Key Terms and Concepts:
Pg. 147-150

• classical cutting- style of editing developed by D.W. Griffith. Sequence of shots is determined by a scene's dramatic and emotional emphasis rather than physical action.
• close-up- Griffith was the first to use close-ups for psychological reasons instead of pysical reasons. Close-up are shots that contain the shoulder and head in the frame
  
  
• medium shot- used with long shots and close ups by Griffith to select what to show and how much detail to show, all to give a different emotional effect.
  
  
• reaction shot- A cut to the shot of character's reaction to the contents of proceedng shot.
• two shot- Medium shot wth two actors
• 
• master shot/sequence shot- An uniterrupted shot, taken from a Long Shot or full shot that contain an entire scene. Closer shots are photographed later, and the edited sequence, composed of a veriety of shots, are made in editing.

Pg. 150-153

• Master shots are used because without it the editors often complain of poor footage –the available shots won't cut smoothly.
• In complex battle scenes –directors shoot many cover shots –general shots used to reestablish a sequence if the other shots won't cut.
• Griffith and other classical filmmakers developed a variety of editing principles they believed made cutting “invisible,” such techniques is the eyeline match –a character A look off frame left…cut to a shot –from his perspective –of character B →assuming B is to A’s left (cause and effect).

EXAMPLE: EYELINE MATCH

A cut obeying the axis of action principle, in which the first shot shows a person off in one direction and the second shows a nearby space containing what he or she sees. If the person looks left, the following shot should imply that the looker is offscreen right. The following shots from Dario Argento's The Stendhal Syndrome (La Sindrome di Stendhal, Italy, 1996), depict Anna looking at a painting, Brueghel's The Fall of Icarus. The scene takes place inside Firenze's most famous museum, the Uffizi Gallery.

• Matching action –idea of keeping the action fluid, to mask the cut with a smooth linkage that’s not noticed because the motion of the character takes priority.

EXAMPLE: MATCH ON ACTION

A cut which splices two different views of the same action together at the same moment in the movement, making it seem to continue uninterrupted. Quite logically, these characteristics make it one of the most common transitions in the continuity style. Here is an example from Traffic (Steven Soderbergh, 2000)

A match on action adds variety and dinamism to a scene, since it conveys two movements: the one that actually takes place on screen, and an implied one by the viewer, since her/his position is shifted.

• 180˚rule –its purpose is to stabilize the space of playing area so the watcher isn’t confused. →An imaginary “axis of fiction” line is drawn through the middle of a scene; the camera must stay on the same side of the 180˚ line to keep the same background –continuity aid for the spectator.

• Reverse angle shot exchanges –common for dialogue sequences –the director fix the placement of the character from shot to shot. (i.e., if character A is on the left and character B is on the right, they must remain that way in the reverse angle taken from over the shoulder of B.)

• Filmmakers rarely take the camera behind imaginary line, unless their intention is to confuse the spectator such as in fight scenes when the filmmaker wants the spectator to feel threatened, disoriented, and anxious.
• Griffith perfected the conventions of the chase.

= Parallel editing –the alternation of shots of one scene with another at a different location.

= By cross-cutting back and forth between the two scenes, Griffith conveyed the idea of simultaneous time.

EXAMPLE: CROSSCUTTING, aka PARALLEL EDITING

Editing that alternates shots of two or more lines of action occurring in different places, usually simultaneously. The two actions are therefore linked, associating the characters from both lines of action. In this extended clip from Edward Yang's Yi Yi (Taiwan, 2000), father and daughter go out on dates at presumably the same time, and go through the same motions, even if the father is in Japan and the daughter in Taipei.

To further stress the similarities, the father is actually reliving his first date with his first girlfriend (whom he has just met again after 20 years), while his daughter is actually on her first date! Yang uses parallel editing across space and time to suggest that history repeats itself, generation after generation.

• Generally, the greater the number of cuts within a scene, the greater its speed.
• If continuity of a sequence is reasonably logical, the fragmentation of space presents no difficulties, but the problem of time is complex.
• Movies can compress years into two hours of projection time or stretch a split second into many minutes.
• Screen time is determined by the physical length of the filmstrip holding the shot.
• This length is managed the complexity of the image matter.
• Raymond Spottiswode, early film theorist, claimed that a cut must be made at the peak of the “content curve” –the point in a shot that the audience is able to absorb most of its information.

