THE ART OF EDITING

We are used to Hollywood actors and directors becoming household names. People like Robert Downey Jr and Christopher Nolan have firmly put their stamps on Hollywood. But what about the people who puts the films together? What about the editors? 

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Editors are like the tour guides of a film. They help direct the audience's gaze and help them understand the narrative, using shots and audio. The relationship between an editor and director is crucial on film sets. A film editor will work closely to the director to check the production is going as expected and that the scenes that are being filmed make sense and run smoothly. Sometimes, editors are working on a freelance basis, meaning the editor may be self-employed, but are hired by a production team due to their professionalism and their experience within the industry. Along with this, editors will need to be flexible in terms of time. As they are editing a feature film, it can be time consuming so they have to be dedicated to meeting the editing deadlines.

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Editors are the people behind fusing scenes together so they make sense, they are one of the most important people across all forms of production on a film set, especially in post-production. They combine two scenes, so they smoothly run into each other, crafting a story using the material provided to them. Editor's must be aware of what the narrative of the film is and find ways to translate the plot on screen, using the shots filmed in the production stage. An editor must be aware of different software and editing facilities to allow easy editing and for the scenes to fit easily together. A vital aspect to editing is being able to communicate and give opinions and ideas on how the film's narrative should run and work towards the final cut of the film. Transitions, grading and continuity are important things to acknowledge whilst editing a film together. Referring to Star Wars, when a scene was cutting to a new scene, instead of fading in and out or just using a simple cut, George Lucas, the director, chose to use the screen wipe. In simple terms, a scene would be pushed to one side and completely off screen whilst a new scene took over the screen. For any other film, these transitions wouldn't work but the Star Wars franchise have made them part of the franchise's iconography. Although the wipe does look weird and out of place, Star Wars solidified the transition and now it is recognisable across the film industry.

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An editor’s roles and responsibilities can vary with different film sets but the personal attributes are the same. They must be good at time keeping and must be organised at all times, which is relevant in any industry. An editor must also pay attention to the little details of the films. For example, if a movie is targeted for a younger audience, then the editing will be a lot more subtle so children will be able to follow the plot without a problem. However, if a movie is for an older target audience, the audience is going to be more perceptive and notice the small details which may foreshadow a future event in the movie. The editing will be slightly more complex as older audiences will be able to follow the plot. Genres themselves carry their own conventions and editors have to be able to show these conventions through their editing. Before starting on a new film project, it is important to understand the genre of the film and pick out which conventions are the most recognisable within that genre. The lines can blur and genres can be pushed together to make a hybrid genre. In the past few years we have seen superhero films mixed with western films (Logan) and horror (New Mutants, which is set to be released in the upcoming years). Horror comedies are also popular within the film industry. Films like 'Shaun of the Dead' and 'Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse' are both equally funny as they are scary. Horror is normally associated with dark themes, ghost and a lack of humour or optimism. The characters within these films are credulous, which ads another layer of comedy onto the films. In horror we are so used to seeing the serious main characters who are trying to defeat evil that we forget what the situation could be like if a comedic main character was the main character. In terms of editing, the editor must understand both of the genres and come up with a way to merge them together.

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Scouts Guide To The Zombie Apocalypse

If we take a comedy-horror film, the editor can add sound effects or audio to highlight the comedy in a certain scene. For instance, in 'Scouts Guide To The Zombie Apocalypse', there is one scene where the main characters are walking across the bridge. It's late at night and all the characters are talking about escaping. Horror films thrive especially when the major scenes are shot in the dark, adding to the although tense atmosphere. People tend to feel their most vulnerable at night and to play on this idea, works well for horror. As the group walk towards a van, they are scared by a zombie who appears stood next to the van. This is a horror convention. It works as a jump scare and the audience are't expecting it. The music that is edited over it also have the same impact, reflecting the action taking place on screen. The audio is high-pitched, a common audio used within horror films. Whilst the zombie starts to walk towards the group the characters start arguing about if they should murder the zombie. There is a shot reverse shot to show how slow the zombie is, playing on the stereotype of zombies walking slowly. Once the zombie gets close enough to the group, one of the characters glances at the Britney Spears t-shirt that the zombie is wearing the first few notes of 'Hit Me Baby One More Time' plays. The scene then becomes more hysterical as one of the characters starts to sing the song along with the zombie. The camera cuts the reactions of each of the characters who are all equally as confused, adding another layer of comedy.

