Editing Styles & Conventions

The definition of montage.

Montage is directly translated from the French as ''putting together''

(Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montage)

Currently there are 2 main types of montage being used within the film industry. These are Soviet and Hollywood.

Typically, the Soviet montage during the 1920's allowed pictures that didn't directly relate to one another to be placed together to create a third meaning within the original pictures when they were being observed alone.

A Hollywood montage usually shows time from the beginning to the end of the particular sequence. This can be seen in a recent children's film called ''UP''. One of the main characters' life is used in a montage to let the audience feel that they know about the main character, who is an elderly man throughout the film. The montage allows the film to start whilst pinpointing the most important point of the elderly man's life.

Continuity editing ensures that there are particular objects or actions that continue through an edit. The use of continuity editing allows the audience to get more involved in the film as the edits become less and less visible. For example, if a main character had a green apple in his left hand, continuity would make sure that it stayed in his left hand and didn't change colour or have any bites out of it.

The History Of Editing

Early film editors and makers simply filmed what they thought was interesting as well as aumusing them and they would hold a shot until they got bored or until the film ran out.

Until 1903, according to Auguste Lumiere, cinema was thought to have been 'an invention without a future'. However, when Edwin Porter directed The Life of an American Fireman (1903), Auguste Lumiere's pessimistic opinions were proved wrong. The importance of The Life of an American Fireman was the fact that Edwin had discovered how to create an emotional impact on the audience. Edwin Porter had done this by intercutting two images that didnt go together. However by cutting the two together it created a story.

A Moviola pictured left, was the original machine used to cut film in editing. It was often discribed as a 'sewing machine on legs'. It was not uncommon for editors to sort through approx. 200 hours of footage for a 2 hour film which included 24 frames per second.

In Russia, Lenin was part of the movement in film which was to perfect the medium to spark the nation to join the revolution as well as having a way of talking to the illiterate.

The use of sound was introduced during the 1930's but the approach during the 1940's/1950's was particularly interesting due to the mass introduction and industrialization of editing meaning that more and more stories could be created through just pictures.