Film Editing

by Gael Chandler

  Kill Bill: Vol. 2

  SMASH CUT 3: An alien pops into frame through a screen.

  War of the Worlds

  Sometimes smash cuts are literal smashes.

  SMASH CUT 4: The eye-patched villain is surprised by The Bride, who smash cuts feet first through a wall to attack her.

  Kill Bill: Vol. 2

  SMASH CUT 5: The hunted serial killer finds himself in more trouble when a station wagon (right) suddenly appears and crashes into his car.

  No Country for Old Men

  EXPANDING TIME Editing to lengthen real time.

  Editors expand time in a variety of instances. For example, they stretch time to show two people embracing or fighting, to extend a comic moment, or to call out an athlete executing an awesome move. This elongates the moment, like a sustained note or repeated phrase in music, and lets viewers fully experience the emotion and what’s taking place.

  Time is expanded by editors in many ways such as: cutting in multiple angles of an action, using cuts that are long in duration, and editing in a slow or medium rhythm.

  EXPANDING TIME 1 (selected cuts): Repeated action of crossbow soldiers stretch time before the battle begins.

  Hero

  EXPANDING TIME 2: An exhilarating jump of freedom is extended by cuts to multiple angles.

  Into the Wild

  STOPPING TIME

  A variation on expanding time where the editing causes a pause in the action, appearing to stop time.

  Ordinarily, time-stopping edits are accomplished through reaction shots or POV shots held on screen. Like a rest in music, these edits are usually seen prior to a climax and function to re-focus the audience on what’s at stake and the possible outcomes. Prime examples include courtroom scenes before the verdict is delivered and sports competitions before the winning putt, hit, or shot clinches the event.

  STOPPING TIME 1: During a pull back in battle, the captain exhorts his lieutenant, Serrano, and consults his pocket watch.

  Pan’s Labyrinth

  STOPPING TIME 2 (selected shots): Peeved at being pelted with papayas, pirate Jack Sparrow shouts “Stop it!” (frames 1-3).

  Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

  STOPPING TIME 2 (continued):The action halts (frames 4-6) and Jack winks at the audience (frame 7) before the action restarts.

  Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

  SUBJECTIVE TIME Cutting to show time experienced from a character’s point of view.

  Film is considered to be the art that most mimics the human mind. Both mind and movie can dart from thought to feeling, knowledge to discovery, past to present in a nanosecond. Editing from a character’s point of view exemplifies this and is what allows film to cross into and mesh with our own lives — our dreams, hopes, fears, beliefs, and experiences.

  SUBJECTIVE TIME 1: Days of marching through the desert without food and water increase The Bride’s thirst for revenge.

  Kill Bill: Vol. 2

  SUBJECTIVE TIME 2 (selected cuts): Roaming the streets of downtown Los Angeles cements Alex’s decision to head for the wilds of Alaska. Director Sean Penn used the same actor for two different characters so Alex Supertramp (bottom right) literally pictures himself as just another phony urbanite (bottom left).

  Into the Wild

  FLASH CUT

  A combination of subjective time and compressed time: Short cut that quickly and intensively gets inside a character’s head.

  Flash cuts sear the audience’s brain with what a character is seeing and feeling. While editing The Pawnbroker in 1962, director Sidney Lumet and editor Ralph Rosenblum pioneered the use of flash cuts in the U.S. Rosenblum described their vision in his book, When the Shooting Stops… The Editing Begins: “They [flash cuts] would represent the beginnings of a memory voyage, the mind’s instantaneous, semiconscious, involuntary association of current and past events.” Their vision has proved true as the next three examples illustrate.

  FLASH CUT 1 (selected cuts): When Howard Hughes arrives at a movie premiere, the sight and sound of flashbulbs assault him, exposing one of his many phobias.

  The Aviator

  FLASH CUT 2 (selected cuts): City life strobes at him in flash cuts as Paprika’s detective friend has a heart attack.

  Paprika

  FLASH CUT 3 (selected cuts): Death scene of Chris (a.k.a. Alex Supertramp). Flash cuts of the sky outside his window and an imagined reconciliation with his parents, accompany Chris to his death in the final frame.

  Into the Wild

  SUBLIMINAL CUT

  A cut consisting of a few frames which zip by so fast that the viewer is only subliminally (subconsciously) aware of them.

  In the mid-1950s a market researcher announced that he’d increased snack counter sales by inserting subliminal cuts into a movie, urging the audience to buy popcorn and drink Coca Cola. Ever since, the public has worried about being manipulated by subliminal advertising in movies as well as on television, billboards, radio, and other recording media.

  But do subliminal cuts really stimulate us to buy products? Do self-help recordings played while we’re half-conscious or asleep improve our knowledge? Even though the FCC banned subliminal cuts in the 1970s following congressional hearings, there has been no conclusive scientific evidence that subliminal messages increase our knowledge or stimulate us to change our normal behavior. And the market researcher eventually admitted that he faked not only the results but the movie theatre experiment itself — it never happened.

