AS1 Brief 1 task1

In this post I will be talking about how editing has changed over the past 50 years. Also I will be talking about how many different people have inspired editing to make editing at 

the stage it is at in the 21^st century.

The Lumiere brothers-

Editing first started with The Lumiere Brothers. Thomas Edison’s company invented a film camera and a projector. The Lumiere brothers was a short film that was on a long, static and lock down shot. When the film was being made they only need use motion in the shot, this was the only shot that was necessary to the film to amuse the audience. The first film only showed simple activities such as traffic moving on a street. This can be seen in the film Sortie D’usine which was made by The Lumier brother’s. This film was 45 seconds long and was shown to the public on 22 March 1895. The film shows the output of workers which was mostly women in the factory.  This film was a still shot film with an continues shot, this means that there was no cuts or editing with in the film. 

Edwin S.Porter

Edwin S. Porter was thought to be an American film marker, who was the first person to put editing into use within film. Before Porter started his career within the film industry he was an electrician. When he started his career within film in 1890’s he join the film laboratory of Thomas Alva Edison. With editing there was no story to it, each film was run in a still shot, which would of not been cut it would run for as long as the film that was in the camera for. An example for this a film called The Miller and the Sweep which was made in 1898.  

Also a year after making The Miller and the sweep in 1898, not long after that G.A.Smith made another film which was called the kiss in the tunnel. The kiss in the tunnel was made in 1899. The kiss in the tunnel was a silent comedy which was set to mark narrative editing. The kiss in the tunnel was on of the longest films that was made to the date, it ran for 1minuet and 3 seconds.



Short films where the only films what where about, but when Edison motion picture studio decide that they wanted to increase the length of short films Edison turned to Edwin S.Porter. However Porter made a breakthrough with the film called Life of an American Fireman which came out in 1903. This was the first film that ever had a plot of action, and also a close up of a hand pulling a fire alarm. The film the life of an American Fireman was the longest film to that day in age which ran for 6 minuets and 3 seconds, which was a massive increase to film. Porter discovered important aspects of motion picture language are;

1.  When showing a image of a person it does not need to show the person from head to toe
2. That splicing together two shots will create the viewers mind a contextual relationship

The two point above was the key discoveries that made all no live or no live on tape narrative pictures and television possible. Also the shots could be photographed at widely different locations over a period of time for example hours, day or even months these would be combined into a narrative whole.

 

D.W Griffith 

Griffith was a U.S film director and also was one of the early supporters of the power of editing. Griffith made use of cross cutting which helped him show parallel action which was taken place in different locations. . Griffths  work was high regarded by Lev Kuleshove and was greatly influenced to film makers to show the understanding of editing. An example where Griffith is showing editing within a film is The birth of the Nation. The Birth of the Nation was made in 1917 and it was a silent drama. The birth of the Nation was based on the Novel The clansman.

Also in the same year D.W.Griffith made another film which was called the great train robbery. The grate train robbery was made in 1903. The great train robbery is an American western film, this film is 12minuets long it is considered a milestone in film making. This film used a number innovative techniques this includes composite editing, camera movement and no location shooting.


Lev Kuleshov- 

Lev Kuleshov was among the first who theorized about the relatively young medium of the cinema with in the 1920’s.  Kuleshov argues that when editing a film it is just like constructing a building. With film it is shot by shot where as a building is brick by brick. Around 1918 the Russian director done an experiment that helped proves this point. With this experiment the Russian director took an old film clip of a head shot of an actor and inter cut the shot with many different images. The picture bellow is showing Lev Kuleshov experiment which is called the montage theory. The original images that where used to explain montage theory was a bowl of soup then a child playing with a teddy bear, then a shot of a women in a casket. 

When the Russian director showed the film to people they praised the actors and the acting within the film because the hunger in the actors face when the bowl of soup was shown, then the delight in the child and finally the grief when looking at the dead women. But the shot of the actors was years before the other shot's but they never saw any of the items. Finally the act of juxtaposing the shots in a sequence made the relationships. A film that shows the ideas of the montage theory is a film called Man with a Movie Camera. 

Parallel editing 

Parallel editing is known as cross cutting this is a film editing technique of continuity editing, that establishes the relationship between two subjects by cutting one to other. The film below is a part of the God father which was made by Fancis For Coppol, this is a film that is showing cross cutting at the end of the film. Another example of parallel editing is the horse that bolted which was made in 1907.