Film editing is the connecting of one or more shots to form a sequence, and the subsequent connecting of sequences to form an entire movie. Film editing, by definition, is the only art that is unique to cinema and which defines and separates filmmaking from almost all other art forms (such as: photography, theater, dance, writing, and directing). The job of an editor isn’t merely to mechanically put pieces of a film together, nor to just cut off the film slates, nor merely to edit dialogue scenes. Film editing is an art form which can either make or break a film.^[1] A film editor works with the layers of images, the story, the music, the rhythm, the pace, shapes the actors' performances, "re-directing" and often re-writing the film during the editing process, honing the infinite possibilities of the juxtaposition of small snippets of film into a creative, coherent, cohesive whole. In film, a shot is a continuous strip of motion picture film, created of a series of frames, that runs for an uninterrupted period of time. ... In film parlance, a sequence is a series of scenes which comprise a distinct narrative unit, usually connected either by unity of location or unity of time. ... Photography [fÓ™tÉ‘grÓ™fi:],[foÊŠtÉ‘grÓ™fi:] is the process of recording pictures by means of capturing light on a light-sensitive medium, such as a film or electronic sensor. ... For other usages see Theatre (disambiguation) Theater (American English) or Theatre (British English and widespread usage among theatre professionals in the US) is that branch of the performing arts concerned with acting out stories in front of an audience using combinations of speech, gesture, music, dance, sound and spectacle &#8212... For other uses, see Dance (disambiguation). ... Write redirects here. ... A theatre director is a principal in the theatre field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a play by unifying various endeavors and aspects of production. ...

Film editor

A film editor is a person who practices film editing by assembling footage into a coherent film. Film editors often are responsible for pulling together all of the elements of story, dialogue, music, sound effects, visual effects, rhythm and pace of a film. In the making of a film, the editors usually play a dynamic and creative role.

History of film editing technology

Film editing evolved from the process of a film editor physically cutting and taping together pieces of film, using a splicer and threading the film on a machine with a viewer such as a Moviola, or "flatbed" machine such as a Kem or Steenbeck. A Moviola is a device that allows a film editor to view film while editing. ... View of Kem in 1911. ... Steenbeck film editing machine rollers Steenbeck is a brand name that has become synonymous with a type of flatbed film editing suite. ...

The original editing machine:an upright Moviola.

Steenbeck film editing machine rollers

Before the widespread use of non-linear editing systems, the initial editing of all films was done with a positive copy of the film negative called a film workprint (cutting copy in UK). Today, most films are edited digitally (on systems such as Avid or Final Cut Pro) and bypass the film positive workprint altogether. In the past, the use of a film positive (not the original negative) allowed the editor to do as much experimenting as he or she wished, without the risk of damaging the original. Image File history File links FirstMoviola. ... Image File history File links FirstMoviola. ... Steenbeck film editing machine, by Andrew Lih File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Steenbeck film editing machine, by Andrew Lih File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... A non-linear editing system (NLE) is a video editing (NLVE) or audio editing (NLAE) system which can perform random access on the source material. ... AVID (meaning Advancement Via Individual Determination) is a college-preparatory program designed to aid economically disadvantaged, and academically average first-generation students of both elementary and high schools into college. ... Final Cut Pro is a professional non-linear editing system developed by Apple Inc. ...

When the film workprint had been cut to a satisfactory state, it was then used to make an Edit Decision List (EDL). The negative cutter referred to this list while processing the negative, splitting the shots into rolls, which were then contact printed to produce the final film print or answer print. Today, production companies have the option of to bypass negative cutting altogether. With the advent of digital intermediate or "DI," the physical negative does not necessarily need to be physically cut and hot spliced together; rather the negative is optically scanned into computer(s) and a cut list is conformed by a DI editor.