The idea of cutting and editing these reactions whilst the zombie and other character are singing together plays upon the comedy-horror genre and this is a defining comedic moment in the film. As it gets to the chorus, the singing grows louder. This shot places the singing characters into the foreground and the confused ones into the background, creating a division between both sides. As the song reaches its climax, the camera focuses on the zombie only as seconds before the song is over, the zombie is shot, reminding the audience that there is a literal zombie apocalypse is happening whilst the Britney Spears singalong is happening. The scene alone shows that horror-comedies can be done if they are edited in the right way.  By taking an event like a world destruction and the apocalypse, you can create humour, which separates the film from other existing horror films. Situations like that shouldn't be funny or light-hearted but by manipulating the footage by editing it a certain way, a hybrid film can be made. By using the raw footage, editors have to be able to manipulate the shots to create a story that follows the genre conventions. When editing footage, there are unique ways of illustrating and highlighting the genre of the film through the editing software. If we refer to horror films, we can see that the horror genre is made up with silence, quick-paced shots and lowkey lighting, With horror films, an editor has to be able to create a tension-filled atmosphere with the shots that are provided to them.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmp0A_J-_84

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Captain America: Civil War - Peter Parker

Linking into tension, action films also have a certain level of tension in the form of action scenes. Action film and superhero films share many qualities like fast-paced cutting and city shots to help the audience establish where in the world that particular scene is taking place. A film that does this well is Marvel's Captain America: Civil War (edited by Jeffery Ford). With every new location, the audience can see the established landscape as well as a title card informing the audience of where exactly the action is taking place. Especially in the superhero genre, super fans of the comic books will be able to associate a location with a superhero. For example, in Civil War, one of the title sequences in for Queens, New York. To a standard member of the audience, this would spark no emotional value and they would consider it as just a location that furthers the plot along. To a superhero fan, they would already be linking Queens with Peter Parker, who's superhero ego is Spider-Man, arguably the most famous Marvel character. Fans were eagerly waiting for Peter Parker to enter the MCU so creating the hype by just editing in an establishing shot into the film made audiences excited.

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The sequence starts with an establishing shot of Queens, where Peter lives with his aunt after the death of his parents and the recent death of his uncle. The audience see Peter walking down the hallway. They only see his bottom half, which also symbolises that he, wants to hide his identity. As well as this, with a new actor playing Peter it introduces Tom Holland nicely to the Marvel universe. The camera carries on following Peter; with the camera, slowly tilting up the closer Peter gets to his apartment. The music that can be heard is the song that is playing through Peter's headphones which is diegetic music. The camera does not cut at any point, which leads to a continuous shot of Peter as he walks through the door. He is not expecting Tony Stark to be sat on his sofa. The audience see Tony before Peter does which adds to Peter's oblivious views. The camera still has not cut as Peter heads to the kitchen. The audience then see him turn around. The camera then zooms up into his face to reveal Peter's shocked expression he then takes his headphone out in disbelief. As Peter looked up to Tony this took him by surprise as his childhood hero is sat in his front room, besides his aunt.

 The camera then cuts to Tony and Aunt May from Peter's view so the audience is able to see what Peter is so shocked at. Peter then starts to stutter as he has become overwhelmed with the idea of Tony sat on his sofa. The audience will be excited by the idea of Peter and Tony sharing a scene together as it has never happened before in any previous movies and has only ever happened in the Marvel comics. This increases drama Tony is willing to bring someone as inexperienced and as young as Peter into a war, which involves trained assassins and specially advanced humans. This also shows how desperate Tony has become. It also makes the audience question how long Tony has known about Peter and how he actually found out that Peter is actually Spider-Man.

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The Impossible – 2012

Director: J. A. Bayona and edited by Elena Ruiz Bernat Vilaplana

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The Impossible is based on the real-life events of the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004. The movie is based on a family that was torn apart by the tsunami. In this scene i am going to break down, the mother and her eldest son are trying to support each other as they alone and without the rest of the family. The father and the two youngest sons are all together, trying to find Lucas and his mother. The mother is rushed into hospital due to her injuries. She sends Lucas to help other people locate their family members, which leads onto him finding his family.

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Throughout this one scene, the audience feel many different emotions, which vary from relief to shock. The audience are unaware of if the family are going to be reunited. This scene will be emotional for anyone with a family as this event could happen to anyone and it shows what lengths people will go to protect and save their families. The camera mostly uses either eye-level angles or low angles and does not zoom into anything. This could be for the idea that the emotions and feelings of the characters are shown through the facial expressions and the angles rather thank the camera zooming in on their reactions.

