The development of editing
Media is a big industry and one of the main parts of media is television and movies which are made using video cameras. There are three main stages when producing a video which are pre-production which is where you start off by coming up with an idea and then fill out forms such as a cast list, call sheet, production diary, location release form, actors contracts, reece and risk assessment. Once all the forms have been filled out and you have the actors and locations then it is the production stage where you create the movie using video cameras and microphones for sound. Once a movie has been filmed the next stage is post production where it is taken into software such as Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere and then cut and spliced to get rid of any footage that is not part of the finished sequence. Film started off years ago with a man called Eadweard Muybridge who was a professional photographer.
Eadweard was born in Kingston upon Thames and started his career as a bookseller but in 1860 he was involved in a stagecoach accident and he was sent to Arkansas for treatment. Afterwards Eadweard was sent for more treatment in New York but once he was treated he sailed back to England and recuperated. once Eadweard had recuperated he took up his new profession photography. in 1872 Eadweard came up with an idea of putting some pictures he had taken of a horse together in a long strip and have the strip move to create the illusion of a moving horse. The reason the horse looks like it is moving is because when the images are played back at a rate of 24 frames a second then the brain thinks it is actually something moving for instance a horse galloping. Frame rate is still used today so that you can adjust the speed of an image in production and post production. Eadweard is also credited with creating an early form of a projector known as a zoopraxiscope which is where you draw an image on a disc and keep drawing the image in a different position and then the disk is spun through a projector so that it looks like the images are moving. Below are two videos of the moving horse and the zoopraxiscope.
the kinetoscope was an early device used for a single person to watch a strip of film with images on it showing movement of a person. One example of a film made for the kinetoscope was Fred Ott's sneeze which was a short black and white silent movie about a man called Fred Ott who takes some snuff and then sneezes. Below is a video showing some short films made for the kinetoscope.
a big invention that was created for making movies was the cinematograph which was created by the Lumiere brothers and it was the first ever camera used for recording.
with the cinematograph people recorded using a single shot and from a single point of view. In 1948 Alfred Hitchcock created a movie called rope which helped create in camera editing. edited in camera is a term which means that the film is created shot by shot and each shot is produced in sequence from the first shot to the last shot. below is a trailer for rope.
When film makers started using in camera editing the idea of using a variety of shot choices, using multiple points of view and that the story could follow the action came about. editing in camera is still used by filmmakers today and can allow filmmakers to show the world from different points of view instead of one point of view. Below is an example of an in camera edited movie.
The problem with editing in camera is that there may be bits in the film that are not meant to be in the film and you can't get a perfect cut so filmmakers needed a way to trim shoots and to alter the order of clips so they started to cut film using scissors and a magnifying glass to find where out which clip needs to be cut and then sticking it together with Sellotape. Over time people started to create machines to help people do the jobs easier than what people can do and so the Moviola was invented in 1929 by Iwan Serrurier. The Moviola were editing decks that were used to cut movie clips and put them back together, this was known as linear editing as the filmmakers had to assemble clips one after the other. The Moviola was an easier way of cutting and putting clips back together as you could be more accurate about where to cut each clip.
Another machine that was created for editing movies was the Steenbeck which was made by the Steenbeck company in 1945. Steenbecks were used for editing movies and became more popular than Moviolas and were the industry standard back then. Steenbecks are still made and used today although there are now other ways of editing movies. to edit using a Steenbeck the clips and audio were recorded separately and then stuck together in synchronisation, next the editor finds a point to cut and marks it on the sound and picture rolls and then he cuts and splices in the next shot.
in 1951 the invention of video editing came about by the Ampex research team. they found out that you can record to video tapes and so machines were invented in1956 to record on video tapes known as quadruplex video tapes. One machine that was made for filming with quadruplex video tapes was the VR-1000 made by Ampex.
The VR-1000 recorded a black and white picture with a mono audio channel on a video tape. The tape ran at 15 inches per second and using a rotating drum to record the picture the recording speed was approximately 1560 inches per second. to edit the video tape after using the VR-1000 the editor used a microscope to see where to make the cut, next some solution was added and attracted by the magnetised areas of the tape, finally the tape was cut using a guillotine knife and stuck back together in the right place using 3M video splicing tape. the original video editing systems were also linear editing systems however the data was copied from one tape to another via a control deck which would control the in and out points of the clip you wanted to copy across. At this point the picture quality wasn't good enough for cinema and was only used for television. the first ever movie to be shot on video was Julie and Julia which was made by Radiotelevisione Italians and directed by Peter Del Monte in 1987. the next invention for editing movies were non linear editing systems. Non linear editing systems were attempted to be created in the 1970s but no one actually came up with a system to do it until Lucas film tried to bring out a system in the 1980s called the Edit Droid. The Edit Droid was a system that used laser discs to edit movies but the system never became a success and has now been discontinued. The first actual system that was used for editing was Avid 1Media Composer editing system created by Avid in 1989 for Apple.
