Continuity

Task 5-

Continuity editing is the most popular form of editing, developed by early european and american directors such as D.W.Griffiths. Continuity editing is a classic editing style that ensures everything in the films are perfect, In continuity editing techniques that are used are 180 degree rule, match on action, shot, shot reverse and eye-line match. Continuity editing is also the sense of something being realistic and the feeling as though time is moving forward, this does not mean that they cannot use flashbacks or flash forwards as long as it seems to be progressing in a realistic way.

180 degree rule:

The 180 degree rule is when any two things in the same scene must always have the left/right relationship to each other this means that the camera should not cross the line of 180 degrees when filming a scene. A filmmaker may use the 180 degree rule as they may need to take the camera to a different position but would like the actors to be in the same places they originally would have been in.

Match on action:

Match on action is is linking two shots together, this is when the audience would see a character start and action in one shot and the camera would move to a different angle where the audience would see the character finish the action in the second shot. This ensures that the action appears to be one continuous movement when in fact it is two, to make the movement look more natural. A filmmaker would use this to change the position of a camera to show a person and then show what that person is doing.

Shot, reverse shot:

Shot, reverse shot is when again two shots are linked together, this is when the first shot reveals a character and another shot then reveals the other character. This connects two characters and makes the audience realise they are interacting with each other. A filmmaker may use this to link two people together and would use this to make the two separate shots look like one shot.

Eye-line match:

Eye-line match is a shot that link two shots together, it is when a character is in a shot looking off screen and in the second shot shows what the character is looking at. This allows the audience to experience an event in a film as a character would be experiencing. A filmmaker would use a eye-line shot to link a character with what they are looking at this would ensure there emotion is matched with what they are looking at.

If a film maker did not use these techniques then they would not be able to link up shots with each other and this would mean that the audience would not understand what was going on throughout the due course of the film.



Our film incorporates a number of these different techniques a it uses them to link the film together entirely. We used a eye-line shot to show the actress in a first shot and in the second shot what she was looking at, this was used in the beginning of the short film and linked the two different shots together. We used a match on action to show the other actress in the film and this linked two shots together where by the actress began to walk into the room and in the second shot continued this motion, the actress was told to stop when she was out of the shot and start the next shot from where the last shot finished.  In the film we used a shot, reverse shot to show the two actresses and this linked them both together so the audience would know that those two people were linked in some way, but we did not give all of the information away about what was going on throughout the video.

Montage

Task four-

Montage is the term that is used for a film that is made up of different sequences where by they control a certain time, place and information, the first person to use montage was Eisenstein and he then introduced this to cinema. Montage often contains different effects such as fades, dissolves and split screens .etc, this was one of the first ever forms of editing. Some existing montages that have been produced are very famous, these are famous clips such as the rocky training montage and the karate kid montage. This technique is used in many different kinds of film these are,

• Soviet montage
• Hollywood montage
• French montage

Soviet montage always relied largely on editing and even though soviet filmmakers did not use editing it was then widely used after Eisenstein found this out that montage was possible to use and incorporate in film making. Montage developed soviet cinema massively as some filmmakers found that this was able to be used to create a story in there film and to make a film easier to develop even if the film was not produced in the way that the filmmaker would have imagined that it would have been. Soviet montage then began to develop other forms of cinema such as Hollywood cinema.

French film practice, 'montage' has its literal french meaning and simply identifies editing in a french term.

Hollywood montage is a sequence of shots that have been cut into short clips that looks like the film was meant to be developed throughout a longer period of time. It is important that in a hollywood montage it is shot in this certain way.



- Lev Kuleshev
- Sergei Eisenstein

Lev Kuleshev

Lev Kuleshev was one of the first film directors to come up with a montage film by putting the two different shots together, he believed that film making with like developing a building brick by brick. He also believed that building a wall is by layering brick on top of one another and making a film was by layering many different shots together. He developed an experiment to prove this theory. He used a head shot of an old Russian actress and he then put lots of different shots over the top of this image, he then would show this to an audience where they began to develop their own meanings of what was happening. Kuleshev was awarded for his findings and then summarized with the meaning that two shots places onto one another would create a clip and the audience would make up their own minds about what was happening in this film.

