Month: January 2016

Lecture #3: CONSTRUCTING TIME

This week we look at how time is constructed through different kinds of editing: Parallel Editing, Temporal Ellipsis and Temporal Expansion.

 

Click below for a few links to films we watched & discussed this week.

READINGS

PARALLEL ACTION

In this way of storytelling through editing, two different pieces actions are presented in fragments cutting from one to another, implying simultaneous time.  Also sometimes called Cross-Cutting.

A few classic examples are below.

Strangers on a Train (1951), Hitchcock

The Godfather (1972)

Silence of the Lambs (1991)

ELLIPTICAL EDITING

Elliptical Editing refers to omitting or cutting  out part of an event to imply time has passed. This is an easy way to make an event take less screen time than it does in reality. Often dissolves are used to signify going forward in time, or flashbacks. Also Swish Pans and wipes are used to signify a series of events.

Sometimes flashbacks can be done in straight cuts. Look at this stunning example from Oldboy.

TEMPORAL EXPANSION

This is the opposite of Elliptical editing. In this case the editing stretches out time. This is often used in action sequences. Eisenstein used expansion in several films through overlapping editing. “In October Eisenstein overlaps several shots of rising bridges in order to stress the significance of the moment.” (Bordwell 260)

Taxi Driver (1976)

In the final scene of Taxi Driver there is a mix of slow motion, long takes and freeze frames to emphasise the drama of the situation.

THE LONG TAKE

What about holding onto a moment, without cutting?  TSAI Ming-Liang is one of the contemporary masters of holding shots for even upwards of 10 minutes. Many editors talk about how holding a shot can be as important as cutting, and the importance of using intuition or as Dede Allen says ‘cutting with the gut’.

 

TSAI comes from earlier approaches such as HOU and OZU who used formal fixed cameras and long takes to create atmosphere and time.

Stray Dogs (2013), Tsai Ming-Liang

Interview with Tsai Ming-Liang & Lee Kang-Sheng

GRAPHIC & TEMPORAL RELATIONS

The Birds (1963) Fire Scene

Lecture #1: INTRODUCTION & HISTORY OF EDITING

The history of editing is the story of filmmaking itself. As filmmaking evolved, so did the art of editing, with constant innovation and new discoveries.

Click on the links below to watch the full films we discuss in our first lecture and to find more reading and resources.

Lecture #1 Slides

 

StoryOfFilmWe also watched Chapter One: 1895-1918 of The Story of Film, by Mark Cousins. It is available in the Run Run Shaw library if you would like to watch it again.

The reading to support this week’s lecture is:

Chapter One: “Editing and the Silent Film” in K. Reisz and G. Millar (1953/2000) The Technique of Film Editing, pp 15-40

Chapter One: “History of Film Editing” in K. Dancyger (2011) The Technique of Film & Video Editing: History, Theory, and Practice, pp 3-16

Films

Arrival of a Train (1895), Auguste and Louis Lumière

Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895), Auguste and Louis Lumière

The Sneeze (1894), W. K. L. Dickson

The Kiss (1896), Edison Manufacturing Co

From Edison films catalog about The Kiss: “By May Irwin and John Rice. They get ready to kiss, begin to kiss, and kiss and kiss and kiss in a way that brings down the house every time.”

But then, the CUT enters film language and the imagination is unleashed.

A Trip to the Moon (1902), George Méliès

Life of an American Fireman (1902), Edwin S. Porter

In this film Porter discovers how one space could be replaced by another and still seamlessly tell a story. This would come to be called  continuity cutting: the editing equivalent of the word “then”.

The Great Train Robbery (1903)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc7wWOmEGGY

The Horse that Bolted (1907), Charles Pathe

“The Horse that Bolted” shows us Parallel editing. What is happening at the same time. The editing equivalent of “meanwhile”.

Women were also very active in early cinema — a reality often written out of film history. Alice Guy Blaché was one of those early innovators, thought to have been the first to start structuring the ‘dramatic arc’ into the edit.

Falling Leaves (1912), Alice Guy Blaché.

Suspense (1913), Lois Weber (a film initially credited to a man –D.W. Griffith)

Birth of a Nation (1915), D. W. Griffith

Griffith brought many variations to the shot to add to the film’s impact: long shots, cut-aways, and tracking shots. While Griffith was innovative, it’s hard to watch with its racism and glorified representation of the KKK. The film shows us how editing evolved, but also how even in the early days of film,  propaganda, point-of-view & politics would be central to filmmaking.