the first digital professional camera to be able to record movies was the Sony DI. linear editing changed to non linear editing for most filmmakers because it was discovered that film or video could be transformed into and that the information could be altered without the original file being destroyed which is known as non destructive editing. Non linear editing is a better way of editing and is a popular way of editing movies, Nowadays many people edit movies by capturing footage on a digital camera and then using software such as final cut pro transferring the data off the camera and then using final cut pro to edit the movie.
the purpose of editing
Editing is an important role when making a video whether it is for cinema or television or just the Internet. there are a few reasons why filmmakers have to edit but the main purpose is effective storytelling. the reason effective storytelling is important is because filmmakers want their viewers to enjoy what they are watching and make them feel like they are part of the action. to create effective storytelling filmmakers need to control the audience's point of view, this is done by choosing the right shots to film that are going to tell the story in editing. once filmmakers have finished filming then they can edit the film by using software and cutting bits out that are not needed in the final cut also they can add effects to their films and this is how an effective storyline is made. There are many different things that make an effective storyline and they are genre, pace and rhythm and combining shots into sequences to engage the viewer. Genre is how a film can be defined either by its content or style. so if you are watching or making a movie with loads of swearing, fighting, guns and a hero then you are making or watching an action movie. below is a trailer for the dark knight rises which has loads of action in it.
pace and rhythm are used to control the tension in scenes. if there is a faster pace and rhythm then it creates more tension and people will be on the edge of their seats. below are two videos one is a trailer for doctor who and the other is a trailer for love actually.
As you can see from this trailer Doctor Who is a very fast paced show this is because each episode is 45 minutes long so the producers try to get everything crammed in, also the doctor has to run everywhere and there is always action waiting around the corner.
As you can see from this trailer this is totally different to Doctor Who as it is slow paced, the reason for this is that this is a romance and if you watch the trailer you will see that there are plenty of transitions between scenes. If a transition is used it makes moving between scenes more smoother which is perfect for romance but if you are making an action movie then just jumping to the next scene creates tension and leaves people hanging on the edge of their seats wondering what is going to happen next. Combining shots into sequences to engage the viewer means that each shot reveals what is going to happen in the next scene. Below is a clip from the movie Forrest Gump.
This is very good example of telling a story using shots. the way in which Forrest Gump works is that Forrest sits on a seat and talks about everything that has happened in his life and then it uses flashbacks to go to that moment in his life. So every time Forrest Gump talks to someone else he is creating the setting for the next scene and is therefore getting the viewers engaged in his life story.
pace and rhythm are used to control the tension in scenes. if there is a faster pace and rhythm then it creates more tension and people will be on the edge of their seats. below are two videos one is a trailer for doctor who and the other is a trailer for love actually.
As you can see from this trailer Doctor Who is a very fast paced show this is because each episode is 45 minutes long so the producers try to get everything crammed in, also the doctor has to run everywhere and there is always action waiting around the corner.
As you can see from this trailer this is totally different to Doctor Who as it is slow paced, the reason for this is that this is a romance and if you watch the trailer you will see that there are plenty of transitions between scenes. If a transition is used it makes moving between scenes more smoother which is perfect for romance but if you are making an action movie then just jumping to the next scene creates tension and leaves people hanging on the edge of their seats wondering what is going to happen next. Combining shots into sequences to engage the viewer means that each shot reveals what is going to happen in the next scene. Below is a clip from the movie Forrest Gump.
This is very good example of telling a story using shots. the way in which Forrest Gump works is that Forrest sits on a seat and talks about everything that has happened in his life and then it uses flashbacks to go to that moment in his life. So every time Forrest Gump talks to someone else he is creating the setting for the next scene and is therefore getting the viewers engaged in his life story.
conventions and techniques
In this part of the blog you will find many conventions and techniques that are used amongst filmmakers. the first technique is shot-reverse-shot. a shot-reverse-shot is where the camera switches from person to person when two people are talking. Below is an example of shot-reverse-shot.
Another technique used is a montage which is a sequence showing a characters development through time. below is a training montage from Kickboxer.
Another technique used is a montage which is a sequence showing a characters development through time. below is a training montage from Kickboxer.
Below are different videos which I made using quicktime player and they show me doing different techniques using final cut pro. The first video is adding a dissolve transition between two clips. Adding a transition makes the cut between scenes smoother.
The second video shows how to add a wipe transition. This is where one clip cuts to another by wiping over it.
The third video shows how to cut two clips up by adding in and out points.
The next video shows how to cut to music.
The final video shows how to cutaway to an interview.
So that is all there is to know about the history of editing and the techniques of editing.