Edwin S. Porter

Main article: Edwin S. Porter

Edwin S. Porter is generally thought to be the American filmmaker who first put film editing to use. Porter migrated to the United States as a young sailor and worked as a mechanic before joining the film laboratory of Thomas Alva Edison in the late 1890s. Edwin Stanton Porter (April 21, 1870 - April 30, 1941) was an influential early film pioneer. ... Edwin Stanton Porter (April 21, 1870 - April 30, 1941) was an influential early film pioneer. ... Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 - October 18, 1931) was an inventor and businessman who developed many important devices. ...

Early Edison films were short films that were typically shot in one long static locked down shot. When Edison's motion picture studio wanted to increase the length of the short films he came to Porter. Porter made the breakthrough film Life of an American Fireman in 1902. The film was among the first that had a plot, action, and even a closeup of a hand pulling a fire alarm. This page meets Wikipedias criteria for speedy deletion. ...

Other films were to follow. Porter's ground-breaking film, The Great Train Robbery is still shown in film schools today as an example of early editing form. It was produced in 1903 and was one of the first examples of dynamic, action editing (the piecing together scenes shot at different times and places and for emotional impact unavailable in a static long shot). Being one of the first film hyphenates (film director, editor and engineer) Porter also invented and utilized some of the very first (albeit primitive) special effects such as double exposures, miniatures and split-screens. The Great Train Robbery is a 1903 western film. ...

Post-production

The editor's cut

There are several editing stages and the editor's cut is the first. An editor's cut (sometimes referred to as the "assembly edit" or "rough cut") is normally the first pass of what the final film will be when it reaches picture lock. Picture lock is a stage in editing a film or editing a television production. ...

The film editor usually starts working while principal photography (shooting) starts. In the first stage of editing the film editor will usually work alone (save for his or her own team of assistant editors, associate or co-editors and/or visual effects and music editors). Likely, prior to cutting, the editor and director will have seen and/or discussed "dailies" (raw footage shot each day) as shooting progresses. Screening dailies gives the editor a ballpark idea of the director's intentions. Visual effects (or VFX for short) is the term given in which images or film frames are created and manipulated for film and video. ... This article or section is not written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article. ...

Because it is the first pass, the editor's cut might be somewhat longer than the final film. The editor continues to refine the cut while shooting continues, and often the entire editing process goes on for many months and sometimes more than a year, depending on the film.

The director's cut

When shooting is finished, the director can then turn his or her full attention to collaborating with the editor and further refining the cut of the film. This is the time that is set aside where the film editor's first cut is molded to fit the director's vision, and before the studio and/or producers are generally allowed to have input. In the United States, under DGA rules, directors receive a minimum of ten weeks after completion of principal photography to prepare their first cut. Director Herbert Brenon with actress Alla Nazimova on the set of War Brides, 1916 A director is a person who directs the making of a film. ... Director Guild of America building on Sunset Boulevard. ...

While collaborating on what is referred to as the "director's cut," the director and the editor go over the entire movie with a fine tooth comb; scenes and shots are re-ordered, removed, shortened and otherwise tweaked. Often it is discovered that there are plot holes, missing shots or even missing segments which might require that new scenes be filmed. Director Herbert Brenon with actress Alla Nazimova on the set of War Brides, 1916 A director is a person who directs the making of a film. ... Look up plot in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Because of this time working closely and collaborating - a period that is normally far longer, and far more intimately involved, than the entire production and filming - most directors and editors form a unique artistic bond. Director Herbert Brenon with actress Alla Nazimova on the set of War Brides, 1916 A director is a person who directs the making of a film. ...

The Producers vs. the director

Often after the director has had his or her chance to oversee a cut, the subsequent cuts are supervised by one or more producers, who represent the production company and/or movie studio. At times, the final cut of films produced by the major studios is the one that most closely represents what the studio wants from the film and not necessarily what the director wants. Because of this, there have been several conflicts in the past between the director and the studio, sometimes leading to the use of the "Alan Smithee" credit signifying when a director no longer wants to be associated with the final release. A movie studio is a controlled environment for the making of a film. ... A major film studio is a movie production and distribution company that releases a substantial number of films annually and consistently commands a significant share of box-office revenues in a given market. ... Alan Smithee, Allen Smithee, Alan Smythee, and Adam Smithee are pseudonyms used between 1968 and 1999 by Hollywood film directors who wanted to be dissociated from a film for which they no longer wanted credit. ...