Sergei Eisenstein

Sergei Eisenstein had realized that if you were to put two unrelated shots together it would develop a link between the two shots. He was briefly a student of Kuleshev's, but the two then parted ways after they had different ideas about montage. This film is about the strike that happened in russia and shows how the people were treated if they joined the strike. There are two shots that cut through from the strike to the cow being slaughtered, the strikers are being shown as being treated like animals and they use the cow in the pervious shot shown to demonstrate that the workers are being treated like animals. The cow getting slaughtered in this clip also demonstrates how the workers were killed by the stronger people in their society.



Soviet montage



This montage was successful as we made the film to be like a traditional soviet montage, this clip contains short scenes where something is happening between two people and then quickly cuts to something that is associated with what one of the people is feeling that are in the clip. There are some issues as some of the pictures does not necessarily match up with the way that the people in the film are reacting.

Hollywood montage

This video is a classic example of a Hollywood montage, this was a successful video as it demonstrated the different ways of editing that are involved in a montage film. This is a Hollywood montage as it displays a day long situation and cut it into a small clip, it demonstrates this as it shows these smaller clips as one film. In this video there are some things that could be improved such as the way it was edited as it could have been a bit more precise and their are some glitches as the editing when entering the classroom does not necessarily match up.

From Analogue to Digital Editing

Task 3:

The pros and cons of analogue film and editing:

Analogue Editing is cutting together of pieces of celluloid film, and these pieces of film are printed on acetate negatives. The pros of Analogue Editing are that people would use this to make longer films and would be able to play 24 frames per second. The cons of Analogue Editing are that it would take a long time to do even a 5 minute film due to the fact that you would have to cut and stick lots of pieces of film together.

'Splicing' is when you cut and stick two or more pieces of film together to create lot of film in one large strip. people would of had to use splicing to make films but then a machine was made called the Maviola that would splice pieces of film together, this was a breakthrough as it meant that films could be made longer.

'Linear Editing' is the process when people would arrange the images and sound to predetermined the ordered sequence. They do this regardless of what order the pieces of film were filmed and whether or not they were filmed by a video camera, tapeless cord or filmed in a television studio.

The pros and cons of Digital Editing:

Digital Editing is a form of electronic media when data is stored in a digital form, it is the use of computers to order and manipulate the digital data. The pros of Digital Editing are that it is fast to do and does not cost a lot of money depending on how long the person takes to film this or if there are any problems during the course of filming. The cons of Digital Editing are that if there are any problems with the filming the person would most likely go over budget due to have to pay for the film space and everyones salaries.

'Non-Linear Editing' is the method that allows you to access any frame in a digital video clip. This gives the person the freedom to access any frame, us a out-and-paste method, this is similar to the ease of cutting and pasting text in a word processor, allows the person to easily include fades, transitions and other effects that cannot be achieved with linear editing.

developing editing techniques

In Camera Editing

In camera editing is a technique that was used firstly by George Melies, who would film individual shots of his magic tricks and would film them in order at which he would be doing the trick. This technique was used a lot in the early cinema and made splicing easier.



We created this short clip by using in camera editing to make it the right length, we did this by taking simple shots and stopping the camera, then we would move the camera into another position and do another shot to continue the video. The difficult things about this was getting everybody rehearsed and making sure that the camera will go into the right positions so that you get the right shots. This was also difficult as everybody has there own things to do and trying to get them done at the same time was harder than doing them all separately.  The good thing about this video is that it was something that nobody else thought of and we used old films styles e.g. silent movies. We used this technique throughout the remainder of our short film and i think we could of improved this by editing this so that it would of been black and white and could of had music in the background. One thing that we could of also improved on would have been to avoid for people to have to watch the actors wait to start performing.