  So — do movies contain subliminal cuts? Absolutely. How do they impact the audience? Like any other good cut, they serve the story. The shortest of all cuts, a subliminal cut can ratchet up the tension to help make the audience uneasy. Additionally, it can expose the past, foreshadow the future, or show what a character is experiencing.

  Here’s what director William Friedkin said in 1973 about why he put subliminal cuts in The Exorcist: “The subliminal cut is the single most provocative and useful tool that a filmmaker has today as a story-telling device because it really expresses the way all of us think in cinematic terms: The way when we’re walking down the street or talking to each other and while you’re looking at me, or I at you, we’re flashing on something else constantly. The way the mind reaches into God-knows-where for a picture out of our subconscious.”

  For such a small cut it certainly has had a lot said and written about it! Let’s look a few subliminal cuts and you can decide what you think.

  SUBLIMINAL CUT 1: As he is chased in a dark-lit scene, Bourne’s past intercepts him in a series of brightly lit subliminal cuts.

  The Bourne Ultimatum

  Subliminal cuts, flash frames, and flash cuts contribute mightily to these two high-energy films — the first a thriller, the second a comedy.

  SUBLIMINAL CUT 2: Subliminal cuts help get this film off to a jazzy start as its main character relives his glory days as a police cadet at the top of his class.

  Hot fuzz

  UNIVERSAL TIME Cutting to invoke the universal relevance of a time, place, or idea.

  The opposite of subliminal cuts, universal time cuts are typically slow and deliberate, giving the audience time to breathe in their message.

  The Diving Bell and the Butterfly ends with Jean-Do’s death, followed by a sequence of glaciers reconstituting themselves. When asked to explain his imagery, director Julian Schnabel remarked, “When the glaciers come out of the sea and form themselves again, you feel he is a part of everything that is there before and after.”

  WRAP UP

  A movie’s pace and rhythm are achieved through astute, time-bending editing as we’ve observed in this chapter. But they also can be achieved through effects, as you shall see in the next chapter.

  chapter 7 CUTS THAT

  USE TIME EFFECTS

  Editing is very interesting and absorbing work because of the illusions you can create. You can span thirty years within an hour and a half. You can stretch a moment in slow motion.

&nb
sp; – Editor Paul Hirsch, A.C.E., Ray, Mission

  Impossible, Star Wars, and many others

  Just as cuts can speed up, slow down, or appear to stop the action or time, so can certain effects. In this chapter we’ll identify these effects and look at how they impact the film’s rhythm, pace, and story and affect the audience.

  FREEZE-FRAME (A.K.A. FREEZE OR STILL FRAME)

  Effect where the action holds (freezes) for as many frames as desired.

  Freeze frames stop time and hold an image, idea, or plot point in the audience’s mind. Habitually, they’re used to prolong a character’s triumph (e.g. winning a race), or tribulation (e.g. death of a loved one). Increasingly, they’re used to halt the action and allow a character to directly address the audience. Ending a movie with a freeze has been popular since 1959 when director Francois Truffaut famously concluded The 400 Blows with a freeze of its anti-hero.

  FREEZE FRAME 1: Santa knifes the cop, leaving a scar and a moment forever frozen in his memory.

  Hot Fuzz

  FREEZE FRAME 2: Blam! A photo flash freezes to frame a crook being thwacked.

  Paprika

  FREEZE FRAME 3: Freeze frames often end movies (like this one) or play under end credits.

  Into the Wild

  SLOW MOTION

  Effect where the pace of the action is decreased from what occurred in reality in front of the camera. This retardation is accomplished during editing or, more traditionally, during filming by overcranking (running the film through the camera at a faster rate than it will be played back).

  The slo mo shot has many uses. Principally, it breaks down fast actions — like sports plays or car crashes — so they’re easier for the audience to absorb and appreciate.

  SLO MO 1: The student flips her karate master.

  Kill Bill: Vol. 2

  A slo mo typically extends a dramatic moment or shows the past.

  SLO MO 2: A good Samaritan sprints to pull Howard Hughes out of his burning plane. Will he make it in time? Slo mo prolongs the suspense.

  The Aviator

  SLO MO 3: The President’s motorcade moves in slo mo.Documentaries and news shows reflexively slo mo footage during editing to match the length of the narration.

  Fahrenheit 911

  SLO MO 4: Explosions are regularly slo mo’d to sustain the moment.

  Hot Fuzz

  SLO MO 5: grad caps float in the air, amplifying the joy of finishing college.

  Into the Wild

  SLO MO 6: A giant octopus sinks a ship in slo mo, just for the fun of it.

  Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

  SLO MO 7: Dance scenes are naturals for slo mo.

  Mamma Mia

  SLO MO 8 (selected cuts): In this gut-wrenching scene, slow and regular motion shots combine with repeated, non-sequential cuts to intensify the parents’ agony as they strain to protect their daughter from being shot.

