Use of editing

When the filming has been completed, the editing process begins. This is a matter of choosing which shots to include, which to put next to which, and what method to use to join the shots together. So how does the audience interact with the film through the editing?

1) Selecting and ordering the shots

The director can create a mood or atmosphere by choosing certain shots in a certain order, to build a picture in our minds. We automatically link what is happening in one shot with what happens in those either side of it, as this is what happens in real life. Thus, by showing us a window frame and then a shot of a house, we presume the house is what you see out of that window. In this way we are interacting with the film.

Some directors have exploited this idea to extremes. Lev Kuleshow, a Russian filmmaker in the 1920s experimented by showing shots of an actor in between shots of different objects – food, a dead woman and a child. The audience interpreted the actor’s expression (although it never changed!) as being hungry, sad and affectionate. This is because our brains try to make continuative sense of what we see. This placing together of images is called montage.

Sergei Eisenstein, another Russian filmmaker of the same era, believed that it was more effective if consecutive shots were not obviously linked, as the audience were forced to think and interact more to make the mental jump from shot to shot. Montage can be used effectively in propoganda, where the filmmaker wants the audience to believe in a certain idea or concept and is a common feature in present day advertising and pop videos.

2) Joining the shots

The director has a choice in the way he or she can join the shots together.

Smooth continuity of events and ‘normality’ for the audience is best achieved by using simple cuts. There are many technical rules to be remembered in order that the actors in consecutive shots are not suddenly looking in a different direction for no apparent reason. The director can also manipulate time and space by, say, having a car leaving one place in one shot and arriving at another in the next. We accept the convention that the ‘journey’ has taken place – we interact by knowing that the film is not real time.

The director can create suspense by using short shots frequently edited with other shots. For example, the murderer breaks into the house, we cut to the victim in the bedroom, then back to the murderer on the stairs and so on. Shock tactics can be used by jump cuts to a sudden close-up of an expression or object. Expectations can be built up by cutting from one shot to another and back again repeatedly, then suddenly replacing one shot with a totally new one.

Fade out shots, where the screen fades to black, or dissolve shots, where one image is slowly brought in underneath another one, are used to indicate the end of an event and beginning of a new one. These cause us to interact by giving us time to think about what has happened. A third type of cut is a wipe cut, where one part of the screen moves across the other. This is most often done today using computer graphics (swirls, blocks etc.).

The director may also choose to slow the film down at certain moments, thus highlighting say, a romantic moment or creating suspense by delaying the action. We, the audience acknowledge that in film language this is a significant part of the film. He or she may also choose to use black and white film for part or all of the film, which we will automatically read as being events in the past.

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