Types of editing and cuts

Three different types of editing sequences

Split Edit

Also known as the L cut. Technique that makes a transition more aesthetically pleasing and interesting. In a split edit the audio track transitions at a different time that the video. Thanks to this transition dialogue scenes don’t look like tennis matches, when the conversation would jump between two actors. It can be used to give the viewer a wider context of the scene.

Montage

A technique in which a series of short shots are edited into a sequence, used in the tv and film industry for trailers and recaps of what happened in previous episodes. It originates from 1920’s, when these sequences combined different optical effects such as fades, split screens and dissolves. Back then it was used top provoke the viewer and disorientated him.

Discontinuity editing

A form of montage. This style of editing creates disorientation. It uses metaphorical and symbolic shots to tell the story. Viewer doesn’t know what to expect.

Research and review three different types of cut

Fade in/out:

A  popular type of transition between shots. Fade outs are usually used  at the end of a film, to close the story. A very popular practice is to fade the picture into the black screen. Sometimes they can be also used to illustrate the ending of a day, character falling asleep. Fade ins are the opposite, they’re used in the beginning of the film.

Dissolve:

The dissolve is a smooth transition used to indicate the change of location or time but also to connect the scenes. It happens when two shots overlap each other, but are both visible because their opacity is lower. It seems like this transition was more popular in the past than in present times. The dissolve was used in the beginning of “Citizen Kane”, when the gate to Kane’s mansion dissolved into a shot with moneys in a cage and then into another shot of the mansion on the hill which was metaphorically use to show the audience that his dream house is also a prison. In The Godfather Part II dissolves are used to show the continuity between two generation of Corleone family.

Cutting on the action:

It’s also known as matching on the action, it’s a technique in which we cut from one shot to another that marches the action from the first shot. We can see a lot of examples of that cut in The Matrix, like in this clips below, when Neo meets Morpheus. It’s starts around 0:19. Another example of this transition can be observed in the boxing scene in “Sherlock Holmes”. These types of cuts make the transition between shots much more smoother and fluid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtxbN_wunic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGCMfprPJoA

References:

Bowen C., When to Use the Dissolve [online] Masteringfilm.com Available at: http://masteringfilm.com/when-to-use-the-dissolve/ [Data accessed: 09.02.2015]

Renee V., 2013, Transitions in Editing: the History and Evolution of the Dissolve [online] NoFilmSchool.com Available at: http://nofilmschool.com/2013/08/history-an-evolution-of-the-dissolve [Data accessed: 09.02.2015]

Unknown, Types of transition [online] ElementsOfCinema.com Available at: http://www.elementsofcinema.com/editing/types-of-transition.html [Data accessed: 04.02.2015]

Pinard B., COMMON VIDEO TRANSITIONS: CUT, FADE, AND DISSOLVE [online] Videomaker.com Available at: http://www.videomaker.com/video/watch/tips-and-techniques/447-common-video-transitions-cut-fade-and-dissolve [Data accessed: 04.02.2015]

Lee K., 2013, The Dissolve on dissolves: A video essay [online] Available at: http://thedissolve.com/features/special-feature/16-ithe-dissolvei-on-dissolves-a-video-essay/ [Data accessed: 16.02.2015]

SoloBoxer, 2013, Types of Fil Cuts [online] Youtube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LXQg6t4q2A [Data accessed: 16.02.2015]

Filmmaker IQ, 2014, The History of Cutting – The Birth of Cinema and Continuity Editing [online] Youtube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uahjH2cspk  [Data accessed: 16.02.2015]

Hockrow R. 2014, Pacing for Video and Cinema Editors: Timing and Types of Cuts [online] Peachpit.com Available at: http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2233986&seqNum=4 [Data accessed: 16.02.2015]

Exposition in films from the silent film era based on examples of “Modern Times” and “Metropolis”

What is the exposition? In narrative it means to expose the wider context of the story, introduce important background information, such as characters’ back stories, information about location, the setting, which shows how important it is for the audience to understand the film they are watching. After seeing Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times”(1936) I have decided to compare it to Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis”(1927). “Modern Times” were Chaplin’s reaction to the Great Depression, even that it was a comedy he still talked about important social and economic issues. Lack of jobs and sufficient housing, no perspective of better tomorrow, clash of two ideologies, communism and capitalism, mechanisation of factory lines(this actually inspired him to write the “Modern Times”), the idea of a man being a clog in the wheel.  These are all very heavy and serious issues that we wouldn’t not expect to see in a modern comedy.

Even that technology was there Chaplin decided to use very little sound in his film, as he felt that a certain appeal to his character, Little Tramp, would be lost. He was very sceptical towards using the sound as he thought that it would not work in the type of comedy that he specialised in, pantomime. He felt he expressed himself better with actions than with words. The only voices we hear in this film were the voices of the factory owner, radio and spoken instruction manual for one of the machines and at the end Chaplin singing a song which was gibberish.