The pros of in camera editing is that it is cheap to make and produce, it is also quick to make and easy to scrip and it is better filming for shorter films. The cons of in camera editing are that you cant rewind the video camera, and that it is harder to get the right positions on the camera. Another con is also that you cannot interpret your own ideas into the video as you only get one shot so cannot change anything during the shot.

AS1:T1:Editing in Early Cinema

Editing in the early cinema changed dramatically between 1895-1907.

Thomas Edison had a large impact on the creation of films, he ran a film laboratory where he first invented the kinetographic camera and the kinetoscope. He developed a 35mm film strip that was then used as a standard film role in the industry. He then eventually created the projector to play the film.


The Lumiere brothers worked with Edison and produced short films that were one long, static, locked-down shot. In the shot motion was the only thing that was necessary to keep an audience amused, this means that the first films simply showed activity such as traffic on a city street. This sort of motion is shown in the film "sortie d'usine" in 1895 by the Lumiere brothers. The early films that were created were simple films such as people walking out of factories this was another short film by the Lumiere Brothers.

G.A.Smith then realised that there was no story or editing in films, each film ran as long as there was film in the camera. An example of which is "The Miller and The Sweep" in 1898 by G.A.Smith. In 1899 he then made "The Kiss in the Tunnel", This film was one of the first that contained a story. Smith said that "some extra spice was called for" in the then popular "Phantom Ride" genre. He took advantage of the split second of darkness as they went through the tunnel and cut and stuck two pieces of film together this was called splicing.

George Melies was a magician who had seen the film made by The Lumiere brothers. Melies saw that there were possibilities of a novelty more than a motion itself. He bought a camera, built a studio, wrote a script and designed some sets and soon he discovered and exploited the basic camera tricks that are known so well today. in 1886 he made a movie named "The Vanishing Lady" using camera editing. He used this to perform his tricks a lot easier as in his real act he used mostly trap doors and wires to make sure that it went according to his plan.

Edwin Porter worked as an electrician before going to work in Thomas Edison's film laboratory. They worked together to make longer and more interesting films. Porter made "The Film Life of American Firemen" in 1903. this was among the first to contain a plot, action and a close up. Porter than discovered the importance of motion picture, he realized that he did not have to show the complete person. These were the key discoveries that made motion picture possible. Porter was the first person to ever use a close up in his films as he learnt he could have different shots with the camera.

Charles Pathe made a film called "Le Cheval Emballe" in 1907 introduced parallel editing, this was when you would cut between two story lines. D.W. Griffith was a U.S film director who was one of the early supporters of the power of editing. He made use of cross-cutting to show parallel action in different locations. His work was highly regarded by many and influenced early filmmakers. In his film he used a reverse shot to make it seem as though the horse was travelling backwards, this made the film more amusing to the observers.

                                                                                                                                                                                                       

"The Vanishing Lady" is using a technique know as camera editing when George Melies would stop the camera and then replay it once he had moved the actress out of the way of the camera. This was made in 1896.

''Le sortie d'usine'' was one of the first films created it shows the workers coming out of a factory this is by the Lumiere brothers. This was produced in 1895.

This is a short film called ''The Kiss in the Tunnel'' by G.A.Smith and it uses the darkness as an advantage as he then creates a new clip and ends back out the end of the tunnel. This was made in 1899. 

This is a short clip called ''The life of and American Fireman'' it shows that inside and outside views of how a fireman would of saved someones life and shows a child and a mother getting stuck in a house with a fire blazing while the firemen are trying to save them and stop the fire. This clip was made in 1903 by Edwin Porter.







This is a short clip by Charles Pathe, the story is called ''Le Cheval Emballe'' he uses a technique to cut two stories and fit them together, this also makes them happen at the same time. it shows a postman and a horse in the same scenario and shows what they are doing. this was made in 1907.

This is a film clip made by G.A.Smith in 1897. It is called ''The Miller and the Sweep'' and was designed as a short film to make people laugh. This is about a miller and a chimney sweep fighting with flour.