Welcome! If you have been following this blog then you may already know, but for you newcomers, were living in Gangster’s Paradise! We have shots and editing up to bat right now and sound/ score/ music on deck. Play Ball!
Shots and editing are essential to the overall look, feel, and style of a film. Essential to one another, the shots that the director takes are the pieces that the editor will later put together to make it a finished film product. To be able to fully comprehend the interconnected relationship that the shots in a film and the following editing process have on the outcome of the overall look, feel, and style of a film, we will split the two up.
To discuss the shot, we can actually retreat to a previous post within this blog covering mise-en-scene. To reiterate, mise-en-scene is a term used in cinema to describe everything that is placed in the frame of the shot. Setting, costume and makeup, lighting, performance, and staging are the components that make up the content within the frame of the shot. Time is also a component within the shot (and mise-en-scene) because the director controls when we see things (Bordwell & Thompson, 2010, p. 120).
Also, the cinematography controls how the shot is filmed. The photographic aspects of the shot, the framing of the shot, and the duration of the shot are the components that comprise cinematography. The photographic aspects involve how the film looks on the screen. For example, adding a colored film on the lens will cause the projected picture to be colored as well. The frame is described as the vantage point onto the material within the image, and duration is the actual time length of the shot (Bordwell & Thompson, 2010, p. 167-215). .
Moving on, editing is the coordination of one shot with the next. To keep this post relatively short, we will discuss only two ideas out of the many that editing involves. We will discuss editing how determines the pace of a film, and one of the four dimensions of film editing.
Editing determines the pace of a film in three different ways. The duration of the shot, deciding what goes in or out of a sequence, and the type of transition between shots, all determine the speed that events move with. (Winokur & Holsinger, 2001)
Next, we have the four dimensions of film editing. They are: graphic relations between shots, rhythmic relations between shots, spatial relations between shots, and temporal relations between shots respectively (Bordwell & Thompson, 2010, p. 223-229). Other than explaining every one of them, and being overwhelmed with information, we will choose one (Rhythmic Relations) and make it crystal clear.
As Nichols used it, if the editor adjusts the lengths of shots in relation to one another, he is controlling the rhythm of the scene. For example, if two characters are in a conversation, the editor may cut on every line to show the character that’s talking. The editor is using the rhythm of the dialogue, to control the rhythm of the scene. This can be exemplified by looking at a scene that was previously discussed in the mise-en-scene post. (The link is here: What’s funny? The conversation starts at 1:00-2:15) The scene is from Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, with our two main characters getting into a tiff over a joke, which turns into a joke. On the other hand, if they cut only a few times during the conversation, then the editor is letting the dramatic progress of the scene to control the rhythm. (1976)
The process of creating the shot, and the editing process are completely interdependent. Together shots and editing are what makes a film, a film. Editors have to pay attention to the mise-en-scene through out the duration of filming so they do not accidentally have something out of place from one shot to the next, and the directors often oversee or provide input into the editing process because of his/her knowledge of the shots.
To conclude, Shots and editing are essential to the overall look, feel, style, and form of a film. Join us right back here at Gangsters Paradise when we discuss the sound/ score/ music of the gangster film genre.
Bordwell, D., & Thompson, K. (2010). Film Art: An Introduction (9th ed., p. 118-225). Boston: McGraw Hill.
Nichols, B. (1976). The Long Take by Brian Henderson. Movies and methods: an anthology. (p. 319). Berkeley: University of California press.
Winokur, M., & Holsinger, B. W. (2001). The complete Idiot's Guide to Movies, Flicks, and Film. Indianapolis, IN: Alpha Books.
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