  Crash

  When intercut with real time or sped up shots, slo mos change the tempo of a scene, often revealing characters’ thoughts and feelings. When put to music, slo mo sequences can be romantic, stretch the comedy (think of a pie catapulting across the screen), or leave the viewer gasping at the horror, tragedy, or violence of a scene.

  SLO MO 9 (selected cuts): Slo mo shots dance with regular motion shots to slow time and accentuate the raindrops in this balletic scene. Opponent overcome, the hero sheathes his sword and the rain ceases (frame 7).

  Hero

  SPEED UP

  Effect where the pace of the action is increased from what occurred in real time in front of the camera. This increase is accomplished during editing or, more traditionally, during filming by undercranking (running the film through the camera at a slower rate than it will be played back).

  Seen far less frequently than slo mos, speed ups are commonly employed to propel a character from Point A to Point B more quickly. They’re also created for comic effect, to change the tempo, or to portray the action from a character’s perspective.

  SPEED UP 1: As Jean-Do recovers his memory, shots rev up.

  The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

  SPEED UP 2: The action accelerates as Harry flies on his broomstick, a vicious, fire-breathing dragon on his tail.

  Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

  SPEED UP 3: A worn-out Alex Supertramp stands above an L.A. freeway where traffic hyperspaces by.

  Into the Wild

  SPEED UP 4: As vehicles appear and disappear at warp speed, time passes in the land of anime.

  Paprika

  REVERSE MOTION

  Playing a shot backwards so that the filmed action takes place from end to beginning.

  To create a reverse, the filmed shot is reversed in the editing room, special effects house, or film lab. Occasionally, shots are filmed in reverse. For example, for safety reasons, a car is filmed as it abruptly backs away from a child. Later the shot is reversed so that the car looks like it will hit the child — as the drama required.

  Reverse motion is used to explain a point or to create a comic or magical effect and can make time appear to go backwards.

  REVERSE MOTION 1 (selected cuts): While a cop (offscreen) recounts how a parapet was loosed from a cathedral to commit murder, the crime replays in reverse.

  Hot Fuzz

  REVERSE MOTION 2: With a stroke of headmaster Dumbledore’s wand and some reverse motion, a vase appears from inside a flaming, retracting cabinet.

  Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

  REVERSE MOTION 3 (selected cuts): Leading up to the climactic kiss which concludes the film, its hero relives his and his beloved’s past. This recap is achieved by reverse shots: He runs backwards through a train station and she exits a bus.

  Slumdog Millionaire

  WRAP UP

  Freezes, slo mos, speed ups, and reverses: In this chapter you saw how these effects can tell the story and influence the time and rhythm of cuts. In the final chapter, we’ll build on this and all previous chapters to focus on the different ways in which scenes are edited.

  chapter 8 CUTTING

  SCENES

  In this chapter we’ll tackle the different types of edited scenes that form the building blocks of the movie. As we delve into each type, you’ll discover just how efficiently and effectively they drive the story, reveal character, and communicate to the audience.

  EXPOSITION

  Scene at the beginning of a film that sets its time, place, situation, characters, tone, and/or theme.

  A good expository scene will incorporate a dramatic hook. The hook’s purpose is to deliver the movie’s central conflict, mystery, or question, seducing the audience into staring at the screen for the next 90-120 minutes.

  Many movies start by plunging right into the plot with a scene or two from the past, present, or future that motivates the character(s) and the rest of the movie. The first two examples demonstrate this type of exposition.

  EXPOSITION 1 (selected cuts): As his mother bathes him, she cajoles the young Howard Hughes to spell out the word ‘quarantine.’ “You are not safe,” she tells him. Thus she embeds a lifelong sense of separation and phobias that clash with his outer drives and accomplishments and play out over the rest of the film.

  The Aviator

  EXPOSITION 2 (selected cuts): A tenacious prospector shows his grit when he blasts his mine and accidentally breaks his leg. A pair of landscape shots bookend this long opening scene; the first establishing the setting, the second showing the long trek the prospector must survive to get his leg and nugget of ore examined.

  There Will Be Blood

  Many other movies use establishing shots — typically wide shots or long shots — during or following the title and opening credits to create the exposition.

  EXPOSITION 3 (selected cuts): Over the opening credits and accompanied by hip hop music, the main character is solidly exposed as an immature party boy who values time with his buds above all else.

  Knocked Up
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  EXPOSITION 4 (selected cuts): Wide, ambling, Texas landscape shots, accompanied by narration, acquaint us with the film’s territory and its narrator, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. This opening scene ends by introducing us to the villain as he’s taken into custody — but not for long.

  No Country for Old Men

  EXPOSITION 5 (selected cuts): Nicholas Angel is swiftly established as a single-minded top cop in this opening sequence which gives his resume via voiceover and launches the comedy’s snappy, off-kilter editing style.

  Hot Fuzz