Purposes of Editing

Purposes of Editing

The editing form determines meaning in a film. In most Hollywood films, editing helps determine a least 4 dimensions of film narrative. In what order you receive the information about the plot, how much information you are supposed to receive about the narrative, how you are supposed to feel about the events and characters at any given time and how you are supposed to experience the pace of the narrative. Also, as montages suggests, editing can serve an intellectual function, often making aesthetic, political or ideological assertions about the activities you’re viewing as well as including emotional appeals. The latter activity tends to belong more to the world of avant-garde and experimental films.

Determine the speed at which events move along

At the simplest level, editing determines the speed and the mood of a film in 3 different moods.

1. The editor determines the length of the shot. Generally speaking, the longer the shot length, the slower the pace.
2. The editor can decide what goes in or out of a sequence. For example, looking at Lawrence in Arabia, instead of showing T.E. Lawrence travel from his office in Cairo to the desert. We see him extinguish a match in the office, cutting from a close up of the match to the establishing shot of the desert and sun.
   Film Clip Example
3. The type of edit between shots determines speed .Film Clip Example  The slow dissolve keeps the audience lingering on a dissolving image for several seconds. Or the cuts between shots can be very quick. Film Clip Example
   
   

Give or Withhold Information

Sometimes editing shows you information that will be important to future events, sometimes information could be withheld to surprise us. For example, we see a long shot of a man in the street, he looks harmless enough. Then we cut to an insert or detail shot of a hand holding a gun behind the owner’s back. We realize that the man is waiting for someone he is going to shoot. Film Clip Example

Determine your feeling for events and characters

How do we know when we’re supposed to like or character or how characters are supposed to feel about each other. The way characters are edited also says something about who they are. For example, when a man and woman talk to each other they can be shot in a two-shot or a shot reverse shot. The two-shot can imply a level of intimacy between them that crosscutting may not, because characters in a shot reverse shot sequence seem emotionally further apart when they aren’t close.

The illusion of Unity

Editors cut together material from disparate sources to give the illusion of unity and continuity. This editing constitutes the practical Hollywood use of the “creative geography” the Soviet filmmakers theorized about.