Continuity

Often a film editor is blamed for improper continuity. For example, cutting from a shot where the beer glass is empty to one where it is full. Continuity is, in fact, very nearly last on a film editor's list of important things to maintain. Continuity is typically the business of the script supervisor and film director, who are together responsible for preserving continuity and preventing errors from take to take and shot to shot. Generally speaking, the editor utilizes the script supervisor's notes during post-production to log and keep track of the vast amounts of footage and takes that a director might shoot. However, to most editors what is more important than continuity is the editing of emotional and storytelling aspects of any given film - something that is much more abstract and harder to judge - which is why films often take much longer to edit than to shoot. Often a film editor will used this to focus on the theme of the film. The script supervisor is a position found on most major motion picture sets and is the individual who is primarily responsible for maintaining comprehensive and detailed notes of everything that has been filmed (or videotaped) during the shooting process. ... Director Herbert Brenon with actress Alla Nazimova on the set of War Brides, 1916 A director is a person who directs the making of a film. ... Post production is the general term for the last stage of film production in which photographed scenes (also called footage) are put together into a complete film. ...

Methods of montage

In motion picture terminology, a montage (from the French for "putting together" or "assembly") is a film editing technique. The film industry is built upon a large number of technologies and techniques. ...

There are at least three senses of the term:

1. In French film practice, "montage" has its literal French meaning and simply identifies a movie's editor.
2. In Soviet filmmaking of the 1920s, "montage" was a method of juxtaposing shots to derive new meaning that did not exist in either shot alone.
3. In classical Hollywood cinema, a "montage sequence" is a short segment in a film in which narrative information is presented in a condensed fashion. This is the most common meaning among laymen.

Soviet redirects here. ... The 1920s they were sexy referred to as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, usually applied to America. ... Classical Hollywood cinema designates both a visual and sound style for making motion pictures and a mode of production that arose in the Los Angeles film industry of the 1910s and 1920s. ...

Soviet montage

Main article: Soviet montage theory

Lev Kuleshov was among the very first to theorize about the relatively young medium of the cinema in the 1920s. For him, the unique essence of the cinema — that which could be duplicated in no other medium — is editing. He argues that editing a film is like constructing a building. Brick-by-brick (shot-by-shot) the building (film) is erected. His often-cited Kuleshov Experiment established that montage can lead the viewer to reach certain conclusions about the action in a film. Montage works because viewers infer meaning based on context. Soviet montage theory is an approach to understanding and creating cinema that relies heavily upon editing (montage is French for putting together). Although Soviet filmmakers in the 1920s disagreed about how exactly to view montage, Sergei Eisenstein marked a note of accord in A Dialectic Approach to Film Form when... Lev Vladimirovich Kuleshov (1899 - 1970) was a Russian filmmaker known for his work on film editing and the impact it has on the viewers. ... The Kuleshov Effect is the name given to a cinematic montage effect demonstrated by Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov in about 1918. ...

Although, strictly speaking, U.S. film director D.W. Griffith was not part of the montage school, he was one of the early proponents of the power of editing — mastering cross-cutting to show parallel action in different locations, and codifying film grammar in other ways as well. Griffith's work in the teens was highly regarded by Kuleshov and other Soviet filmmakers and greatly influenced their understanding of editing. David Lewelyn Wark Griffith (January 22, 1875 - July 23, 1948) was an American film director (commonly known as D. W. Griffith) probably best known for his film The Birth of a Nation. ... // Cross Cutting Even though most classes in an object-oriented programming model will perform a single, specific function, they often share common, secondary requirements with other classes. ...

