Editing and narrative

Editing and narrative

Recording and editing are two important elements of movie. When the camera motor starts running the process of recording begins. Editing begins only after the recording work is finished and the camera is in rest. All the events recorded in camera is regarded as footage which undergo editing process before they are finally presented to the audience. The editing process is the complicated part of making film. A director is usually provided with a script but not all scripts content detail direction or instruction to how to take the film. Some key terms used in editing may denote multiple meanings. Synchronizing the individual parts of a film into a meaningful unified whole is a matter of art and skill and not always easy. The idea of synchronization of various filmic elements has come from famous Greek painter Apelles. Apelles was set to have painted fruit so life like and real that birds would peck at them seeing to feast. This idea expressed a yearning for continuity between creator, object and beholder.

The take

Each time the camera motor is turn on a take begins when the motor stops the take is over. The total recording of an event before editing is called a take. For instance the recording of a woman sitting on a chair, standing up, walking to the shelf, picking up a book and sitting down. Many takes of the single event or object can be taken from which the best take is selected. From such a take the real film will be cut which the audience get to see in the movie. Some director prefer long take. Some long take are often unedited if they are harmonious. In Citizen Kane shots 6 and 7 present the long takes and they take exactly the same time to unfold in the screen they took while recording. A take does points to the harmony and synchronization between the event recorded by the camera and the audience seeing it on the screen. A long take does seem as it has been unedited.

The shot

If a take is an unedited unit of the film, the shot is the edited version of the take. Some talks never become shots because they may be rejected while editing. If a take passes successfully through editing process it becomes a shot. All shots are takes but not all takes are shots. A take is a raw product while shot is a finished and final product. It is important to note that each time the camera retakes the image the angle or position of the camera might vary the lighting might be changed and so forth. The terms shot then designated a portion of the edited version of a film, it refers not to the shooting process but to the process of structuring which we term editing. The problem with the term shot is that it can refer to such a wide variety of potential elements of meaning. Shots can be as brief as the 24 frames which elapse in a single second or they can be as lengthy as the camera’s magazine. A shot can include movement or can be still, it can be taken at any distance from the object. All these differences are normally denoted by the single term shot.

The fact of synchronization

Synchronization in the film means perfect blending of image and sound. Image and sound are recorded separately by different mechanism. The mixing of image and sound in such a way that viewers feel they have been recorded together at a time is achieved through perfect synchronization process. Many viewers do not consider that they are separate things. This is made possible through synchronization of image and sounds track. If words do not match a characters lip movement then there is something wrong with synchronization. Many people don’t find this match especially in recorded and dobbed films. Movie makers try to create illusion that they have been recorded together. The aim of the film maker is to bring perfect synchronization between sound track and film images. Infact images and sound are usually married in such a way that they appear to have been harmoniously together from the beginning of the film to the end.

The cut

A cut is a most important way of editing. A cut refers to the joining of two either to separate pieces of film inorder to present them as related. A cut is like an important quotation mark which opens and closes a sentences or an expression. In film cut signifies a definite break in the construction of the film as a whole. The cut is made at a point were the end of one shot and the beginning of the next will match. Hence, it is important to divide where to end the first shot and begin the next shot. The term cut in the literal sense means the interruption of a single shot at various points inorder to break it down into smaller units but the term cutting in broad sense means the editing process which means the construction of two or more shots end to end. The jump cut means the cuts that do not to preserve the continuity. Such jump cuts present cuts that are not uniform to one another. Such a cut is mostly found in modernist films.

Optical effects

Film laboratory is a place where pieces of films are joint before sending them for printing. Normally modification of the images is done in the film lab. A dissolve is a special device of joining one image with another. In this process when one image is still seen on the frame another image is superimposed. The transactional period between the earlier image and the newly imposed image may vary. In other words the dissolving process can be slowed down until the formal image remains fully visible while another is superimposed upon it this is called lap dissolved. Between the fading out earlier of the fading in the frame remains momentarily blank either light or dark. The time for both fade in and fade out of the images can be slowed or stretched.

The sequence

Since its inception, the word editing has meant the construction of a series of images into a coherent whole. The series of events joint together make a film. A sequence may be a single lengthy shot or a compilation of several shots. A sequence establishes continuity and unity, a whole with some organic development. Some film makers deliberately break the sequence to give desire effect on the viewers. A sequence in movie can be compared to narrative pattern in literature. When film makers first made longer films by compelling series of shots they build each pattern into some shot of climax or intense conclusion. In the history of editing we find different actions resolved at an important moment.

Reference-

Silverman, M. (2013). New York: Oxford University Press.