Souls on the Road (1921), Minoru Murata

Sherlock Jr (1924), Buster Keaton

Mother (1926), Vsevolod Podovkin

A Page of Madness (1926), Teinosuke Kinugasa

Assignment #4: Trailer

A  TRAILER is a fundamental part of promoting a film and getting viewers excited about seeing it. Some say it is the art of “disclosure and deception” as well as an art of seduction. The trailer brings together the main elements of the film and makes us want more.

  • Edit a trailer that emphasises a different genre than the original film. For example, watch this trailer for the horror film The Shining that was recut as a family feel-good movie.  For this exercise, you will need to accurately reflect a ‘genre’ trailer that is different from the original meaning of the film.

For this assignment students much first watch the entire film and have a good sense of the story, feeling and original genre.

In your trailer you can use titles, inter-titles, voice over and music. 

The trailer should be NO LESS than one and a half minutes and NO MORE than 3 minutes. 

Watch some TRAILERS HERE

DUE DATE: April 13, 2016

GRADE: 20%

Assignment #1: Action Continuity

Create and edit an action scene focusing on the action’s visual continuity. Working with storyboards in a group, shoot your selected action. The edited version should not be less than 10 shots and should demonstrate:

  1. Match on action
  2. Shot/reverse shot
  3. 180 degree rule

In this assignment  you can pick one of the following actions:

  • A character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character.
  • One character wakes up another character. The first puts on her clothes, shoes, etc. and gets ready to go out.
  • A couple plays badminton.
  • Two people avoid each other going up or down a staircase.

REMEMBER: This exercise is not for you to use visual gimmicks but to focus on a straightforward, neat and effective presentation of action continuity through editing. Do not distract yourself or get sidetracked with unnecessary attention or efforts in lighting or story telling. Keep it simple!

Class will be divided into groups for this exercise. Each group will work on the production together and share the footage among the group for editing. Each student has to present a ‘version’ of his or her own editing effort. Submit names of group leader and members to your instructor on the first workshop period.

One day of e-money for production for Exercise 1 will be allocated to the group leaders respectively.

 

DUE: Feb 1st, 2016 (Bring your work to class & upload to CommonShare)

GRADE: 20%

Lecture #2: CONTINUITY EDITING & THE HISTORY OF EDITING II

This week we look at some of the basic concepts that developed the language and grammar of film editing. We spend a bit of time talking about Sergei Eisenstein and his theories around editing, and some of the innovations and experiments that were happening in the early period of film history.

The second half of the lecture we learn about technical aspects of Continuity Editing.

In the workshop this week we start shooting our Action Continuity Assignment in groups to prepare for the edit next week.

Click on the links below for films we watched & discussed this week.

READ

  • Film Form: Essays in Film Theory, by Sergei Eisenstein, Edited and translated by Jay Leyda, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc, 1949, New York. Selections from Chapters 1, 4 & 6

We  watched the first section of  The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing available in the Run Run Shaw Media Library.

HISTORY of EDITING II

Kuleshov Effect

Eisenstein the Father of Montage

This is a great link to explain visually Eisenstein’s five methods of montage: Metric, Rhythmic, Tonal, Over Tonal and Intellectual.

Odessa Steps sequence from Battleship Potemkin

Odessa sequence cut together with the homage from The Untouchables by Brain DePalma

EXPERIMENTS IN CINEMA

Dziga Vertov, The Man with the Movie Camera (1929)
“This film is famous for the range of cinematic techniques Vertov invents, deploys or develops, such as double exposure, fast motion, slow motion, freeze frames, jump cuts, split screens, Dutch angles, extreme close-ups, tracking shots, footage played backwards, stop motion animations and a self-reflexive style.”

Cinematic Orchestra track “Awakening of a Woman” set to Man with a Movie Camera

Luis Bunuel, Un Chien Andalou (1929)

ACTION CONTINUITY

180 Degree rule, explained with clips

Breaking down the 180 Degree rule

Shot Reverse Shot example

Match on Action

Continuity, 180 Degree line, Match on Action in “The Matrix” (1999)

Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and Neo (Keanu Reeves) | Directors: Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski

“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You  take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe  whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in  Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

 

 

Filmmaking Tutorial: 180 Degree Rule and Other Shot Sequence Tips