Zzzzzzzzz.......

Doing editing as a craft is quite the frustrating process as I actually have nothing to edit at the minute.  When we finally do record some footage however I will be sure to quickly edit something together just to confirm to myself that I actually have some skill at doing this.

In the mean time it is interesting to learn about different editing styles and how different techniques can create certain atmospheres.  

The most important thing I feel I've learned so far is truly the importance of editing and how much you need to take it into consideration when you are shooting it in the first place.

I shall continue my research!

War movies are an editor's dream

Another action/war movie here with Saving Private Ryan.

This is a film where I just feel the editing and directing must have ran completely side by side during its creation.

God Bless America...in The Hurt Locker

This scene from the Hurt Locker employs fast and slow cutting and creates a high tension and fear for a practically unseen enemy.  The shockingly high death count in this scene contrasts with the upbeat nature of its beginning.  I found the scene quite unrealistic and something bothered me about watching it but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.  In the context of the film, it seemed to come out of nowhere with these British contractors in the desert.  Then they of course all die because this is an American film and we all know America are better than the British.  I feel the scene on a stand alone basis is good, but it really annoyed me when watching it, very long and drawn out, and pointless in a way.

Editor on Fire

A scene from one of my all time favorite movies, Man On Fire.


Excellent use of diegetic and non diegetic sounds, camera angles and what I think is a higher shutter speed for a staccato effect.


It's edited incredibly fast and often displays a rolling shutter lag which emphasizes the confusion that Denzel Washington's character is feeling.  There is a mix of high and low angle shots which emphasise there is a pending struggle for power.
The sharp noise mixes well with the changing edit.  A nice piece of work by Christian Wagner.

City of Chicken

City of God chicken chase opening.

Brilliantly juxtaposition of the humorous chicken race against the backdrop of the slum and the fact its occupants are just as willing to kill each other as they are chicken.

Raging Bulls

Brilliantly edited scene which probably won the Oscar for Thelma Schoonmaker.

"You never got me down, Ray"

Excellent mix of slow and fast cutting coupled with brutal shost of the consequences of Sugar Ray's relentless pounding (blood splatters on the knees and commentators).

How soup changed cinema forever!

The Kuleshov experiment:

Kuleshov edited together a short film in which a shot of the expressionless face of a Tsarist actor was alternated with various other shots: a plate of soup, a girl, a little girl's coffin. 

The film was shown to an audience who believed that the expression on the actor's face was different each time he appeared, depending on whether he was "looking at" the plate of soup, the girl, or the coffin, showing an expression of hunger, desire or grief respectively. Actually the footage of Mozzhukhin was the same shot repeated over and over again. Vsevolod Pudovkin (who later claimed to have been the co-creator of the experiment) described in 1929 how the audience "raved about the acting.... the heavy pensiveness of his mood over the forgotten soup, were touched and moved by the deep sorrow with which he looked on the dead child, and noted the lust with which he observed the woman. But we knew that in all three cases the face was exactly the same."

The Russians knew the importance of montage and film editing and this is a very early example of how film was edited in such a way to convey emotion.