Sergei Eisenstein was briefly a student of Kuleshov's, but the two parted ways because they had different ideas of montage. Eisenstein regarded montage as a dialectical means of creating meaning. By contrasting unrelated shots he tried to provoke associations in the viewer, which were induced by shocks. Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (Russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн) (January 23, 1898 – February 11, 1948) was a revolutionary Soviet Russian film director and film theorist noted in particular for his silent films Strike, Battleship Potemkin and Oktober. ... In classical philosophy, dialectic (Greek: διαλεκτική) is controversy, Viz. ...

Montage sequence

Main article: Montage sequence

A montage sequence consists of a series of short shots that are edited into a sequence to condense narrative. It is usually used to advance the story as a whole (often to suggest the passage of time), rather than to create symbolic meaning. In many cases, a song plays in the background to enhance the mood or reinforce the message being conveyed. Classic examples are the training montages in Sylvester Stallone's Rocky series of movies. For other uses of the word montage, see Montage. ... Sylvester Stallone (born Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone on July 6, 1946) is a two-time Academy Award-nominated American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. ... For other uses, see Rocky (disambiguation). ...

Continuity editing

Main article: continuity editing

What became known as the popular 'classical Hollywood' style of editing was developed by early European and American directors, in particular D.W. Griffith in his films such as The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. The classical style ensures temporal and spatial continuity as a way of advancing narrative, using such techniques as the 180 degree rule, Establishing shot, and Shot reverse shot. Continuity editing is the predominant style of film editing practiced by most Hollywood editors. ... Classical Hollywood cinema designates both a visual and sound style for making motion pictures and a mode of production that arose in the Los Angeles film industry of the 1910s and 1920s. ... David Lewelyn Wark Griffith (January 22, 1875 - July 23, 1948) was an American film director (commonly known as D. W. Griffith) probably best known for his film The Birth of a Nation. ... For the 1982 film of the same name, see Birth of a Nation (1982 film). ... Intolerance is a silent film directed by D.W. Griffith in 1916. ... This schematic shows the axis between two characters and the 180° arc on which cameras may be positioned (green). ... In film and television, an establishing shot sets up, or establishes, a scenes setting and/or its participants. ... Shot reverse shot is a film technique wherein one character is shown looking (often off-screen) at another character, and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. ...

Alternatives to continuity editing (non-traditional or experimental)

Early Russian filmmakers such as Lev Kuleshov further explored and theorized about editing and its ideological nature. Sergei Eisenstein developed a system of editing that was unconcerned with the rules of the continuity system of classical Hollywood that he called Intellectual montage. Lev Vladimirovich Kuleshov (1899 - 1970) was a Russian filmmaker known for his work on film editing and the impact it has on the viewers. ... Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (Russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн) (January 23, 1898 – February 11, 1948) was a revolutionary Soviet Russian film director and film theorist noted in particular for his silent films Strike, Battleship Potemkin and Oktober. ... Intellectual montage is an alternative to continuity editing proposed by Sergei Eisenstein where a new idea emerges from a sequence of shots and where the new idea is not originally found in any of the individual shots. ...

Alternatives to traditional editing were also the folly of early surrealist and dada filmmakers such as Luis Buñuel (director of the 1929 Un chien andalou) and René Clair (director of 1924's Entr'acte which starred famous dada artists Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray). Both filmmakers, Clair and Buñuel, experimented with editing techniques long before what is referred to as "MTV style" editing. Surrealism is an artistic movement and an aesthetic philosophy that aims for the liberation of the mind by emphasizing the critical and imaginative powers of the subconscious. ... DaDa is a concept album by Alice Cooper, released in 1983. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... René Clair (November 11, 1898 – March 15, 1981) was a French filmmaker. ... Marcel Duchamp (pronounced ) (July 28, 1887 – October 2, 1968) was a French artist (he became an American citizen in 1955) whose work and ideas had considerable influence on the development of post-World War II Western art, and whose advice to modern art collectors helped shape the tastes of the... For other uses, see Man Ray (disambiguation). ... This article is about the original U.S. music television channel. ...

