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Editing

Editing is the process of assembling images and sounds to tell a story and create emotion in the audience. It can establish settings, develop characters, and manipulate time. Editing sets the pace and provokes mood through techniques like cutting speed, shot direction, and tone. Effective editing combines visuals and sounds to develop narratives and establish character abilities.

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472 views

Editing

Editing is the process of assembling images and sounds to tell a story and create emotion in the audience. It can establish settings, develop characters, and manipulate time. Editing sets the pace and provokes mood through techniques like cutting speed, shot direction, and tone. Effective editing combines visuals and sounds to develop narratives and establish character abilities.

Uploaded by

api-311022348
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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EDITING

EDITING
Editing is the process of placing images and sounds in
an order that tells the story and creates emotion in the
audience. Filmmaking is a collaborative art, and it
would be incorrect to state that one component is more
important than the other. However, the process of
assembling the sound and vision during post
production is extremely important. Poor editing can
ruin a film just as good as editing can save one.

EDITING
At its most basic level, editing is the process of looking at the
footage shot by the camera operator, selecting the most
appropriate shots, and then assembling them in a sequence that
conveys the narrative to the audience. But editing is also a very
creative process. Editing can establish setting, develop character,
express point of view, drive the plot and restructure time. Editing
sets the pace of a film and provokes mood and emotion in the
audience. Editing is more than just putting one shot behind
another. The editor uses different types of edits and transitions to
move the audience from one image to another. Each transition
serves a different purpose depending on the effect that the
director and editor want to create.

EDITING
In most fictional narrative films, editing serves 3
primary purposes. The first is that of a narrative
function. A simple example for narrative editing would
be when we are watching a character who hears an
off-screen noise and turns his or her head to the right
of screen. In order to follow the narrative, the editor
then cuts to a shot of whatever makes the noise. Lets
just say that something in the oven exploded. The
editor cuts back to our character to see his or her
reaction, and then back to the oven which is now on
fire.

EDITING
The second primary purpose of editing in the fictional
film narrative is emotional. The way in which a film is
cut together can produce an emotional response from
the audience. This can be done in several ways. The
first is the speed of the cuts. The speed of the cutting
helps to synchronise the audience viewing and thought
patterns with the mood of the film. In an action
sequence, many short shots are put together to create
excitement. A sad scene such as the death of a loved
one will consist of long slow shots being placed
together.

EDITING
A second method of developing emotional response through
editing is a directional cut. Consider a scene in which two
characters are driving fast cars through busy city streets. If the
editing has both cars travelling from left of screen to right of
screen, cutting between them will create the feeling of a chase or
a race. However, if the editor cuts between a car moving from
right of screen to left of screen and a second car moving from left
of screen to right of screen, the audience begins to anticipate a
crash between the two cars. Each sequence builds a different
expectation.

EDITING
Another way in which editing can be used to
create emotion is to manipulate the tone of the
film. A sequence of dark images of a character
or setting can produce a feeling of despair and
gloom. Slowly adding shots of brighter and
brighter can lift the tone from despair to hope.

EDITING
Editors often combine visual images and sounds to develop
narratives. The shower scene from Psycho demonstrates image-tosound editing. At the moment at which the shower curtain is torn back
we hear shrieking violins and Marions screaming which immediately
draws the audience into the horror of the attack. One of the most
important elements in convincing the audience that Marion is being
killed is the editing of sound and vision. At no stage do we see the
knife entering Marions body, but we are convinced that it does so,
because we hear it enter. We the knife is thrust downwards, the fatal
blows are combined with the sound of the knife entering the body.
Legend has it that the sound was actually a knife cutting into a
cabbage. The brilliant editing of sound against vision helps to make
the shower scene so believable that many in the audience thought
that they had actually seen the knife enter Marions body.

In X2, director Bryan Singer uses editing to establish Jean Greys


telepathic and telekinetic abilities. Early in the film when she is taking
students on an excursion to a science museum, there is a close up of
Jean as she turns around, hearing a series of voices which begin as
whispers that gradually increase in volume and intensity. This use of
sound editing helps to establish that Jean is telepathic. She looks
around, confused and clearly a little disoriented. Singer cuts between a
series of point of view shots and an extreme close-up of her eyes. As
her disorientation increases, the pace of editing becomes faster and the
camera movement more erratic. Singer cuts away to television screens
that start flickering, then back to Jean whos clearly unsettled by the
onslaught of voices. This clearly demonstrates how a range of
production elements contribute to characterization in the film. Jeans
telepathy and telekinesis is established using a combination of visual
editing and sound editing.

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