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Editing

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To be an editor, there are no qualifications needed or any specialised education. There are, of course, editing courses where you can study the craft of editing films. There are software courses and degree level editing courses. Universities like London and Bournemouth offer editing degrees and Bachelor degrees. There are also online courses that can also educate about editing techniques, theories and skills. What is really needed is a passion for the art of storytelling and knowledge on editing software and how to use them. You would have to build yourself up, starting with being a Runner, which means running errands for other people. Runner is one the starting positions within the film industry. Although it may not be what you wanted to do, it will give you an idea of what it is like on film sets. Like directors, editors must be flexible and must be able to work any hours, including nights and anti-social hours. An editor must be able to work flexible hours as this will help with the production process. Editors must also be able to work long hours to assure the production is of the best quality. With working long days, there is also a lot of pressure on the editor as they must be able to remain professional throughout the process of editing. As stated, an editor is usually freelanced. This means that they aren't contracted and are hired in by studios. This could mean that editors have more than one film that they are editing. With this being the case, this also tests the editor's organisation and ability to meet deadlines.

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The editor knows how to create that excitement within fans and drop subtle easter eggs and references to create more of an emotional connection between the film and the audience. Moving onto rom-coms, these types of films usually on camera angles and camera movements more. The shots tend to be longer as the film is much more about the characters than the plot. Editors then can create a chemistry between both love interests and develop a love story through the emotions and words of the characters. (Genre, 2019)

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Bohemian Rhapsody

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Editing has its own category at the Academy Awards for a reason. Past winners include 'Saving Private Ryan', 'Titanic' and 'Whiplash'. The 2018 biopic, 'Bohemian Rhapsody' came under fire when it won the Oscar for 'Best Editing' and was the source of controversy. Editing, without no doubt, is a hard craft but when a scene is badly edited it is hard to notice anything else. Of course, no film is perfect but the editing within Bohemian Rhapsody is noticeable. If we take one scene in particular, we can notice just how odd the editing of it is. In this scene, Queen are sat outside, waiting to talk to John Reid (Game of Thrones' Aidan Gillen). However, the camera keeps cutting between all four members of Queen for no apparent reason. These cuts serve no purpose to the plot and none of the characters are reacting to any news or conversations so these cuts seem out of place. Cutting between characters can be used to set up a conversation or tension but this scene in Bohemian Rhapsody had neither of these things happening. The scene itself is 104 seconds but the scene contains 60 different cuts of characters, which is overwhelming. The audience has no idea who to focus on as they are not able to see a single shot for too long before it cuts to another person.

Action films have considerably less cuts in scenes and providing this scene in Bohemian Rhapsody is just a group of men sitting at a table, the cuts seem pointless as there is no action or drama taking place. The characters are seen reacting to a line but a lot of the time, it is unclear who is delivering that line and who they are delivering the line to. Eye line is one of the most vital things to pay attention to whilst editing. Eye line helps the audience establish who is talking to who and who is looking at who. This helps guide the audiences attention and the audience have no problem following the plot. There are no varying shots. What the audience sees on screen is repetitive mid-shots that provide no information. As John Reid greets the band, only three of the members can be seen on screen. A pan or a long shot could have been used to show all four characters but instead the edit chooses to cut out of one of the members. After cutting from Freddie, John and Roger, the scene then cuts to Brian in a mid-shot. This seems incredibly out of place as it feels like he isn't even a part of the band and is just there for the fun of it. As stated, editing is hard and when editing is bad, it is easier to notice. (EW.com, 2019)

You may have heard of Spielberg’s E.T but the person who edited it together was a woman called Carol Littleton. She edited one of the most iconic cinematic moments of Hollywood history; the scene of which Elliot flies on the bike with E.T. this scene alone is one of the most magical moments of the film. Littleton was then nominated for an academy award for “Best Editor” for E.T. She was also nominated for a BAFTA for that film as well. Taken from “An Interview with Carol Littleton, ACE”, Littleton says “As an editor I analyse the story, and figure out how to make it as rich as possible, to have the most emotional impact.” This means that editors have to review all the footage that has been given to them by the director and they have to find the best way to show the true depth of the film by making decisions on what should and should not be in the film. If we think about it in a similar context, editing is like getting the chapters of a book but they are not in an order that is easy to read. The editor's baseline job is to put these chapters into an order that makes sense and allows the audience to follow the plot. Chapters are taken out and also added in (these are reshoots in film terms) and they tell the story.

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