Speed/Style of Editing

What is Editing?

Editing is the process of looking at all the footage shot at the making of the film, placing it in the desired order and joining it together.

2 Key Areas of concentration when editing
1. Speed of editing (How long does each shot last?)
2. Style of editing (How is each shot joined to the next?)

Speed of Editing

In a film a scene could last a matter of seconds or minutes but the length of each sequence helps determine the mood of the scene.





If the audience is meant to feel anxious or suspenseful the editing will be very quick with the scenes and shots frequently changing with an example being this action sequence

If a relaxed mood is desired, the scenes will last longer and change less frequently.

However a film also does not need any editing at all. The film Russian Ark was filmed entirely in one take using a steadicam and  a digital camera. This required split-second timing and careful 

organisation. 

A trailer for a film needs to pack in detail from throughout the film, therefore the editing will be 

very fast. For example this scene in Sleepless in Seattle.  During the trailer for Logan which is under 2 minutes long there are over 50 cuts.

The scenes at the beginning of the film must be long enough for us to be able to understand what going on and where we are. It is also slow so it can introduce the main character/characters. As a film progresses scenes may become shorter as the editing cuts between telling 2 or more storylines at the 

same time.

The average length of a shot in the opening of Spiderman is around 15 seconds.

 

The average length of a shot in a fight scene of Spiderman is around 1-2 seconds.

During the beginning of the shower scene the cuts last a while and puts the audience in a relaxed mood. However in stabbing scene cuts are very fast and frequent this is done to make the audience surprised and anxious but also is done to give the audience the idea of a stabbing because when this film was made you could not show stabbing on screen so Alfred Hitchcock had to be smart in how he would show it.

Style of Editing

The style of editing is how the shots are linked together, the movement between one scene and the next is called a transition. 

The straight cut is the most common and invisible form of transition. One shot moves instantaneously to the next without attracting the audiences attention. It helps retain reality and does not break the viewers suspension of disbelief.

A fade is a gradual darkening or lightening of an image until it becomes black or white.  One shot will fade until only black or white can be seen. It is used to indicate the end of a particular section of time within the narrative or could show a passing of time. 

Wipes are when one image is pushed off the screen for another. The image can got either left or right however it is more common for an image to be pushed left as this movement is more consistent with time moving forward. It is used to signal a movement between two different locations that are experiencing at the same time. It is used extensively in the Star Wars franchise. 

A jump cut is where the audience's attention is brought into focus on something very suddenly. This occurs by breaking continuity editing and is known as discontinuity, it appears as if a section of the sequence has been removed.