Contextual Studies l5-Editing

Contextual Studies Editing

What ending is it and how it serves a narrative
What is editing?
Assembly of visual material into sequences
Constructs a narrative
About storytelling 
A lot of films start with narration today 
Manipulates time-(condenses, lengthen, flashback, flash forward)
Juxtaposes ideas 

Do we need editing? 
It usually depends what type of film 

Alfred Hitchcock 'Rope' (1948) 
10minute takes with hidden edits to join the action

Russian Ark (2002)
Creating visual meaning 
Mise-en-scene and cinematography create implicit meaning within shots
Editing creates implicit meaning 

Eye-silent movie used clever cinematography to show him cutting the eye open 
Eg/ Clouds had a line cut through them 

Special-relationship between different spaces and the editors manipulation of them e.g cross cutting

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

Jump cuts-about is impinge and how fast you cut something. 
Usually tend to have natural rhythm

Film 2001 starts with dawn of man, and in editing. Does an evolution leaf by showing man uses tools but for  this barbaric destruction. 

Breaking Bad montage.
Considered one of the best ones of modern television
Why editing is important 
It can help create a better story and a different story
It is 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
Continuity editing is making it almost invisible
180degree rule
Be experimental and play around

Think visually 

North by Northwest
Very smooth edit, but gets to the point. 




Soviet montage
Eisenstein Soviet film maker-research.
Not escapist drama through continuity 
He argued that montage, especially intellectual montage is an alternative to continuity editing. 
'Montage is conflict' (dialectical) where new ideas emerge. So something is told in shot A and something new in shot B.

Ideology
A set of opinions, values, beliefs and assumptions that one uses to think about and relate to the world. Ideology is not objective truth but perceived truth; a systems value. It's common to conceive of ideology being the only way of understanding the world; that there is no position of objective truth from which to interpreted things. 
Film making was a good way to educate the population, could also be very manipulative. 

The Kuleshov effect 
Suddenly changing the second shot changes everything 

5 principles of Soviet Montage
Metric- follows a specific tempo-cutting to next shot regardless 
Rhythmic-similar to metric but allows continuity 
Tonal-uses emotional meaning behind the shot-like semiotics
Over-tonal/Associative-a fusion of them all-intense effect on audience
Intellectual- shots that create an intellectual or metaphorical meaning 

Modern documentary editing 
Evidentiary (or expositional) editing-explicit meaning of edits is reinforced by narration or dialogue.
Dynamic editing-concepts of matching and continuity rarely apply. Shots are ordered by meaning and not necessarily by their relationship to each other. His latest 'bitter lake' explores how  Afghanistan became of vital significance in the modern world. 

The BBC documentary maker Adam Curtis combines narration and archive. 
Bitter Lake on iPlayer

 

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