Some useful editing terms and definitions

TV Drama Editing

The original 'match cut'

Have a look at this magnificent continuity edit from David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962), it is one of the most celebrated cuts of all time and deservedly so.

When you're creating your own storyboards you will need to focus closely, not just on the individual shots, but also on how the shots will fit together and the meanings their juxtapositions* will create (have a look at the post below to get some ideas).


It is impossible to mention Lawrence of Arabia without also referring to the soaring music, which begins at the end of this sequence. It beautifully describes the majesty of the desert and the epic scale of the protagonist's plight. Maurice Jarre's triumphant composition runs even The Third Man close, in the greatest-film-score-of-all-time stakes. 

* Here's the most useful definition I could find for juxtaposition:  An image-development strategy used to place, side by side, two or more images or elements in a way that changes the meaning or effect of each.
www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/fak7/apf3.htm

"Ice creams, ice creams!"

The Hollywood classical narrative structure relies on continuity editing to create a seamless and believable world within a film. It tells the audience where things are (spatial relations) and how shots relate to each other time-wise (temporal relations). For example, generally when we see a hard cut between shots we understand that the action happens back to back, but if we see a slow 'dip to black' that tells us that some time has passed (traditionally symbolising a night has gone by I guess, hence the black?).
 
This week we shot and edited the preliminary filming exercise, which incorporated the godfather of all continuity edits – shot/reverse shot. The basic idea is to shoot one character left of frame, looking right and another right of frame, looking left. Then, when these are edited together the audience assumes that the characters are facing each other (in the same location) and therefore having a conversation.

This may sound pretty obvious, but imagine how different the film would look if one of the shots were flopped, like the second shot below (reversed around a vertical axis, so that it looks like a mirror image). 

If these shots were cut together now, the characters would look like they were in unrelated locations, talking to themselves or to other, unseen characters. By the way, these stills are taken from Carol Reed's masterpiece The Third Man (1949), one of the greatest mystery thrillers ever made.

Here's the short sequence I grabbed the stills from [If you want to take a screen grab from a youtube video or webpage, hit command-shift-4 if you're on a mac, or the button that says "print screen" if you're using a pc]. Notice how the juxtaposition of these two shots, and a long shot of a woman, looking down from a window, map out the location perfectly. You never see any of the characters together in any of these shots, but still have a complete understanding of where each character is in relation to the others. There is a beautiful edit, when the lady turns on a light and it slants down to illuminate Harry's face. Harry gives a little glance up, (which helps to make sure the audience is aware of their relative positions) and then looks back, to where his old friend Holly is, standing across the road, staring back at a man he believed was dead.

As for the close up shot of Harry when the light is switched off, well what can I say, it is breathtaking. By creating this change in diegetic lighting, the director not only makes the mysterious Harry vanish into the night, but he also makes the world of the film very concrete and believable, due to the realistic, physical property of the lighting effect.


The Third Man is one of my favourite films of all time and it also features the greatest soundtrack ever written (composed and performed by Anton Karas), though it was only rated 26th by a panel of so-called experts in The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/mar/18/features.musicmonthly14


Once heard never forgotten. Even if you do manage to forget, you'll get a reminder, next time a Mr Whippy van heads in your direction...

Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner

Bacon and Eggs

A psychopathic serial killer is bound to have a slightly different view of the world ain't he? Dexter's opening sequence is all shot in ECUs, just like the deranged murderer in Se7en's opening credits (below). Dexter is a creature of habit, and the precision of his morning routine (dental floss one of my favourite shots) reveals his obsessive and singular perspective as well as eluding to his penchant for a spot of squashing, blood-letting, slicing, smashing, grinding, sawing, crushing, restraining, throttling and asphyxiating, in that order. Did I miss any out?!

 

The serial killers definitely have different tastes in music though, as the discomfiting, scratchy, screechy soundtrack in Se7en has been replaced by a catchy theme tune that bobs along merrily. The undramatic music helps to establish that executing a couple of carefully selected victims is a perfectly ordinary, everyday hobby for Dexter. The rest of the soundtrack echoes the visual ECUs, in my opinion the extreme close up sound effects are actually much more unsettling than the visual ECUs (the chewing noises especially). This again connotes a person with a 'warped' view of the world, that sees and hears things differently to the rest of us normal folk.

Which do you think is scarier, a serial killer who has 'lost it' and is slicing off his fingertips like that chap off of Se7en or one that goes about his daily business like my mate Dexter?

There are only three shots in Dexter's opening sequence that would be difficult to create, with the equipment you are using for your thriller sequences. They are the super-slow motion shots of the egg shell breaking, coffee beans grinding and the orange being sawn in half. This is because digital film cameras generally only film 24 frames per second (i.e. every second of film is made up of 24 individual photos). If you slowed the footage down as much as the editor has done in these shots, (maybe about tens times slower than real life) then the film would appear very jerky because you would only be showing 2.4 pictures every second. Cameras that are used for filming super super slow motion, such as on Sky Sports, record 2,000 frames every second!

Check out this ad for Pedigree from Canada, the director found a novel use for super slow mo that very effectively taps into dog owners' parental affection towards their pooches. It was shot at a rate of 1,000 frames per second.

Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner