In 1891 Thomas Edison invented a device to view strips of film called the Kinetoscope or the "peep-hole viewer"as it was more commonly known. This device consisted of a tall box with a long strip of film wrapped around cogs and wheels. At the top of the box, where the actual "peep-hole viewer" is, the film is lay on top of a piece of glass separating the film from a bulb (another invention from Thomas) so the audience or viewer can see the image on the film. When activated, usually by a coin inserted into the machine, the cogs pull the film at a peed that allows the viewer to see each image on the film at 24 FPS (Frames per second).
The Buffalo dance (1894)
Below is one of Thomas Edison's early films remember as there was no audio, dialogue or any methods of editing the films were raw and was played while listening to a music box.
In August 31, 1897 W. K. L. Dickson (an assistant of Edison) granted him a patent for the motion picture camera or "Kinetograph" allowing him to widen his experiments further.
Meanwhile in France 1895 brothers known as the lumiere bros (light Brothers) created two similar pieces of equipment known as the cinematograph witch was a camera and a projector so viewers could all watch the same film on a canvas these films were usually paired off with a live orchestra.
Thomas eddison used a process called in camera editing this is where there is no post production, just what's recorded. The camera would start filming in one place then stopped, moved around started and so on and so fourth.
Editing begins
other than creating new means to view films the Lumiere Bros created the concept of editing in witch a strip of film would be cut at points and bound together again with different sections of film creating the illusion of a time lapse or scene change. however it was George Mellie who took the idea of editing to the next level with his production and premiere of "A trip to the moon"
in his film you can see that not only has he used cuts but he has used dissolves to blend the time-lapses together giving the film a more smooth narrative he had also used costumes props backdrops and other items to engulf the reader in the narrative.
Skipping ahead to 1903 USA we find a director/editor of the first publicly shown narrative film, Edwin Porter's Train robbery.
Edwin, on top of the techniques i spoke about, used a wide range of techniques some of which were not used before.
Edwin managed to use projections of recordings within the set to improve narrative for example in the window is a projection of a train moving and stopping near this building.
In this shot the projection is to create the illusion that the train is moving down the track this actually creates an element of tension and danger
In his films he uses a type of editing called parallel editing this is when two or more scenes are happening at once but are shown after one another.
D.W Griffith 1915
Griffith began to develop camera techniques in his films these included close upstracking shots and the strategic placement of light for effect
Sergei Eisenstein 1925
Sergei Einstin a pioneer in montage style editing this is when a set of images or clips are put together in a sequence to portray the passing of time or some sort of progression. Each image must have a similar link or theme in mind, this is the only type of editing that can almost break the rule of continuity style editing. lets take Sergei's movie Strike for example...
...with no word just images the viewer gets the sense of an invading force taking over this settlement. The cow clips from this scene although hard to look at tells a large part of the story as it plants a harsh image of mindless slaughter in the viewers mind you as the viewer don't actually see anyone get killed but those clips are telling us that innocent people are losing there lives. Im sure that Sergei knew that those clips were quite harsh nobody from that era had ever seen clips that brutal but that just made his film better andding a much larger shock factor.
to show we understood this style of editing my group and I decided to make a short film that we called Chemistry..
Now we are no Sergei and there is only so much you can do in an academy so we decided to put a twist on ours and made it into something more relevant to our setting...studying. We made sure our transitions were smooth and used the subject chemistry as our theme so each clip had a link and made sense.
Walter Murch (1970-80)
Walter Murch used sound mixing within his editing to create deeper meaning or mislead the audience this technique is easily seen in the opening to apocalypse now
At the beginning the audience is presented with a blank screen in witch a faint sound is heard reminiscent of a helicopters rotor blades. As the black screen dissolves a still image of palm trees are presented this image ,though not yet known to the audience, sets the opening or the place that the main character is reflecting to. A small dust effect is layered above the image suggesting that this helicopter is beginning to land then the helicopters sound greatly increases from left to right as it shoots across the screen creating a Doppler effect creating surround sound this intensifies the dust effect as the music fades in. The musics lyrics ,"the end" by The Doors,have a lot to play within the opening as it foreshadows the next event as lodes of napalm gets dropped on the Forrest.
MTV Style editing
City of god Fernando Meirelles (2002)
In this film the editor, Daniel Rezende, uses MTV style editing this type is faced paced continuity editing this is to give a short "attention span" to key elements of the film as you see in the first section jump cuts separate from a sharpening knife to a chicken this creates a very tense feeling and forces the chickens feelings on the audience. when the chicken escapes the "leader" of the gang, the ones about to cook the chicken tells the group to chase it. The only way the audience knows that he is the leader and bad news is the close up of his almost sinister laugh. This is the followed by a chase scene where the camera is held in a way that is seams to be held by one of the chasers the camera loosely shakes up and down, left and right and diagonally to almost involve the audience in the chase then the aspect of this chase changes when the camera transists to a 1st person veiw from the chickens point of view.
then the two parallel scenes of the chase and the main charter meet and the gang asks him to catch the chicken as he prepares to he finds himself in the middle of no mans land between the police and the gang we are shown this by the camera revolving 360 degrees around the character this again inflicts a sense of fear and tension on the audience.
My group and I again attempted to create our own short film in the style of MTV style editing called chase.