Pg. 154-157

• editing can be determined by mood as well as subject matter
  • Griffith for example would edit love scenes in long lyrical takes
    • • Love scene with Keira Knightly
        
  • Battle scenes were compused of quick brief shots, jammed together
    • • Matrix Lobby Scene
        
  • Some editors cut according to musical rhythms.
    • • Home video - toy soldier music video
    • THis technique is commom with American avant-garde filmakers who feature rock music soundtracks
      • cut at or before the peak of the content curve
      • usually at a high suspensful moment
        • Hitchcock uses this technique to tease his audience - doesn't provide enough time to assimilate the meanings of all the shots
          • violent scenes are very quick
        • Antoiono usually cuts after the content curve has peaked
          • slow rythm to parallel theme of movie and characters
• Tact is another editing principle
  • no one likes to be pointed out the obvious
    

Films Referenced
Pg. 150-153 (with 147-150 and 154-157 added)
1.The Birth of a Nation = Griffith used multiple cameras to photograph many of the battle scenes a technique that is used the same by Akira Kurosawa in some sequences of The Seven Samurai.

2.The Birth of a Nation = Griffith cross cuts between groups. He manages to strengthen the suspense by reducing the duration of the shots of as the sequence reaches its climax in contrasting shots from these separate scenes. The classical cuttin gis very impressive and is used to expand time as well, even though the variety of shots want to speed up time.

3.Cleo From Five to Seven & High Noon =both deal with about 90 minutes of time. These movies cheat by compressing time in the opening sequences and expanding it in the climactic scenes. As long as the audience is absorbed by the screen action, time is what the film says it is.

4.Saturday Night Fever = A film's rythm can be created by its musical score

5.L'Avventura = Space is used to suggest time. Here Antonioni uses extreme depth and an endless succesion of doors, fixtures, and hallways to create a very slow rythm that coincides with the theme of the film.

6.Intolerance (1916) Griffith used the idea of thematic montage to present his story on bigotry and persecution. He used the parrelle story structure to present his topic. Instead of making each scene of the movie into non related topics, he used thematic montage to tie each of the incidents together and to bulid his overall theme of bigotry and persecution.


Critical Questions for Review with Answers

Pgs. 150-153

• When a filmmaker juxtaposes shots in the separate scenes of his movie by cross-cutting, what does he manage to do?

• What happens when you cut after and before the peak of the content curve?

• What type of scenes would a director use quick editing for? Lengthy editing?
• How could music be incorporated into editing?
• How can a director use editing to connect to other parts of the film such as themes and characters?
  

Links-

1. http://www.tv-handbook.com/Editing and Program Continuity.html
2. http://classes.yale.edu/film-analysis/htmfiles/editing.htm =gives examples of each important concept from Griffith and classical cutting.

DW Griffith http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._W._Griffith


Page 161-163

Flashbacks - Introduced with the movie The Pawnbroker, in which the story goes into the character's memories of his family before the concentration camps and Nazis killed them.


Here's an example of a flash back. The main character remembers his wife before she was killed.
Momento (2000)

Flash-forward - an interuption in the flow of the film. It's used commonly to show a predestined fate that the main character usually will face or will have to chose. It's basically a foreshadowing technique used in film instead of writing.

Griffith used the interuption of time within his peice Intolerance to build on the thematic montage that he had already made. He wanted the audience to feel the desire the character wanted to fulfill and to accomplish

Flashback, flash-forwards, and cutaways to fantasies allow filmakers to develop their ideas thematically rather than chronologically, freeing them to explore the subjective nature of time.

Editing is often used in a movie to doeceive and trick the viewer. For example, in Flashdance (USA, 1983) a professional dancer was used as a double and the shots were intercut with close-ups of the actress. Along with the music providing the continuity, these shots create the illusion of continuous movement with Beal featured throughout.


Another important contribution of Griffith was his idea that related shots could be bunched together in the shotting schedule, even if they were out of order compared to the finished film.

Griffith expanded the art fediting to: locale changes, time lapses, shot variety, overviews, repetition of motifs, and much more.

In West Side Story (USA, 1961), the music and the dance numbers are edited together for maximum aesthetic impact, rather that to forward the story. The shots are put together for their lyrical and kinetic beauty.