Editing Techniques

Since the birth of cinema there has been discussion about how to master its complex nature and how to best convey the meaning of a story to an audience. The early soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein hailed as the "father of montage" claims that the footage captured on a camera is no more than a raw material like the ingredients for a cake, and not until the footage is cut and combined do you have a film. The practice of editing changed the course of cinema from a fairground novelty to a genuine art form, editing allowed filmmakers to be able to start telling story instead of just filming things that interested them until they got bored or the film ran out and the Lumiere brothers who would later become pioneers in the art form wrote of the practice saying it has no future in a modern worlds. This all changed when british filmmaker Robert W.Paul decided to cut together his film Come Along, Do! other filmmakers started to see the advantages of cutting and editing for the art form. It was not long after Paul first experimented with the idea that the proclaimed "father of film" D.W Griffith began using editing techniques, like parallel editing (Parallel editing is a technique whereby cutting occurs between two or more related actions occurring at the same time in two separate locations or different points in time.), that the practice became more sophisticated this technique would later come to be known as 'continuity editing' it can be first seen in his film unseen enemy. Another early pioneer was Edwin porter he was the first person to use cross cutting in editing to show simultaneous actions in different places that were linked together to tell a story a famous work of his life of an american firefighter, which is regarded as one of the most important films in the history of editing for continuity. The Russian revolution also sparked a revolution in editing, Vladimir lenin saw film as a way of inspiring largely illiterate to join the revolution the film battle ship Potemkin showed how collection of juxtaposed of images can tell a story, scenes from the film can still be seen re imagined in hollywood today. Hitler and his propaganda army also saw the pontential in editing to impose there views onto the german public and propel hitler from a politician to a god like figure. Walter murch once said editor is carrying a cup of water and every drop is a viewer losing interest Auguste and Louis lumiere were two brothers born in france in the 1860s, they were the first ever filmmakers. They both attended the largest technical film school lyon and worked at there fathers photographic firm Louis as a physicist and Auguste as a manager during this time Louis developed some innovations in the still photography field notably the dry-plate process, which marked a major step towards moving images. It was not until 1892 following there fathers retirement that they started creating moving pictures. They started to develop and patent a number of important processes leading up to their first film camera. Sergio vertov also sparked a revolution in the way that people viewed film he took his camera into the streets to film man with a movie camera a documentary style film, in the film he shows actual editors editing film and it is argued every modern day editing technique is on display in this film. Film was also used as propaganda in world war 2 an example of this is Why we Fight, filmmakers also realised that the way you edited sound and image could influence belief, during WW2 the government enlisted some of the best hollywood filmmakers, editors and directors to use the same techniques from fiction to stir audiences across america. 
triumph of the will Leni Riefenstahl used sound and images to make adolph hilter appear godlike to many of the people who were watching the film.
Bonnie and clyde a film edited by ded allen was one of the first films to break the rules but she refutes this statement saying what she did in the film was done before in european filmmaking, the film paved the way for films such as easy rider where the editor cut between past and present.

Comments from directors -
- building suspense is key in all areas of cinema even if is not a thriller it is important to keep the audience waiting an guessing so they don't get bored.
- "In acton movies its all about the rhythm of the cut creating peaks and valleys (highs and lows within an action sequence)"
- "Editing chase scenes are based primarily on psychological notions of self-preservation. " this is because we relate to the characters in the story we subconsciously think about our own self presentation this is why POV shots are often used to give the viewer a feeling of what it would be like if the were in the car.

The documentary cutting edge offers unique industry insight from some of its most famous pioneers including Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarintino and the Cohen brothers. Cohen said that editing is why people like movies and famously said "wouldn't we like to edit our own lives". In modern cinema directors like Quentin Tarintino often like to use female editors as they feel they give violent films like inglorious bastards a softer side and a more feminine touch. Another famous example of a female editor being used on a big violent blockbuster is Verna (mother cutter) Fields who helped Spielberg edit Jaws in 1975 which went on to be one of his most critically acclaimed films. Other filmmakers like James Cameron realised the importance of individual frames when he started taking one frame out from every shot to make the films a more manageable length, but it made the film look jumpy and distracted the user proving that where you put and edit is very important and every cut and transition should be though through carefully.