“Metropolis” is a slightly different story, it talks about important issues to us, humans, but it takes place in the future. It challenges the subject of segregation in the society, how is the society going to look in the future. The wealthy rich living in the beautiful high-rise tower complex while the poor, oppressed workers live underground where they work to provide power for the wealthy elites. The setting is overwhelming, especially underground, where the individual person doesn’t matter. The tower complex is also enormous but it’s more pompous, rather than depressing and terrifying. It’s all used to give the idea of what’s going on to the viewer straight away.  It’s all established at the beginning of the movie, first in the scene will workers walking in line like robots and going underground. Another plot is reviled straight away as well. Freder’s fascination with Maria, girl from a different social class. He’s so intrigued that he follows her to the workers city when he sees how less privileged than him are living. The story of Rotwang, the inventor and his love to Hel, a woman that married Fredersen and was a mother of Freder is all reviled by a use of a prop, a map, which helps Fredersen find out what’s Rotwang is hiding and them let them plot against Maria and Freder.

The exposition is not always done right, sometimes it’s forced, like in a character’s monologue when he or she tells us what exactly are they doing, or what are they planning to do. In film it’s referred to as “information dump” or “idiot lecture”. None of that happened in Chaplin’s film or in “Metropolis”. Something were present in a quiet obvious way, but in my opinion it’s just how the cinema worked back in that era. Both are examples of a great filmmaking and take upon important social issues.

 

Modern Times, 1936. [Film] Beverly Hills, California, United Artists Corporation.

Metropolis, 1927. [Film] Potsdam-Babelsberg, Germany, Babelsberg Studio

David Robinson, 2004, Filming Modern Times [Online] Charlie Chaplin – Official Website, Available at: http://www.charliechaplin.com/en/biography/articles/6-Modern-Times [Accessed date:  03.12.2014]

Michael Schilf, Ten Great Film Exposition Scenes [Online] The Script Lab, Available at: http://thescriptlab.com/features/the-lists/859-ten-great-film-exposition-scenes# [Date accessed: 03.12.2014]

Chaplin Today: Modern Times, 2003 [TV documentary] France. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lp4EbfPAtI

 

Nature of time in film based on examples of ”Rashomon”(1951), ”Interstellar”(2014) and “Memento”(2000)

As filmmakers we can present the time in any way we wish to and it can be used for the benefit of our film. For example in “Memento” Chris Nolan use starts with the ending of the story to then progress to the beginning, which in itself isn’t revolutionary, it was done in films such as “Pulp Fiction”, “American Beauty” or “Fight Club”, and later, after Nolan’s film it was used in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, which I think is a great example of this “technique”.

Time and its perception play a huge role in three of these films, even that in each of them they are used in a different way. What they all have in common is that they use it to tell a story in an unusual way. “Rashomon” uses flashbacks and different points of view, “Interstellar” talks about relativity of time and “Memento” uses a reverse chronology to tell the story.  Two of them tell the story in a nonlinear way.

As Stefano Ghislotti said in his article about “Memento”, “The film is interesting because it reflects the absence of the past in its narrative structure. As an effect of composition, the main character’s memory disease is directly perceptible to the viewers.”(2003). In the beginning of “Memento” we can see that a Polaroid photograph that fades to white, which should already give us an idea that there is something different about the timeline and the narrative of this film. In that scene we actually see the ending of the movie. Then the scene fades to a black and white and we see the protagonist in a completely different place. We learn that this will be common pattern in this movie, colour scene will be alternated by black and white scenes. Now we have two narrative timelines, one in colour which shows the events in reverse and one in black and white which for most of the film seems to show the action in a chronological way. Because of its unusual structure the movie keeps the viewer guessing and thinking what’s coming next, and viewers have an advantage over Leonard, who’s condition stopped him from making new memories. Nolan creates tension and suspense by adding new photographs, or situations to the story, which then explain some previous mysteries(e.g. broken window in the Jaguar, bullets in the pick-up). We see Leonard being used and taken advantage of by two characters, Teddy and Natalie. At the end of the movie, which actually could be a beginning of the story, we realise how hopeless he is, he has no one to turn to. He’s most likely going to continue his  quest of finding the killer of his wife(even that we know that he has already done it) and the only way he is going to keep going is by his the habits he developed, such as remembering to make notes and keeping a pen around him. That’s something that differentiates him from Sammy Jankins, another recruiting theme of this story, who were also an important part of the film.

