CG087.
Time-based Multimedia
Assets
Week 9. Relationships Between
Shots: Editing
Today.
Editing: the basics.
2.
Dimensions of Editing
3.
Continuity Editing
4.
Discontinuity editing
5.
Graphic relations
6.
Rhythmic relations
7.
Spatial relations
8.
Temporal relations
9.
Segments
10. Final Word.
1.
Editing: the basics.
 Editing joins shots
 Shots are one or more frames recorded in continuous time
and contiguous space
 There are various joins for Shots A and B
 Cut


Fade-out


Gradually lightens from black to Shot A
Dissolve


Gradually darkens end of Shot A to black
Fade-in


Shot A then Shot B
Briefly superimpose end of Shot A on beginning of Shot B
Wipe

Shot B replaces Shot A by means of a boundary line moving
across the screen
Dimensions of Editing
1.
Graphic relations between Shot A and Shot B
2.
Rhythmic relations between Shot A and Shot B
3.
Spatial relations between Shot A and Shot B
4.
Temporal relations between Shot A and Shot B
Graphic and Rhythmic Relations
Graphic relations

Editing together any two shots permits the
interaction, through similarity and difference, of
the purely pictorial qualities of these two shots
Rhythmic relations

Shot duration (long, short)
 Shot duration patterns (acceleration,
deceleration)
Spatial Relations
 Editing lets an omniscient range of knowledge
become visible as omnipresence
 Editing permits any two points in space to be related
through similarity, difference, or development
 Editing enables the construction of spaces
Constructing Space
 Situate location of Shot B with establishing Shot A
 Construct illusion of spatial contiguity through joining
of Shot A and Shot B (Kuleshov Effect context
through editing not shot construction)
 Create physically impossible or ambiguous spaces
 Establish two dis-contiguous spaces through parallel
editing (i.e., crosscutting)
Temporal Relations
 Temporal order
 Flash-back
 Flash-forward
 Temporal duration
 Temporal ellipsis
 Temporal expansion
 Temporal frequency
 Shot repetition
Temporal Duration
 Temporal ellipsis
 Punctuation


Empty frames



Dissolve, wipe, fade
Shot A (character exits frame, then empty frame)
Shot B (empty frame, then character enters frame)
Cutaway
 Temporal expansion
 Overlapping editing
Continuity Editing
 Graphic continuity
 Smoothly continuous from shot to shot
 Figures are balanced and symmetrically
composed in frame
 Overall lighting tonality remains constant
 Action occupies central zone of the frame
 Rhythmic continuity
 Dependent on camera distance of the shot

Long shots last longer than medium shots that last longer
than close-up shots
Spatial Continuity Editing
 180 degree rule
 Ensures that relative
positions in the frame
remain consistent
 Ensures consistent eyelines (i.e., gaze vectors)
 Ensures consistent
screen direction (i.e.,
direction of character
movement within the
frame)
Use of 180 Degree Rule
 Establishing shot to establish axis of action
 Sequence of shot/reverse shots
 Focuses our attention on character reactions
 Eye-line match reinforces spatial continuity
(Kuleshov Effect see later)
 Match on action reinforces spatial continuity
 Following 180 degree rule allows “cheat cuts”
 Continuity of action can override violations of
180 degree rule
Temporal Continuity Editing
 Temporal order
 Forwardly sequential except for occasional use of
flashbacks signaled by a dissolve or cut
 Temporal duration (seldom expanded)
 Usually in a scene plot duration equals story
duration
 Punctuation (dissolves, wipes, fades), empty
frames, and cutaways can elide time in shot and
scene transitions
 Montage sequences can compress time
Continuity editing
Hollywood, narrative style
 analytic editing
 “invisible” shot transitions
 shots subordinated to unity of segment
 implies passive spectator
 Editing refers to the linking of shots, one to another, and to
building segments out of the linking of shots.
 The history of cinema has produced two fundamental
approaches to editing: continuity editing and discontinuity
editing.
Continuity editing

