Editing is the process of putting shots together. Editing is usually considered to be part of the post-production process. Editing is the final process of determining the order in which events unfold on the screen and what information is revealed to the audience. Functions The shots the editor chooses and the ways they are combined set the mood, develop the action, create the rhythm, establish the film's time and space, and guide the viewers' attention. The most important aspects are graphic, spatial, and temporal relationships between shots. These four areas (rhythmic, graphic, spatial, temporal) provide the framework for most discussions of how filmmakers shape sequences, they could work differently across different types of movies. Narrative film mostly works with spatial and temporal logics, and abstract film uses rhythmic and graphic editing. Graphic match, is the method where graphic similarities in two shots provide the edit’s justification.
The illusion of continuity
Mise-en-scène and cinematography contribute to the sense of a film’s world, but it is spatial editing that literally constructs film space for us, since films join shots together that may have been recorded in wildly different places to construct a sense of connection present only in the film. The continuity, in other words, is produced by and through film itself, an illusion, similar to the illusion of movement produced through the persistence of vision, first discovered before 1920 by the Soviet filmmaker Lev Kuleshov.
The “Kuleshov effect” has come for film scholars to describe the fact that, in the absence of an establishing shot, the audience will infer a spatial whole from a portion of space. The broader point, however, is that audiences create connections and combinations from fragments, retrospectively generating cause and effect logics or explanations where none was on offer, or creating continuous space from discrete images.
Three patterns for spatial editing
1.) The establishing sequence in Speed is an example of a pattern common in commercial narrative film: establishment, breakdown, re-establishment. In this pattern, the film offers a locale, the space in which action is to occur, and subsequently breaks down the space into its component parts, and then re-establishes the locale before moving to a different space. 2.) Another pattern, used to suggest simultaneous action in different spaces, is cross-cutting, or parallel editing, that moves from the action in one space to the action in another and back and forth. Commonly used to generate suspense, “cross-cutting” is the visual equivalent of “meanwhile.”
3.) Cut in and cut away: An instantaneous shift from a distant framing to a closer view of some portion fo the same space, and vice versa.
Editing and time
Spatial and temporal relationships are close to each others. Temporal relationship between shots could orient us to a film word's time. Few films, that is, unwind in real time, in which screen time corresponds precisely to plot and story time. Temporal editing, then, is not simply to do with the ordering of events in the plot, though filmmakers do, of course, make decisions about the sequencing of events, the use of flashbacks (in which events that took place in the plot past are interwoven with those of the plot present) and flashforwards (the opposite case). Freeze frames are moments when the motion picture appears to freeze into a still photograph. A single frame is printed repeatedly to achieve this effect.
Matched cut. In a 'matched cut' a familiar relationship between the shots may make the change seem smooth:
continuity of direction;
completed action;
a similar centre of attention in the frame;
a one-step change of shot size (e.g. long to medium);
a change of angle (conventionally at least 30 degrees).
Jump cut. Abrupt switch from one scene to another which may be used deliberately to make a dramatic point. Sometimes boldly used to begin or end action. Alternatively, it may be result of poor pictorial continuity, perhaps from deleting a section.
Continuity editing
In most films, logical coherence is achieved by cutting to continuity, which emphasizes smooth transition of time and space.The techniques of continuity editing function to create a synthetic unity of space and time from this fragments.Continuity editing is all about coherence and orientation.
Techniques that creates coherence:
establishing shot, shot, reverse shot
180 degree rule: shown in the diagram below, dictates that the camera should stay in one of the areas on either side of the axis of action (an imaginary line drawn between the two major dramatic elements A and B in a scene, usually two characters).
30 degree rule: states the camera should move at least 30° between shots of the same subject. This change of perspective makes the shots different enough to avoid a jump cut.Too much movement around the subject may violate the 180¤ rule.
eyeline match: If a character in one shot glances at something off-screen, the next cut reveals the object the character is looking at. If the person looks left, the following shot should imply that the looker is offscreen right.
point of view cutting should manipulate the connection between character and audience, as they represent the characters optical vantage point.
the match on action cut: 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.
directional continuity: what’s left, what’s right, who’s who in the space, and who’s heading in what direction
Elliptical editing need not be confined to a same place and time. Ellipsis means the omission or suppression of information, which creates a gap in the story. Events can be edited out for the sake of narrative compression, or to delay revealinginformation and create surprise later in the story. It can also refer to the character's emotions.
Discontinuous editing describes the deliberate or accidental violation of rules of continuity when editing films. As a deliberate technique, it may be used to connote authenticity or to create alienation. The viewer's expectation of continuity can be violated by such methods as changing image size or tone between shots, changing direction or changing shots before the viewer has time to recognize what is happening.It is also known as montage editing, and employs a series of often rapid and non-matching cuts which creates a style the audience is conspicuously aware of,or alternatively that create uneven and unpredictable rhythms and emphasize the rapidity of movement between images.
Transitions
Cut: The most common transition — an instant change from one shot to the next. The raw footage from your camera contains cuts between shots where you stop and start recording (unless of course you use built-in camera transitions). In film and television production, the vast majority of transitions are cuts.
Mix / Dissolve / Crossfade: These are all terms to describe the same transition — a gradual fade from one shot to the next. Crossfades have a more relaxed feel than a cut and are useful if you want a meandering pace, contemplative mood, etc. Scenery sequences work well with crossfades, as do photo montages. Crossfades can also convey a sense of passing time or changing location.
Fade: Fades the shot to a single colour, usually black or white. The "fade to black" and "fade from black" are ubiquitous in film and television. They usually signal the beginning and end of scenes. Fades can be used between shots to create a sort of crossfade which, for example, fades briefly to white before fading to the next shot.
Wipe: One shot is progressively replaced by another shot in a geometric pattern. There are many types of wipe, from straight lines to complex shapes. Wipes often have a coloured border to help distinguish the shots during the transition. Wipes are a good way to show changing location.
Montage
A French word literally meaning "editing", "putting together" or "assembling shots". It is a method by which through two unrelated shots we may create a third and different meaning. Montage does not attempt to create a coherent scenic space, but attempts to create symbolic meaning. It was invented by the Soviet Montage Theory.
The types of the montage: graphic rhytmic intellectual/associative