“Rashamon” uses a different approach to time, the story is told in a usual, linear way, however we hear four different versions of the same incident. It’s pretty much impossible by the viewer to tell who was telling the truth and what actually happened on that day in the forest. The technique of using flashbacks and presenting different points of view were somehow new to the cinema when Kurosawa made that film. He explores the topic of perception in this movie. Some might say that it talks about how truth is relative and subjective, such as an American film critic, Rogert Ebert. On the contrary, Error Morris, who’s a director, claims that truth can only be objective and that “Rashamon” is a “movie about how everybody sees the world differently. But the claim that everybody sees the world differently, is not a claim that there’s no reality”.

The role of time in “Interstellar” is different in comparison to those two movies. Perception of time and its relativity is very real in this film. While in “Memento” and “Rashamon” it was used as a tool to tell a story in a different way, in this case the narrative is pretty normal. In this film time is important because of a few aspects. Humanity is running out of it – in “Interstellar’s” universe Earth is no longer a sufficient place to live for humans, it’s not as welcoming as it used to be, the backstory and reasons behind it aren’t explained, but we know that because of a mysterious virus that is destroying crops and dust streams humanity needs to find a new place to live and needs to do it fast. So because of that lack of time we have our first struggle – struggle of a man with the nature. To save humanity our protagonists have to make a huge decision and go and look for a new planet for humanity. As space is a vast place we know that travelling in it take years. And that’s when the aspect of time comes in again. The crew that goes on that mission is sacrificing their lives on Earth(even that some of them don’t know it yet) for a greater good, to save humanity. But in the process of doing that some of them won’t be able to see their children grow older, or spend last years with their parents. Relativity of time and time dilation comes into play again when they have to land on a first planet. As it turns out one hour over there was equivalent to 7 years on Earth. It had a huge impact on characters that realised that even if they had a chance of coming back to Earth it could be a completely different place. That planet was also another representation of a struggle of a man vs. nature. As they’ve spent more time on there that they’re assumed they initial plan had to change as well. One of the most emotional scenes in the movie happened just after they come back from that planet to their ship. The idea of them watching 23 years’ worth of messages from home, seeing his son growing up, getting married and having kids, while he couldn’t be there or even send a message back home had to be heart breaking. After they plan changed they moved to Mann’s planet which was a literal and figurative struggle of man vs. man. At the end of the movie we’ve learnt how old Cooper is and that his daughter is close to the death. This was one of the last examples of time dilation coming into play in the movie.

All three examples show how time could be used in film and what talented filmmakers can do to make their films better with the smart use of it. It can be used as one of plotlines and an obstacle, like in “Interstellar”, but it can also be used in a narrative way to present a story from a different point of view, using a different chronology.

 

Memento, 2000. [Film] Directed by Christopher Nolan. Universal City, California: Summit Entertainment
Rashomon, 1950. [Film] Directed by Akira Kurosawa. Tokyo, Japan: Daiei Film Co. Ltd.
Interstellar, 2014. [Film] Directed by Christopher Nolan. London, England: Syncopy Inc. Los Angeles, California: Lynda Obst Productions
Stefano Ghislotti , 2003. Backwards: Memory and Fabula Construction in Memento by Christopher Nolan [online]. Available at: http://dinamico2.unibg.it/fa/fa_mem01.html [Date accessed: 25.11.2014]
Roger Ebert, 2002, Rashomon [online] Available at: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-rashomon-1950 [Date accessed: 26.11.2014)
Errol Morris, 2004, Interview with The Believer [online] Available at: http://www.errolmorris.com/content/interview/believer0404.html [Date accessed: 26.11.2014)

“Into the Wild”(2007)

source: http://bkpk.me/into-the-wild-to-travel-for-truth/

After watching “All is Lost”, which I’ve mentioned in the last post, we were asked to watch another, similar movie. We had a choice between five films that were similar and somehow related to “All is Lost”. Originally I wanted to watch and write about Gus Van Sant’s “Gerry”(2002) but I had a problem with finding a copy, so at the end I’ve picked Sean Pean’s “Into the Wild”. In contrast to “All is Lost”, “Into the Wild” is based on a true story of Christopher McCandless, who just graduated university, who decides to abandon his comfortable life and start traveling with his final destination being the Alaskan wilderness. The movie itself is divided into four chapters. In each of them he meets people that leave impact on his life and keep the story moving forward.

