Film Editing Unit 21

Film Editing 

Continuity editing is the most common style of editing. The purpose of continuity editing is to create the illusion of smooth continuous action and helps to keep the audience’s attention to the story. The viewer will not notice the transition between shots. Non-continuity editing is when shots are mismatched to disrupt the impression of time and space. This draws the audiences’ attention to the process of cutting and disturbs the illusion of reality. An example is the use of flash backs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts1x6uADFtM
The first clip I am going to analyze is from The Silence of The Lambs and how it uses parallel editing. Parallel editing is the technique of continuously alternating two or more scenes that often happen simultaneously but in different locations. This clip uses parallel editing in this scene because it increase’s the dramatic tension throughout the scene. The use of parallel editing confuses the audience because the cameras cut between two houses but you don’t realize that until the end of the clip so if messes with the audience’s head.  The purpose of this technique was to keep the audience on edge because they think the man’s house is getting raided however it’s a different location. They have used an establishing shot to show the audience where the location is and where the scene is set. When the woman is trapped down the well with the man’s dog and then the man goes to get a gun, this creates suspense and tension for the audience. When the police ring the doorbell, the audience feels a sign of relief because it stops him from shooting the woman and the dog. However, when the audience found out that there were two houses in this scene the audience realized what was going on and it made it less confusing. The edits manipulate the audience because it misleads the audience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI2e3pXat54
The next clip I am going to analyze is Way Down East, and this is another clip that uses parallel editing. The use of the technique in this clip is to create drama and suspense because the audience doesn’t know if the woman is going to save the other woman. When the audience are watching this clip, they don’t know what is going to happen because the parallel editing is making everything seem so fast and urgent. This technique makes everything so rapid and confusing because it’s like you are in two different locations at the same time. There is an establishing shot to show the audience where the scene is set and to make it more dramatic. This scene also uses a lot of close up shots to show that the woman who is knocked out of the ice is in so much pain. They use the close-up shots so that the audience sympathies for the woman. The camera keeps on cutting to the waterfall to show us what danger the woman is in and that she can’t do anything about it. The camera is cutting between the water fall and the girl on the ice and another girl who is running over the ice to try and save her. By having fast cut a ways this makes the scene more intense for the audience to watch. As the scene ends it shows the girl saving the woman from going in the water fall, however the music is quite of putting because it doesn’t match anything that is happening because the woman gets saved and there is still depressing music in the background.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4soF2wigKSM
The next clip I am going to analyze is Rocky 3 when he is training. In this clip, there is a montage to show Rocky training, the montage is showing Rocky training for his big fight and it just shows the audience how hard he trained. The montage is an editing technique in which shots are juxtaposed in an often fast-paced fashion that compresses time and conveys a lot of information in a relatively short period. The purpose of using this montage is to show everything he had to go through to become the greatest. In this scene there has been many of establishing shots to show the audience the setting and the locations of where he trained. There is quite a lot of slow motion shots to show the audience how muscly he became for the fight and to show us all of his sweat to show he didn’t just wing it. I think this scene has used continuity editing because the scene flows smoothly and the audience understand what is going on. Everything just works in this scene from the montage to the slow-motion shots to the different types of camera angles, it just flows smoothly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhWiTORp22k
The next clip I am going to analyze is Team America. In this scene there is a spoof montage. The spoof montage shows all the things the character is doing to prep himself to be ready for his mission. The song is fitting is well because it’s all about a montage and the clip is all about a montage as well. The music is very upbeat and empowering towards the audience because it is a very motivational song. This clip is used to show the dedication the character has and how much hard work he has done. The montage like fades and overlaps each other so there are two different clips on the screen at the same time. There has been a number of editing techniques used in this clip such as a fade away and establishing shots. They have also used a lot of camera angles such as close ups, medium shots and long shots. They have also used over the shoulder shots to capture the perfect shot. At the end of the clip the music fades out whilst the montage finishes. The montage shows different activities the character has been doing to become the best he can be. The shots also entice the audience by showing them different settings and locations and making them wonder why he is doing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laJ_1P-Py2k
The next clip I am going to analyze is Battleship Potemkin. During one of the early montages it is used to show a large amount of time in a small-time frame. This has been done to show how people are reacting to the situation. A camera cuts back and forth to show how the child got shot, the camera jumps between the child and the mother’s reaction. This camera shot is called shot reverse shot this technique is used to make the audience sympathize for the mother and child. This could possibly engage the audience into the movie and engage them to see how the mother deals with her child’s death. The montage is used to show how the people are reacting to the situation so it makes the audience feel for them. By putting several shots into the montage, it shows different things that are all happening at once and this can speed up time. Overall this montage makes the audience worry for the safety of the children and adults who are getting shot and trampled on.

Radio Dramas

Radio Dramas

A radio drama is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance, with no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story. 

I am analyzing a radio drama called The Archers. The Archers is a series of radio dramas and it’s a single narrative. The dialogue and speech in this drama is very farmer like because you can hear the characters putting on an accent and this will engage the audience. There is no music in this episode of the radio drama however there is diegetic and non-diegetic sounds involved in it. As the radio drama ends it has a very joyful piece of music to end with. The sounds are very natural such as the wind blowing and birds tweeting. When changing scenes, the sounds and dialogue fade into nothing then change scenes. You can tell when a change of scene is happening because everything just goes silent and then people start talking again. There is not a really a cliff hanger ending because it just runs on to the next episode. There is also no intro music they just get straight into conversation. By their accent it sounds like they are from the country side and they talk about farms and farming. This drama is a single narrative because there is only one story line. I think the audience that this is targeted for is and older generation because it’s not very interactive and its quite boring for a young audience to listen to. I think they are aiming this at male and females older than 50. I don’t think anyone under the age of 50 would enjoy this type of drama because it’s too boring. 

The next radio drama I am analyzing is called The betrayal. The betrayal is a thriller drama and it’s a single narrative drama. It opens with a piano playing; this is the opening music like a them tune. The dialogue and speech in this drama is just a woman telling a story, she puts a different voice on when a different character is talking but most of it is just her voice because she is just telling the story. The woman is talking for every character in this drama, which shows she is just the narrator. There are no sounds in this drama not even non diegetic sounds. There is no change of scene, the reason you can tell is because the woman never stops talking and the speech just flows. I think the audience that this drama is targeted for is older people because it is quite boring for a young person to sit and listen to someone talking. I think a young person would get bored quick because there is no video and there is just one woman talking. 

The reason these two radio dramas are different is because one of them has different people playing different characters and the other one has just one women talking for every character. In the first one I analyzed, you could tell when a change of scene was happening and then in the second one there wasn’t any change of scenes. I think the first one is better because the audience will be able to understand each character and who is who. The second who is a bit boring because there is only one person for every character. Another reason why the first one is better is because it includes sounds and foli sounds. However, the first one doesn’t have any intro music but it has outro music. The second one has an intro and outro music which I assume is its them tune. The first one also ended with a cliff hanger to keep the audience attached so will they watch the next episode. The second one didn’t finish with a cliff hanger which doesn’t entice the audience to watch the next episode. However, both of them are aimed at an older generation because the younger generation would not want to listen to any of them.