Continuity editing is characteristic of the Hollywood studio style. A
segment is broken down into closer shots to direct the spectator's
attention only to dramatically significant parts of the action. While
breaking down an action into different shots, the transitions between
shots are designed--both graphically and rhythmically--so that the
audience does not notice them. Continuity editing is often referred to
as "invisible" editing because it minimizes as much as possible the
spectator's perception of the movement from one shot to the next. The
objective of this style is to link shots into a smooth, seamless,
transparent flow that gives the impression of a homogeneous and
continuous space. Thus continuity editing subordinates the formal
identity of each shot to the cause and effect logic of narrative. Shots
become parts of an overall unity that we perceive as a scene, rather
than as a chain of individual shots.
Discontinuity editing
 Modernist and avant-garde films
 “Montage” style
 Foregrounds shot transitions
 Stresses formal integrity of each shot
 Implies active spectator

Discontinuity editing is more characteristic of the European avantgardes of the 1920's. It is often called the "montage style." It has
traditionally been the basis for defining modernist film-making. As
opposed to Hollywood editing, discontinuity editing emphasizes the
formal identity and integrity of each shot. Thus the montage style
tries to maximize the spectator's awareness of the formal properties of
each shot. And, just as importantly, it tries to make apparent, even
disjunctive, the movement from one shot to the next. Here cutting is
conceived as a collision between shots, rather than the development of
a linear chain where the parts (the shots) are incorporated into the
impression of a unified whole.

Continuity and discontinuity styles can exist together in a single film.
Hollywood cinema has always made use of "montage scenes," for
example. Obviously, many action and horror films use shock cuts to
surprise and unnerve the audience.

Editing also brings us back to segmentation,
formal patterning of shots within segments.
the linking of shots within segments, and
segments in the film overall. Knowing how
important because:

Most narrative films are organized through large formal units; that is,
their primary level of action and sense is that of the segment rather
than the shot.

Our understanding of the sense of a film does not simply rest at the
level of the image, but through the association and juxtaposition of
images--the assembly of shots into a segment, and of a number of
segments into a film, all of which may be linked by fades, dissolves,
wipes, or hard cuts.
that is, understanding the
For editing refers both to
the linking of scenes or
to recognize segments is
Recap :
The aesthetics of editing relies on four basic
areas of choice and control
 graphic relations
 rhythmic relations
 spatial relations
 temporal relations
 Graphic relations.
Factors of composition, framing,
and editing come together to establish graphic
relations between shots.
Graphic relations are
defined by purely pictorial qualities of the image,
including: line, volume or shape, depth, angle, tonal
contrast (light and dark), as well as the speed and
direction of movement. When a graphic similarity
carries over from the tail of one shot to the head of
the next, we say that a match cut has occurred. The
continuity style of editing relies heavily on match
cutting to establish a smooth flow of narrative actions.
Graphic relations
LINE
SHAPE
DEPTH
ANGLE
TONAL CONTRAST
SPEED/DIRECTION OF MOVEMENT
Rhythmic relations
 Rhythmic relations. Exploiting pictorial discontinuities between
shots is a powerful technique of both narrative and avant-garde
cinema.
 Obviously, editing is also a way of controlling the rhythm or
pacing of a film. The film-strip is a literal measure of time.
Each frame is a spatial unit equivalent to 1/24th of a second.
Therefore, the length of a strip of film determines the duration of
the shot on the screen. For example, since the days of D. W.
Griffith, chase scenes and suspense cutting have accelerated
the rhythm of the film by systematically shortening the shots,
thereby accelerating the flow of images towards a climax.
Rhythm and pacing are thus the most visceral ways of involving
an audience in the action.
Spatial relations
The Kuleshov effect
And
“Creative Geography”
Lev Kuleshov
 Spatial relations.
 Lev Kuleshov--a Soviet filmmaker and teacher working in the
wake of the October Revolution of 1917--formulated this idea
though a bet with the famous Russian actor Mozshukin of the
Moscow Art Theater.
 By juxtaposing the same passive image of the actor’s face with
a plate of soup, then with a young women, and finally a child’s
coffin, Kuleshov showed that the audience would interpret the
actor’s “emotions” differently--as hunger, lust, and sadness.
The sense and emotional tone of the segment was conveyed
not through the actor's expression, but through a series of
associations in the spectator's mind built through the
juxtaposition of disparate shots.
In short, meaning is
constructed through the context established by editing.
 This phenomenon is now referred to as "the Kuleshov effect."
"L.V. Kuleshov assembled in the year 1920 the following scenes as an
experiment:
1. A young man walks from left to right.
2. A woman walks from right to left.
3. They meet and shake hands. The young man points.
3. A large white building is shown, with a broad flight of steps.
4. The two ascend the steps.
The pieces, separately shot, were assembled in the order given and
projected upon the screen. The spectator was presented with the
pieces thus joined as one clear, uninterrupted action: a meeting of
two young people, an invitation to a nearby house, and an entry into it.
Every single piece, however, had been shot in a different place; for
example, the young man near the G.U.M. building, the woman near
Gogol's monument, the handshake near the Bolshoi Theater, the white
house came out of an American picture (it was, in fact, the White
House), and the ascent of the steps was made at St Saviour's
Cathedral. What happened as a result? Though the shooting had
been done in varied locations, the spectator perceived the scene as a
whole.... There resulted what Kuleshov termed "creative geography."
By the process of junction of pieces of celluloid appeared a new, filmic
space without existence in reality. Buildings separated by a distance of
thousands of miles were concentrated to a space that [appeared to ] be
covered by a few paces of the actors"
Temporal relations