Christopher strikes me as an intelligent and idealistic individualist, but he’s also egoistic and naïve. In my opinion his entire journey is caused by his issues with his parents who were in a clearly not working marriage. Chris decided to run away not only from them, but also from the society that I think he also blamed. At one point of the movie he says he doesn’t need money, he donates all of his savings, destroys his credit cards, burns his remaining dollar bills and even starts using a fake name, Alexander Supertramp. He associates money with what’s wrong with our world. In a conversation with Wayne he even says that he doesn’t understand why we, human beings can be so bad to each other. I think he blames his parents’ problems on the society, as we know that his parents were quiet wealthy. In a sense he can come across as a spoiled child. To run away from the problems at home he found refuge in literature. He has his own moral code shaped by the books he read. At one point his sister says that his favourite writers were Tolstoy, Jack London and Thoreau and that he could “summon their word to any occasion”. On the road he seems to be pushing away every person that cares about him, his only goal was to get to Alaska.

In is journey he meets a lot of people who have impact on his life. He befriends a pair of hippies who almost understand him, but still want him to contact his parents, he befriends a young girl who has a crush on him, but I think the biggest impact on Chris had Ron, an old veteran who at first only gives him a lift but then both of them become friends, to the point in which Ron wants to adopt Chris and become his grandfather. But even then Chris only wanted to continue with his journey because he believed that “You’re wrong if you think the joy of life comes principally from human relationships“. In a way I admire his idealism, even that I disagree with that statement. Again, I think that his dislike to human relations comes from his parents’ marriage problems. The problem I would have with him is that he was selfish person. Even that he claimed he wanted to be alone he made a lot of people care about him and then leave them in pain.

Chris evolved as a person during his adventure. In the beginning we can see that he’s not able to kill a reindeer because there was a young one following him, but later he manages to kill a moose. However, as he was underprepared and didn’t have enough knowledge, he didn’t know how to preserve the meat in a right way which later lead to his starvation…At that point he realised that he’s scared and lonely. I presume he was trying to find a new place to camp, or maybe go back home, but the river got bigger and he couldn’t cross it. He was trapped. Chris tried eating plants but again his knowledge of survival wasn’t good enough and he managed to get poisoned by eating wrong plants. His digestive system was slowly shutting down and there was not much he could to do save himself. I think it’s interesting that in his last hallucination before the death he saw himself getting back home and seeing his parents again. He also decided to use his real name by then when he quoted Boris Pasternak’s book “Doctor Zhivago”: “For a moment she rediscovered the purpose of her life. She was here on earth to grasp the meaning of its wild enchantment, and to call each thing by its right name. By its right name.”. He came to peace with himself, his family and everything he was trying to run away from.

Christopher McCandless was definitely a different character from a main protagonist of “All is Lost”. Robert Redford’s character stayed calm for the most of the film and knew what to do next to survive. Chris was much more childish, which of course we can’t blame him for it, as he was only a young man trapped in Alaska. Did he die as a happy man? I think that he actually did. Of course he was in pain, all alone in the wilderness but Chris did something that many people are scared to: he lived his life how he wanted, didn’t follow any social norms or conventions. He had a one goal that he wanted to reach and he did it. Of course he was a troubled, naïve man, that he should have taken more advices from people on survival, be prepared for his adventure in Alaska(at the beginning he doesn’t even have rubber boots).

“All Is Lost” review

source: http://www.the-numbers.com/video/All-is-Lost/All-is-Lost-poster.jpg

In our first film screening workshop  we’ve watched “All is Lost”(2013), film which was written and directed by J. C. Chandor. It was an interesting film for two reasons. First, there was only one character in it, “Our Man”(at least that’s how he’s called on imdb.com) played by Robert Redford. It was also intriguing because of the lack of dialogue in the film, there were only few short lines at the beginning of the movie. It is an interesting approach to filmmaking, something that is very popular in films these days. Some may even call it a modern silent movie. It proves that  great story can be told without any words, but with pictures and acting instead. As an animator I came across short animations that didn’t use dialogue, I would say that it is rather a popular trend, especially when it comes to student film, but seeing a live action movie like this was a new experience for me.

The character played by Robert Redford came across as a very strong and brave individual. I don’t see many people cruising around ocean alone like he did. He showed a great will to survive and through the most of the film he seemed to be calm and clear thinking, which really surprised me, especially in the storm scene, when his boat rolled upside down. Normally I would expect people to panic but he knew exactly what to do in order to stay alive and turn the boat. What is interesting is the fact that we, as the audience do not know a lot about the character. We don’t know his background, why is he traveling alone, we don’t even know his name, but we still empathise with him.

Cinematography was amazing in that film and I’m surprised it didn’t won any awards for this(however the film itself got a positive feedback from film critics). One of the shots that really impressed me was the one in the picture above. And there were many shots like this. It was a very good way of exposing character’s loneliness, vulnerability and mortality.

Overall the movie carries a message of not giving up but also it shows the struggle of the man vs nature, his weaknesses and death. The ending scene was quiet odd at first, as I’m used to seeing something slightly different in films like this, but then I’ve realised that if it was done in any other way it wouldn’t have worked with the convention of the film and would be totally out of place.