T3 - Editing key conventions

Speed of Editing
The speed of editing can allow the viewer to feel a specific emotion at a certain time, e.g. during "The Bourne Ultimatum", the time between cuts shortens as the action intensifies.



No editing
An entire production is filmed from start to finish without any cuts, this is clearly seen in the "russian Ark" This is a difficult thing to achieve as 1 slip up means the whole production has to be started from square one again.



Trailers
Trailers can give the audience a snippet of what to expect from the production, such as story, cast, etc. An example of this is seen from the trailer for the film "The man with the Iron mask" from director
Randall Wallace.



Opening of Films
The opening of a film is generally uneventful, such as the opening titles of "spiderman" from 2002, directed by Sam Raimi. They usually only reveal the talent acting in the film, cast and crew members, etc, and show the name of the film/production.



Action sequences
The speed of  editing increases during action sequences, such as at the start of "Casino Royale", during the chase scene.  This is used to match the pace of editing to the pace of the action in the film.



Slow to fast editing
Slow to fast editing allows the audience to get a feel of the tension in the diegetic world. "the Good, The Bad & the Ugly"s finale is a good example of this build in tension th  rough the use of editing.



Dissolves, Fades, and Straight Cuts
These simple techniques are used to change the setting and/or time. Good examples of these can be found in Citizen Kane.



Wipes
Wipes are widely used in the "Star Wars" franchise to change the location, time and character story.



Jump Cut

French new wave, developed in the late 1950s and used throughout the 1960s, pushed the boundaries of editing and used a didn't conform to the classic hollywood etiquette of the decades previous. This style of editing often used a lack of continuity, the use of non-narrative content, and self reflexive nature (reminding the audience that they're watching a film) to its advantage. This can be seen clearly in Jean Luc Godard's "A Bout de Shouffle".

Graphic match
Graphic match - This is widely used in modern film making, most famously in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, but is apparent in many others as well. Such as in 2001: A space Odyssey (1968).



Montage

During the 1920's, a Russian Editor Lev Kuleshov was one of the first to theorise the medium of cinema, he argued that producing a film is like building a house brick-by-brick until it is finished. Around 1918 he performed a series of experiments to prove his theory. he took a head shot of a famous russian actor, and inter-cut the shot with a different image.

Soviet Montage - "Strike"

Sergei Eisenstein took the theory of montage and applied it to his short movie "Strike", following the strikes in Russia at the time, which ended in massacre. by showing a cow being slaughtered along side soldiers firing at workers, it portrays the workers dying without actually showing them being hit.

Montage - Rocky

Another breakthrough in the editing industry was the developement of montage sequences, of which the most famous is the many sequences in the "Rocky" films. Montage sequences in place as a way to cover a long period of time in a mater of moments.

Continuity Editing

The popular 'classical Hollywood' style of editing, or continuity editing was originally developed by early European and American directors such as D.W. Griffith and his production of "The Birth of a Nation"(1915) and shows the events of the film in a logical format with the use of devices such as; 180 degree rule, and shot reverse shots.

Eye-line Match

Eye-Line match - A shot of a character looking at something off screen, followed by a shot of the object/person they're looking at. As is evident with an advert for "Hustle" by The BBC.

Match on Action

A character starts an action in one shot then continues that action is the next shot. this can be clearly seen in this sequence from 'Friends'.