The French New Wave filmmakers such as Jean Luc Godard and François Truffaut and their American counterparts such as Andy Warhol and John Cassavetes also pushed the limits of editing technique during the late 1950s and throughout the 1970s. French New Wave films and the non-narrative films of the 1960s used a carefree editing style and did not conform to the traditional editing etiquette of Hollywood films. Like its dada and surrealist predecessors, French New Wave editing often drew attention to itself by its lack of continuity, its demystifying self-reflexive nature (reminding the audience that they were watching a film), and by the overt use of jump cuts or the insertion of material not often related to any narrative. François Truffauts New Wave film Jules et Jim The New Wave (French: la Nouvelle Vague) was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced (in part) by Italian Neorealism. ... Jean-Luc Godard Jean-Luc Godard (born December 3, 1930) was one of the most influential members of the nouvelle vague. ... François Roland Truffaut (French IPA: ) (February 6, 1932 – October 21, 1984) was one of the founders of the French New Wave in filmmaking, and remains an icon of the French film industry. ... Andrew Warhola (August 6, 1928 — February 22, 1987), better known as Andy Warhol, was an American artist who was a central figure in the movement known as Pop art. ... John Nicholas Cassavetes (December 9, 1929–February 3, 1989) was a Greek American actor, screenwriter, and director. ... François Truffauts New Wave film Jules et Jim The New Wave (French: la Nouvelle Vague) was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced (in part) by Italian Neorealism. ...

Editing techniques

Stanley Kubrick noted that the editing process is the one phase of production that is truly unique to motion pictures. Every other aspect of filmmaking originated in a different medium than film (photography, art direction, writing, sound recording), but editing is the one process that is unique to film. In Alexender Walker's Stanley Kubrick Directs, Kubrick was quoted as saying, "I love editing. I think I like it more than any other phase of filmmaking. If I wanted to be frivolous, I might say that everything that precedes editing is merely a way of producing film to edit." Kubrick redirects here. ...

In his book, On Film Editing, Edward Dmytryk stipulates seven "rules of cutting" that a good editor should follow: Edward Dmytryk (September 4, 1908 - July 1, 1999) was an American film director who was amongst the Hollywood Ten, a group of blacklisted film industry professionals who served time in prison for being in contempt of Congress during the McCarthy era red scare. ...

• "Rule 1. Never make a cut without a positive reason.
• "Rule 2. When undecided about the exact frame to cut on, cut long rather than short" (Dmytryk, 23).
• "Rule 3: Whenever possible cut 'in movement'" (Dmytryk, 27).
• "Rule 4: The 'fresh' is preferable to the 'stale'" (Dmytryk, 37).
• "Rule 5: All scenes should begin and end with continuing action" (Dmytryk, 38).
• "Rule 6: Cut for proper values rather than proper 'matches'" (Dmytryk, 44).
• "Rule 7: Substance first—then form" (Dmytryk, 145).

According to Walter Murch, when it comes to film editing, there are six main criteria for evaluating a cut or deciding where to cut. They are (in order of importance, most important first): Walter Murch speaking 13 March 2005 Walter Scott Murch (born July 12, 1943) is an Academy Award–winning film editor/sound mixer. ...

• emotion — Does the cut reflect what the editor believes the audience should be feeling at that moment?
• story — Does the cut advance the story?
• rhythm — Does the cut occur "at a moment that is rhythmically interesting and 'right'" (Murch, 18)?
• eye-trace — Does the cut pay respect to "the location and movement of the audience's focus of interest within the frame" (Murch, 18)?
• two-dimensional place of the screen — Does the cut respect the 180 degree rule?
• three-dimensional space of action — Is the cut true to the physical/spatial relationships within the diegesis?