Editing controls fundamentally our understanding of narrative time as
well as space. Through editing, the duration of actions and events can
be expanded or contracted.

Overlapping edits :can extend or repeat an action for dramatic
emphasis.

Jump-cuts: may be used to interrupt the space and time of a shot with
distinct ellipses.

Flashbacks and forwards: sense of history and prediction
Segments

Different types of segments can also be recognized through their
different manipulations of space and time; that is, in how they
specifically give form to the plot of the film in relation to the spectator's
understanding of the story. We can learn to identify some conventional
patterns of editing by thinking about how different types of film
segments creative manipulate factors of space and time.

In narrative cinema, there are three basic patterns:
 Segments defined by principles of contiguity or succession in space
and time.

Transitional segments where shots are linked in succession, but
with emphatic ellipses in space and time.

Segments defined by alternation, or the systematic repetition of two
or more narrative actions.
Types of narrative segments

There are three basic kinds of narrative segments defined by
succession or contiguity in space and time:

1.
A sequence-shot describes the action of a scene in one long
take without editing. It is actually a type of scene rather than a
sequence.

2.
A scene gives a strong impression of spatial and temporal
continuity, and of unity of place and action, similar to a scene in the
theater. The shots and actions are arranged in a strict relation of
succession and contiguity, that is, the time of the plot is equivalent to
the time of the story without any noticeable gaps in space or time.

3.
A sequence differs from a scene in that the plot time and space
contains minor or major gaps and ellipses to eliminate non-essential
actions or events.
Types of narrative segments

Transitional segments are usually very brief. They are used to
establish location or to indicate the elapse of time. The function of
these segments is to provide a spatial or temporal transition in the plot
of the film. thus informing the spectator that there is a gap or ellipsis in
the story. There are generally two types of transitional segments:

Descriptive sequences (including “montage” sequences ) establish a
change in narrative place and time with a brief series of shots, often
linked by dissolves.

Episodic sequences condense lengthy story actions into a brief plot
time by using dissolves or other marks of punctuation indicate ellipses
of time.
Types of narrative segments

Another form of patterning story at the level of plot is parallelism, that
is, a pattern or structure in which two or more narrative motifs or events
are compared in order to demonstrate how they are alike or how they
are different. Here there are four basic types.

Alternating sequences systematically intertwines actions or motifs
occurring within the same diegetic space.

Parallel sequences (“cross-cutting”):
from different diegetic spaces.

flashbacks and flashforwards: cross-cutting that forms associations
between different diegetic times as well as locales; there are temporal
displacements either from present to past or present to future.

metaphorical or associational montage: diegetically unrelated motifs
are cut together to establish a conceptual or poetic relation.
intertwines actions or motifs
Final word

It is important not to think of relations between shots as isolated
phenomena.
Temporal,
rhythmic,
graphic,
and spatial relations
may interact in both simple and complex ways in any given segment.
Therefore, you should always try to comprehend how these four sets of
choices for linking shots are organized into patterns across shots, as
well as across segments
.