5 Master Editing Techniques

 5 Master Editing Techniques Project 

My group and I were assigned a film project where we were tasked with portraying the 5 master editing techniques. After observing how each of these techniques were used in various films we felt prepared to create our own examples utilizing the different techniques. These 5 techniques were filmed in 5 different clips and separated by the specific name of such technique in hopes of making it clear to the audience which technique is being portrayed. The idea of filming our use of each technique in separate unrelated clips was made once we realized that we would be unable to film all of the clips in one day, and should therefore split the filming of the 5 techniques over the course of two days. We exchanged various ides for representing these ideas amongst the four of us in the group and choose the idea that we thought would be most entertaining to the audience.

The first technique we portrayed was contrast, which is seen in the first scene of our video. We felt that this scene was entertaining for the viewer, while also being simpler to film. We came up with the idea to contrast between two drastically different behaviors. In the beginning we show Mallory falling to the floor in the hallway and dropping all of the books she had been holding. Brianna then enters into the frame to help Mallory collect her books from the floor. As Brianna passes the books to Mallory there is a mid shot, which allows the viewers to see the positive connotation of this exchange and solidify the kindness of Brianna's gesture. This act of kindness is followed by the next clip where Brianna pushes Mallory and she drops all of her belongings awkwardly to the ground. The camera then pans from this full body shot of Mallory to a much closer mid shot of Brianna laughing at Mallory, who she had tripped. This contrasts the way Brianna had previously acted and shows the different reactions presented by the contrasting situations. There is also soft music played over the first clip that increases in volume as Brianna changes and becomes more aggressive in the second shot.

The next editing scene we pieced together was a little bit more difficult to come up with, but was hopefully all the more creative. We portrayed the editing technique of simultaneity by combining two shots of different individuals dancing and pointing towards the camera. In the first shot it is a full body shot of Brianna dancing and pointing to the camera or to another individual which is implied. The following shot is a full body shot of two other girls dancing and pointing to the camera as well. These two shots are placed back to back to imply that Brianna is enticing the other girls to join in her dance party, which they do as they are seen dancing or pointing back. These two scenes are cut together to suggest simultaneity. The next shot however, reveals that the girls were not dancing together and Brianna was in fact not putting on a show for them . This is seen as the camera follows Brianna dancing some more to pointing again to the camera, but this time the camera follows her finger as it points to the right side of the frame, and the camera pans to Mallory and Hunter on the couch looking underwhelmed watching Brianna dance. This was added to reinforce the simultaneity or parallel of the previous clips and to mainly add humor for the amusement of those watching the film.  

Our next shot was Leit Motiff. For our portrayal of Leit Motiff, we recorded various shots from different angles, all of which included Brianna walking throughout the school doing everyday tasks. In each clip Hunter can be seen following her in a creepy way. We portray his unnoticed and unwanted following of Brianna by playing eerie music and positioning him so that the camera can see him, but he remains out of Brianna's view. It was difficult being creative with this, but we were able to capture Hunter lurking near by through over the shoulder shots, or panning to show him in a corner or behind a wall watching. We also got creative by capturing Hunter through the mirror in Brianna's locker and positioned him so that he was out of her view while she sifted through the locker. Additionally, we also included shots where we would take close up shots of Hunter after revealing his hidden location to emphasize his presence and add to the uncomfortable atmosphere.

We followed our Leit Motiff shot with our symbolism shot. We initially thought of the idea to use a pen when I got frustrated in class trying to use a pen with no ink to write my notes. We realized that the empty pen could be used to symbolize an emotion. After discussing further we came up with the idea of the pen with no ink representing a drained student. This symbolism has many layers as the pen ran out of ink as the student had been using it excessively, which could show that they had been working hard and could potentially be very tired or "drained." We took the  first shot of the student trying to write with the pen and getting visibly upset as it ran out of ink. We then cut to the next clip where we zoom in on the student as the sleep in the hall looking extremely tired and "drained."

Lastly we shot our parallelism editing scene where we spent a lot of time trying to find two things that would portray a similarity of parallelism. We finally came up with the idea to connect Brianna's eye with that of another object. As we walked in the hall we found a banner with animals painted on it and found Brianna's eye to match the dark coloring of the lambs eye. After a few attempts we finally got a zoomed in shot of Brianna's eye before cutting to the zoomed shot of the lamb, which we slowly reversed from to show the context of the lamb's eye. 

5 Master Editing Techniques Video:

https://youtu.be/onIsxFLfGkA?si=0Gj3XKn6A4Vj5X3M