Styles of Editing

Editing is the process of gathering all footage that has been shot during the day/night and putting it together in order to make a film/tv program. There are different styles of editing and this is because of the type of genre that the film is. If the film is a thriller then the editing will be fast and the transitions will most likely to be straight cuts, however if a film was sci-fi then the editing may include a lot of different transitions such as graphic matches, fades and dissolves. 

"Thor" (2011)

The speed of editing is how long each shot lasts. In a film each scene may last a few seconds or it could continue for minutes. The length of each sequence establishes the pace of the film moving the action along. The speed of editing determines the mood of what is taking place.

If the audience is to feel anxiety and suspense, the editing will be quick and the scenes/shots will change more frequently. For example "Thor" is an action film and has a lot of fast editing because in some of its scenes there are battles and a lot of action. 

Scenes at the beginning of a film must be long enough for us to be able to understand where we are and what is going on. It is also slow to introduce the main characters. As the film progresses scenes may become shorter as the editing cuts between two or more story lines at the same time.     

The movement from one shot to the next is called a transition and this is used in editing to make the film or video run smoothly. There are many different types of transitions used and they can either last a few seconds or even be invisible.

A straight cut is the most common form of a transition. This is when one shot moves instantaneously to the next without attracting the audiences attention this is because a straight cut is so fast that it is invisible to see, but the audience can tell that it has happened. Straight cuts help retain reality and the do not break the viewers suspension of disbelief. In the fighting scene from "Thor" where Thor confronts his brothers beast there is a straight cut from the beast to Thor then to Loki.

Another transition style is a dissolve. This is when one shot fades of the screen wile another fades on. The audience will be able to see both shots on the screen at the mid-point of the dissolve. A dissolve is used if the film make wants to show a connection between two characters, places or objects. This gives the audience a clue of what might happen later on in the film.

A fade is a gradual darkening or lightening of an image until it becomes black or white.It is used to show the passing of a long period of time and one shot will fade until only a black or white screen can be seen.

Wipes are not usually seen in modern films, but it is when an image is pushed off the screen by another image. It is more common for the image to be pushed off the left hand side because then it gives the effect that the audience is moving forward with time.

A jump cut is when the audience's attention is brought into focus of something very sudden. This occurs by breaking continuity editing and it is when the camera films different shots of the same subject from a slightly different position. This is called discontinuity and it appears as if a section of the sequence has been removed. For example in "Thor" we see Thor flying from the bifrost to the entrance of Asgard. 

In a graphic match the film maker can choose to place shots in a certain order so that it can create a smooth visual transfer from one frame to the next. When two consecutive shots are matched in terms of the way they look it is called a graphic match.