How Editing Has Developed Over Time

The history of film has had many changes up until today, which inevitably means that editing styles have changed. Film first started out in the 1800's with no editing at all. Today we would look at these films and think of them as almost home videos if we were to film them ourselves. You can see this style of filming in this video of L'Arrivee d'un train a La Ciotat by the Lumiere brothers in 1895. At this point the audience knew nothing about film and therefore were afraid when they saw this as they thought the train was actually coming towards them.

After all of these one-shot short films were around they eventually thought that cinema didn't have a future since people were just filming things that they could go and see first hand for themselves. They then came to the realisation of cutting the footage to change between shots. To do this they would physically cut and paste together pieces of film using a splicer and threading the film on a machine with a viewer. This was the first sign of editing. You can see in the video below of The Great Train Robbery by Edwin Porter made in 1903 how the use of cutting was used in early film.

It was editing that allowed film to take off as it allowed the film to transport between any two shots. For example, a setting like a train station to someones face. Editing also allows shots to be sped up or slowed down, which is interesting because this obviously can't be done in real life. This in fact is the reason why people generally like film as they would like to be able to edit their own lives as is done in film. Editing can also be used to make the audience have a certain reaction. For example, it can startle the audience or can make them laugh.

Editing also went on to add colour to film, this was the process of film colorization. To do this, each shot was individually coloured by hand. You can see this in the video below of Greed from 1924 where certain parts of the film have had colour included.

D. W. Griffith was the first editor. He invented and popularized specific techniques which included introducing narrative to film. He was also the first man that used the close up in a big way. The audience didn't understand this shot at this point as they said that they wanted to see the whole actors body since they had paid all of this money to see the film. The video below shows a trailer by D.W. Griffith for Birth of a Nation, in this clip you can see the use of different shots.

They wanted the cut to be so smooth that it was barely noticeable so that the viewer stays involved throughout the film. Jimmy Edward Smith was Griffith's film cutter. He basically lived with Griffith in the film studio when they were working since the amount of time they were spending on it. Smith was virtually unknown like all other editors at that time. It was the directors that got all the glory for the film but the work of the editors weren't recognized.

Film makers started realising that they could use specific techniques to make the audience react in a certain way. For example, they would use flashbacks, parallel action and close ups which would create a specific reaction from the audience. The filmmakers realised that they could use this to their advantage. They also realised that they could create a certain psychological effect through certain ways of cutting, which again shows how the audience can react in certain ways. For example, certain ways of cutting can make the audience nervous or in shock. The 1956 film Carousel is an example of the early use of flashback, a clip from the film is shown below.

Editing can be essentially seen as the start of the making of the film as this is the point where the film is actually put together. At this point you can actually physically see the film and decide what changes need to be made.

In the film The Man With A Movie Camera you can see every modern editing technique that we now know. The film is shown below.

Hitchcock was the master of suspense, he used editing to do this. Below is a video from his film Psycho. I chose to show the shower scene as i feel that this is a perfect example of how he used his editing to build up suspense.

The film Bullitt has a large chase scene. In a chase scene you want to accentuate that something is going on whether it is good or bad, this is shown through the rhythm in the scene. When watching a car chase scene is like being in a cardiac simulator which runs when watching the scene as it feels as though you are there, you feel excited and nervous about what is going on.

Terminator 2 uses a slow tense build up in slow motion, then it has a cathartic break where it then kicks into gear where the action happens. This makes the audience feel tense about what is going to happen as throughout the film they have become involved in all the characters etc which inevitably means that they will be emotionally evolved in this scene too. When the audience comes into the cinema they already know their own fears, they want to be surprised, they want to feel nervous etc. This clip below shows this.

A lot later on in the history of editing Tarantino wanted an editor that was a woman for Reservoir Dogs as he felt that they were more nurturing and would give his film exactly what he wanted in the best way they possibly could. This was very different and slightly controversial as men are mainly the editors in the film industry. This shows how the change in time effects our views differently. The video below is the opening scene from Reservoir Dogs which shows Tarantino's editors work.

Visual effects have also changed through time, there is now a lot more things that is possible to do. For example, CGI has also come about allowing the animation world to have become a lot more advanced.