Editing

Editing and Post Production

Film editing is the process of assembling individual takes into an aesthetic and understandable film. Reconstructing the sequence of events written in the script.

An Editors role involves piecing the preferred takes in a logical order, while following the story line and being imaginative and artistic. Editors manage to find innovative ways of putting together a sequence of shots, with the aim of making the audience feel a certain way. In collaboration with a good-quality music score and VFX an editor can create the whole feel for a scene.

Continuity editing is a universal system that creates shots and scenes to flow visually. It is a popular technique in which the editor makes 'invisible' cuts, maintaining continuous action and without distracting optical inconsistencies. The method's intentions are that viewers don't consciously notice the cuts and the narrative is seamless. Continuity editing, (also called 'Hollywood editing') aspires to achieve conventional editing without being spatially confusing, or incoherent. Some well-liked editing tools used in Continuity Editing are 'Shot- Reverse shot'; the '180 degree rule'; 'Eye line match' and 'Over the shoulder'. 'Shot-Reverse shot' is utilised ideally in conversation scenes. For example, if there were two people having a conversation the editor would cut from one to the other showing each characters dialogue. 'Shot-Reverse shot' is usually used in conjunction with 'Over the shoulder' shots, where we can see both characters, one front on and the other one's shoulder and part of their back. This enables viewers to get a sense of who is talking to who and establishes the geography of the scene. The '180 degree rule' is a technique used to try and avoid spatial disorientation. Also known as crossing the line, the rule states that in any one scene or sequence the camera is to stay on one side of the action and objects. It can shoot from anywhere within one side of the line, but not cross it. This endeavours to eliminate inconsistent screen direction, for example if a character is walking from the right of the screen to the left, they won't suddenly appear to be walking from the left to the right. This would confuse viewers and take away from the story. If a director ever needs to 'cross the line', they might provide a 're-establishing