Murch assigned notional percentage values to each of the criteria. Emotion, with 51%, outweighed the combined value of all the other criteria. This schematic shows the axis between two characters and the 180° arc on which cameras may be positioned (green). ... According to Gerald Prince in A Dictionary of Narratology, diegesis is (1) The (fictional) world in which the situations and events narrated occur; (2) Telling, recounting, as opposed to showing, enacting. ...

References

• Dmytryk, Edward. On Film Editing: An Introduction to the Art of Film Construction, Boston: Focal Press, 1984.
• Murch, Walter. In the Blink of an Eye: a Perspective on Film Editing, Silman-James Press, 2d rev. ed., 2001. ISBN 1-879505-62-2

See also

• List of film-related topics
• Moviola
• 180 degree rule
• A Roll
• Axial cut
• B Roll
• Comparison of video editing software
• Cross cutting
• Cutaway
• Dissolve
• Edited movies
• Establishing shot
• Insert
• Key
• Kuleshov Effect
• L cut
• Master shot
• Montage (film)
• Motion Picture Editors Guild
• Non-linear editing system
• Point of view shot
• Sequence shot
• Shot reverse shot
• Talking head
• Wipe

This is a list of movie-related topics. ... A Moviola is a device that allows a film editor to view film while editing. ... This schematic shows the axis between two characters and the 180° arc on which cameras may be positioned (green). ... Categories: Move to Wiktionary | Filming stubs ... An axial cut is a type of jump cut, where the camera suddenly moves closer to or further away from its subject. ... B-roll or B roll is unrelated talk during an interview. ... This is a comparison of non-linear video editing software applications. ... Cross-cutting refers to a technique of film editing in which consecutive shots alternate between two or more actions. ... In film, a cutaway is the interruption of a continuously-filmed action by inserting a view of something else. ... In film editing, a dissolve is a gradual transition from one image to another. ... An edited movie or edited film is a film that has been edited from the original theatrical release. ... In film and television, an establishing shot sets up, or establishes, a scenes setting and/or its participants. ... For the insert keyword in SQL language, see insert (SQL) For the Vancouver, Canada band, see Insert (Band) In film, an insert is a shot of part of a scene as filmed from a different angle and/or focal length from the master shot. ... In graphics and visual effects, keying is an informal term for compositing two full frame images together, by discriminating the visual information into values of color and light. ... Lev Kuleshov was an early Russian filmmaker who believed that juxtaposing two unrelated images could convey a separate meaning. ... In cinema, an L cut, also known as a split edit, is a transition from one shot to another, where the picture transition does not occur coincidentally with the audio transition. ... A master shot is a filmic recording of an entire scene, start to finish, from an angle that keeps all the players in view. ... Montage is a French word, translated as a verb, to edit, or a masculine noun, assembly. ... The Motion Picture Editors Guild (MPEG) is the guild that represents freelance and staff motion picture film and television editors and other post-production professionals and story analysts throughout the United States. ... A non-linear editing system (NLE) is a video editing (NLVE) or audio editing (NLAE) system which can perform random access on the source material. ... A point of view shot (also known as POV shot) is a short scene in a film that shows what a character is looking at. ... Sequence shot is a film technique which involves a long take and usually requires sophisticated camera movement. ... Shot reverse shot is a film technique wherein one character is shown looking (often off-screen) at another character, and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. ... Talking head can refer to: In Sex Toys, the Talking Head™ Vibrator is a rabbit vibrator with MP3 playback and voice recording capability. ... In film editing, a wipe is a gradual spatial transition from one image to another. ...

Wikibooks

Wikibooks has more on the topic of

Film editing

• Movie Making Manual

Image File history File links Wikibooks-logo-en. ... Wikibooks logo Wikibooks, previously called Wikimedia Free Textbook Project and Wikimedia-Textbooks, is a wiki for the creation of books. ...

Wikiversity

At Wikiversity, you can learn about:

Film editing

• Portal:Filmmaking