Editing Theory
What is it to edit?
To edit at its base is to change something such as video, audio and writing.In our case Video/Film Editing it is used to create styles atmospheres and tell the audience what is happening visually through effect.
Editing the eraly days
Georges Méliès - 1895
In 1985 the lumiere brothers had a screening of the first film "workers leaving the lumiere factory" of which the technology impressed audiences but George's saw potential and decided he wanted to amke films, he first attempted buy a cinematography off the lumiere brothers of which he was declined as they wanted a monopoly on the film industry and so Gorges went to the uk and purchased an animatograph of which he reversed engineered into his own form of camera. Whilst using his new camera he discovered one of ,if not the first editing technique was first discovered when gorges was recording a street of traffic and whilst recording a bus passing his camera jammed and when he fixed it another car was there , upon development he noticed the car mysteriously appeared where the bus was, this was the first instance of the now commonly know, jump cut.
Over time Gorges used this technique to create his new films and shows an developed more editing types such as fade in and outs, overlapping dissolves and Stop motion photography.
Edwin Porter - 1903
Unlike Mellies tablo style of filming whereas it was in the style of the theatre, Edwin porter, originally a vitoscope projectionist until around 1900 where he joined Eddison manufacturing company and became head of production for skylight studio in 1901. From 1901 until 1906 Edwin served as Eddisons go to director and cameraman. Having a background in film and a great interest in Mellies work Edwin porter decided to try creating his own piece with 1903's "life of a fireman" But apart form the norm of setting up a shot and making it he mixed it with sock footage with stages scenes to make a fictional narrative sadly Porter was stuck in the each shot has to be a complete scene mentality leading to time overlays where you would see the same shot from two angle which nowadays looks like bad time cutting in and out. and whilst to us it seems clunky to the viewers back then it was still the amazement of the technology that impressed them so they allowed such time overlap's to slip by. Eventually the freshness of the film industry would wear off and Porter had to push the film style forward with his most famous piece the great train robbery. in this porter is more decisive with his cutting and although each scene is still one master take. He cuts between each scene without fades or dissolves and most importantly not letting the scene reach its logical end. Edwin porter was one of the pioneers of compression of time, and was one of the first developers of continuity editing and based his work less on the scene,but on the shot. but this is as far as porter got taking editing forward in time.
David Wark Griifith - 1908
In 1908 Edwin Porter hired a young actor to be the lead part in rescued from an eagles nest this started the 40 year long career for David Wark Griffith. After having little to no success in any other career routes D.W Griffith took this opportunity and this gave him contact with Edwin porter. D.W Griffith always wanted to be a writer and worked under the production name Lawrence Griffith submitted many plays and scripts but were uninteresting under advice of a friend made senarios for films after submitting one to Edwin porter,which was rejected due to having to many scenes he hired Griffith to act in one of his films. After this D.W Griifith was picked up by bio-graph a failing production company that was looking for directors and after producing "The Adventures of Dollie " in 2 days he was hired and wen ton to produce 450 films from 1908 -1911 and pushed it out of the tablo mentality and into the multi shot style we would now recognize.
Editing the purpose?
The most powerful message in the world world is only powerful when directed to the right people through the right channels in the right way ,when projects dont have the impact the creator wants its usually because the message is misunderstood or not actively shaped. Through correct video editing Technics a messege can be passed on visually rather than through a narrative. for example if you wanted to demonstrate someone getting older through a visual medium you could ahve a left seep to them being older at the current moment. if you wanted time compression you could change the shot before the current one end to just after the beginning of another (see The great train robbery for examples of this)
So TL;DR We edit to tell a story in a more complex way and it invests the audience through them working out its message or meaning.
Editing Conventions/ Where we are today?
As film making went on the techniques evolved with it.Such as we noted before there were such conventions as the jump cute,the fade in,dissolves and the 180' rule . all of which we use today, all be it in more advanced ways, These techniques were transferred to our technological style of editing and are used in modern movies to create the effects mentioned in the previous section. and many more atmospheric reasons such as to create suspense, mystery, a sense of completeion.