The Kulershov effect is another example of juxtaposition being used as a powerful tool in editing to tell story's. The technique was pioneered by early filmmaker Lev Kulershov who discovered that the way you ordered shots completely changed the viewers perception of what was going on and that with the same shot you could villainies the character or make them a hero just by changing what they were reacting to. For example if you had a shot of a man with a completely straight face which was followed by a shot of a coffin you would assume he is mourning, where as if you followed the exact same shot with a woman sat seductivley you would think he is looking at her lustfully.

kulershovs theory

Another pioneer of editing is Martin Scorsese who alongside with Thelma Schoonmaker created some of the best films of a generation, Hitchcocks films were known for the way sound was used in editing and for the way it fought the norms of films in that time. In the film raging bull Scorsese would let the music build up through a scene until the audience was on tenter hooks and then cut it in climax of the scene to keep the tension going. The way an editor Walter Murch uses sound can also add to the original screenplay for example in apocalypse now Walter Murch chose to leave the sound of the helicopters rotas running even though it wasn't written in the original screenplay before the image started this meant that the viewer was slowly immersed in the action and built up the tension.

cutting suspense
Another film that triggered a change in editing was Nosferatu - the original vampire movie, introduced compression of time by jump cuts and moving someone close to the camera every time the camera moved created tension and is now used extensively throughout modern horror cinema, before this film was made jump cuts were rare and filmmakers tried to create continuity the makers of Nosferatu actively used the disjointed cuts to scare the audience.
Wes craven another well known film pioneer said making a film was like sitting people round a campfire and telling them a scary story, and its all about the rhythm and when he was making scream he had to look at from an audiences perspective and what they would feel about certain cuts.
Alfred Hitchcock was regarded as the master of suspense through editing, he did this by building up suspense through a whole scene an because he had spent time building suspense he did not actually have to show any gore in the climax and could rely on the audiences imagination to be scarier than any image they are shown. This can be seen in the shower scene of american physco. 

The different shots an editor uses to set up a scene and during the scene can completely change the way the viewer perceives whats going on and what genre the viewer thinks of when they see it.  For example when setting the a scene the editor could choose to use a wide landscape shot used heavily in 70s film making this kind of shot would be used to show the characters location rather than any information regarding who the character is and would typically be used in a action film, Where as a tight shot of the characters possessions in a room would tell the audience more about the character and make the viewers imagination do some of the work in piecing together what a character is like before they even say a word. another example would be when a character is speaking to another character editors will generally use shots where the character is slightly off centre so the viewer can feel another persons presence without them being in frame. The way an editor transitions between a shot can also change the way a viewer perceives the film and the viewers perception of the passing of time and the dawn of the digital era these techniques have become more refined and widely used. For example when cinema was still developing as an art form to show a passing of time an editor would fade to black and then back out to a different scene at a later date this is a more seamless but t, nowadays editors will often choose to use something like a time-lapse of a landscape where the motion is massively speed up this has been proven as an aesthetically pleasing way of showing a transition of time and it will keep the viewers interest in an age where the speed of films has massively changed.This does not mean that classic transitions are not still used commonly in cinema for example in a rom-com the editor would still choose to use a fade to black as it fits with the continuity and speed of the film, where as in an action film the editor would choose to use a more fast paced transition like a time-lapse of snappy crossfade. 

Jump cuts came to popularity mainly due to the french new wave film breathless films like this were seen to be breaking rules, before this film the jump cut was never used as a hidden edit and was only used to cut up sequences to shorten them or be used as an effect but breathless showed its usefulness as a seamless edit.

Fragmenting time and space, filmmakers have now mastered the art of fragmenting space and time and have discovered how to use editing techniques like jump cuts flash forward and flashbacks, these techniques can be seen used heavily in the film JFK  where in one pivotal scene the director oliver stone told his editor to play jazz with his edit and go completely freeform to create a disjointed feeling production.

faster edits- argued by many that this is heavily influenced by the MTV generation that sparked a revolution cinema when filmmakers realised that they could no longer keep the attention of the masses by just letting a story tell itself and using little camera trickery to speed up the edit and they needed to cut faster and build up action faster because of the dwindling attention span of the mainstream audience.

Since the dawn of the digital era editing and filmmaking have evolved massively thanks to the time saved by not having to cut and stick physical frames together. This means pace of films has massively increased and there fore the attention span of the viewer has shortened where as in the early days of cinema an editor could use 5 cuts in a fight scene nowadays editors have to use hundred to make the fight seem faster paced and more interesting to look at. This is not something that all people think is a good thing and Scorsese famously said "that if editing got to fast people would consume a film an throw it away" and that is clear in the way he has his film edited in a documentary style. The birth of hyperrealistic CGI also started a new era of films that could use well known faces an place them in completely imaginary environments that could never exist. To conclude  Walter murch once said "an editor is carrying a cup of water and every drop lost is a viewer losing interest".

http://nofilmschool.com/2014/02/video-the-history-of-editing-eisenstein-the-soviet-montage-explained
http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/filmglossary/web/terms/parallel_editing.html