Another important aspect of film technique is editing—how individual shots are combined in sequence to convey certain meanings. The relationships between shots themselves convey certain meanings. The Russian filmmaker, Sergei Eisenstein, believed that montage—how images are combined together in dialectical ways created conflict between image A (thesis) versus image B (antithesis) to create a new meaning (synthesis) (Giannetti, 2004). In his famous sequence of shots of civilians being shot by soldiers on the Odessa Steps in the 1925 film, Potemkin (Battleship Potemkin, Like television), he combined shots of the soldiers as they marched down the steps shooting the innocent civilians with shots of the civilians being wounded and a baby carriage with a baby in it moving precariously down the steps. These combinations created a sense of anger at the soldier’s cruelty.

Editing also serves to portray lived time in terms of film-time so that actual events that would take longer to occur in real time are truncated or reduced to fit into the film time of the typical two-hour film. One of the early American filmmakers, D. W. Griffith, employed cross-cutting between two different events in different locales or setting to give the impression that the two events are related. Or, filmmakers will insert cut-away shots of audience reactions to an event to slow down real time. Thus, a horse race that would take five minutes in real time might actually take ten minutes in film time when audience reactions are included.

During the 1940s and 1950s, filmmakers such as Orson Welles, particularly in Citizen Kane, employed what is known as deep-focus shots. Rather than using cuts between different shots, he juxtaposed persons or objects within the same scene, creating a tension between foreground and background images. For example, in Citizen Kane, the parents are shown in the background signing documents that relinquishes their legal rights to their son as their son is playing outside in the foreground, unaware of what is happening to him.

Roger Ebert: other innovative techniques employed in Citizen Kane

Descriptions of techniques employed in key scenes in Citizen Kane:
Robert Yahnke's website
Citizen Kane's Orson Welles

Webquest: Citizen Kane

During the 1950s and 1960s, filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock, and later, Martin Scorsese, carefully planned out each shot with elaborate scripts and storyboards (Scorsese used a computer) that was designed to create dramatic effects. For example, a famous scene of Cary Grant in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest being lured to an Illinois cornfield only to be attacked by a low-flying dust-cropper plane (for a storyboard, see Giannetti, 2004) demonstrates the deliberate juxtaposition of shots of Grant's face and escape movements with shots of the plane as it makes another turn to swoop down on Grant.

Then, in the 1960s, filmmakers of the French New Wave, such as Jean-Luc Godard, Francis Truffaut, and Claude Chabrol, experimented with different forms of editing. Godard challenged traditional notions of editing through uses of jump-cuts.

Stephen Nottingham: The French New Wave

In the 1990s, a group of Scandinavian filmmakers associated with the “Dogma” school began developing a new style of filmmaking that is based on the following 8 principles:

Click here for the Dogma 95 site

Some films that followed these principles are Breaking the Waves, Idioteren (The Idiots), and Festen (The Celebration), and Dogville.:

Analyzing the Reality Effect in Dogma Films
Dogma For Beginners: A Religious Commitment to Truth in Cinema

Filmmakers may also create a sense of suspense or drama through the use of quick shots, with cuts every 2 or 3 seconds. Or, in contrast, they may slow down time to create a dream-like mood by employ long takes with few cuts. Given the quick-cutting that began to occur in television ads in the 1980s, films since then are more likely to mimic the fast-cut pace of advertising.

Filmmakers also convey the meaning of relationships between shot through uses of different types of transition between shots. They may employ a smooth, slow dissolve from one image to another or fade an image in or out in ways that imply continuity between shots. They may also suddenly cut between shots or employ a wipe between shots to call attention to the switch in scenes or to even create a jarring sensation.

Examples of different editing techniques:

Australian Children’s Television Foundation

Tom Barrance, Media Education Wales: Making your film make sense

Teaching editing through doing editing. One of the best ways to teach editing is to have students engaged in their own editing using iMovie or other editing software programs such as Adobe Premier and After Effects, for both Macintosh and Windows, and Final Cut Pro, for Macintosh. In using these programs, students must think about how and why they making certain editing decisions. They can readily take clips of video and consider alternative ways to sequence the clips to most effectively develop a narrative or a documentary.

Once students have important material into computers from their camcorders, they then select the material they want to use and import it into iMovie. They then name or rename the different clips using the box below each small picture. They then can insert the clips into the horizontal bar on the bottom of the screen. They can then rearrange the clips, crop them, and add sound. They can also add fades, wipes, or dissolves between shots.

For more specifics, see Tom Barrance on creating iMovies.

In thinking about editing, students are learning skills that should transfer over to revising drafts in writing, revision that requires them to thinking about organization of material in ways that engage or persuade audiences. For example, middle school students at Lincoln Magnet School, in Springfield, Illinois, in a course on Video Journalism taught by Toni McDowell, made documentaries about people in the community whom they perceived to be “heroes.” They then conducted video interviews with these people as well as with people who were influenced by these peoples’ actions. They then edited their material, included other material and music, to create a documentary.

Or, 11th graders writing in Adam Kinory’s English class in The School of the Future in Manhattan conducted an analysis of motifs in the film Inherit the Wind about the Scopes Trial. As they viewed the film, students recorded instances of these motifs, as well as making certain textual connections:

Adam took the students’ analysis of patterns and digitized the 30 most-noted clips in the film. After viewing each of these clips, the students wrote and then discussed the significance of the clip related to the film’s themes. He then had students select 3 clips that were thematically related, leading up to formulating a thematic interpretation and to write about that theme. This represents the use of different clips related to learning to define relationships between different parts of a film.

Daniel Anderson: Integrating digital stills into writing
“The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”

Heather Ross: Using iMovie productions in writing classes

Apple Learning Interchange: iLife productions
(on-line examples of student productions)

Apple Learning Interchange: Videography for Educators

PBS Listen Up! Youth Media Network

Pier Marton, Washington University, Video Production

Education Video Center: clips of ten student-produced videos

For further reading

Dancyger, K. (2002). Technique of film and video editing: History, theory, and practice. New York: Focal Press.

Kenny, R. (2001). Teaching TV production in a digital world: Integrating media literacy (Student edition). Denver, CO: Libraries Unlimited.

Module 3: Word document

Visual Literacy: Starting with the Image

Studying Images through Still Photography

Comics and Film Technique

Film Techniques

Lighting

Editing

Sound

Using Film Techniques to Convey Cinematic Meanings

Defining Purposes for Editing Decisions: Creating Storyboards

Analysis/Evaluation of Film Technique

Film History

Television History

Accessing On-line Films / Film Reviews / Ratings / Information

Animation and Special Effects

Film Study Methods

Writing about Films

Film Study Resources

Film Journals/Magazines

References

Teaching Activities