Task One: Editing in early cinema

Task One: Editing in early cinema 

Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison was one of the first to film edit. He ran a film laboratory where  kinetographic camera and the kintoscope were invented during the same time. During his time his at the film laboratory he produced a 35mm film strip which was the main standard of the time. After time he gradually produced the projector to film it which was a new invention at the time. By doing this his films would amaze people to stay longer to watch. During this period of time film was new and surprising to everyone so this would had shock people how they can see people moving in film.

The Lumiere Brothers
Edison worked with the Lumiere brothers and produced short films that were one long static, looked-down shot. Motion in the shot was all that was required to interest and grab the audience, so the first films openly showed movement and activity such as traffic moving on a city street. This is a short clip of the work the Lumiere brothers did in 1895 called Sortie d'usine. This film was one of the first films the Lumiere brothers created , as they made more films the brothers  began to open up theaters which lead on to be called cinemas.



G.A Smith
Initially, there was no story and no editing. Each film ran as long as there was in the cinema. This meant that they filmed the video in one shot, this would have been really hard to do because if they make a mistake then they will have to retake their shots. This is why they try to make it short. At this period of time in early cinema there would have been no sound so they would have to play music in the background while watching the film.

In 1899 later G.A.Smith made the kiss in the tunnel. this film is said to mark the beginning of narrative editing (creating a story). Smith ''felt that some extra spice was called for'' in the then popular ''phantom ride'' game. He took advantage of the brief onset of darkness as they went the tunnel to splice (cut and then stick two pieces of the film together) in the shot of the couple.


George Melies 
George Melies was a magician  who had seen the films made by the Lumiere brothers. Melies saw at once the possibilities of a creativity more than just motion its self. He obtain a camera, built a studio, wrote scripts, designed sets and soon he discovered and exploited the basic camera tricks we know so well today.
It was reported that he discovered the art stop motion purely by accident when one of his cameras broke  down for only a few seconds. in 1986 he made The Vanishing Lady using a special technique known as in camera in editing. Sadly it did not turn out for him to move the camera close up or long shots and so his work was soon overlooked. George Melies work and ideas is so important because his ideas are used to this present day on the 21st century.



Edwin S Porter 
Edwin S Porter worked as an electrician before joining the film laboratory of Thomas Alva Edison in the late 1890s. He and Thomas Edison worked together to create longer and interesting films. Porter film making progressed after the breakthrough film Life of an American Fireman in 1903. this film was one the first to have a plot, action and a close up of a hand pulling a fire alarm. Porter discovered different important aspects  of motion picture language: that the screen image does not always have to show a complete person from head to toe. And by splicing together two shots creates in the viewers mind a contextual relationship. These were the main discoveries that made all the narrative motion picture and television possible.


Porter discovered important aspects of motion picture language. Porter ground breaking film was The Great Train Robbery in 1903 was a great example of of how early films began to resemble the types of films we see today. In this time period of editing in early cinema was important because some of the films we see today relates to Edwin S. Porter about realistic things in life.



Charles Pathe 
In the film The Horse that bolted in 1907 from Charles Pathe who introduced the first example of a technique known as the parallel editing-cutting between two story lines: the horse and the delivery man.



D.W. Griffith
U.S. film director D.W.Griffith was one of the supporters of the power of editing. He was famous for making the use of cross-cutting method to show a parallel action in a different location,

Task Two: Camera editing

 Task Two: Camera editing  


    

The term in-camera editing means that to pause at a certain time when filming so you can be able to capture everything in footage to give an effect to the film. the process in editing takes a lot of time and planning so that the shots from the film can be directly seen when viewed in the way you want to be viewed by an audience. One of the famous key film makers for using this popular technique during the time in editing in early cinema was D.W Griffith. D.W Griffith was one of the early supporters of the power of editing. He used the cross cutting to the parallel action in different locations. Griffith work was highly recognised and influenced by early filmmakers.

How me and my group of friends made the short video clip of us. The objective was mainly about football in the video. A group of friends debate and arguing on which football team is better and how the rest of the group makes fun of manchester united supported by Edison.

The difficult part when filming our short video clip was the editing part because in the video there would be a short pause. So we need to work on our timing when editing. What i think we did good in our short video clip was the acting and how funny is was which everyone took part in the video. Also every did well in maintaining theirs roles when acting including Ronaldo as the camera man.