feel I need to work on for future productions. To overcome this issue, I opted to produce a black and white version of the video, though this what not how I originally planned my piece to be. In editing, I put the black and white effect over my footage and ensured that by altering the contrast I had much more evenly lit footage.
Another point to make about the technical aspect of my work, would be that there is a lack of camera movement, many of my images are shot with a static camera with the movement coming from within the film. This is something that I definitely need to consider and improve on when making another production. Had I done this piece again, I would have experimented with a dolly track, this would have allowed me to track the subject as she moved. Not only would this have given my video a more professional look, it would have also expanded the amount of camera work and techniques that I had included, varying the shots and allowing me more footage to work with when I began editing. Increasing the amount of footage would have been helpful when editing, I could have achieve this by using multiple cameras, allowing the same footage to be shot from multiple angles. Again, this would make my production feel more professional. The problem I would have had with this was the fact that I produced the piece on my own, to operate multiple camera would have proved difficult. In future working with additional people on my production in a definite as this would have aided my production and I feel made it more successful.
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