Lecture 07: Editing II

1
Lecture 07 Editing II
IS 246Multimedia Information
Prof. Marc Davis UC Berkeley SIMS Monday and
Wednesday 330 pm 500 pm Fall
2003 http//www.sims.berkeley.edu/academics/cours
es/is246/f04/
2
Todays Agenda

• Review of Last Time
• Editing
• Editing
• Kuleshov
• Isenhour
• Burch
• Barthes
• Discussion Questions
• Action Items for Next Time

3
Dimensions of Film Editing

• Graphic relations between Shot A and Shot B
• Rhythmic relations between Shot A and Shot B
• Spatial relations between Shot A and Shot B
• Temporal relations between Shot A and Shot B

4
Todays Agenda

• Review of Last Time
• Editing
• Editing
• Kuleshov
• Isenhour
• Burch
• Barthes
• Discussion Questions
• Action Items for Next Time

5
Todays Agenda

• Review of Last Time
• Editing
• Editing
• Kuleshov
• Isenhour
• Burch
• Barthes
• Discussion Questions
• Action Items for Next Time

6
Continuity Editing

• Graphic continuity
• Smoothly continuous from shot to shot
• Figures are balanced and symmetrically composed
  in frame
• Overall lighting tonality remains constant
• Action occupies central zone of the frame
• Rhythmic continuity
• Dependent on camera distance of the shot
• Long shots last longer than medium shots that
  last longer than close-up shots

7
Spatial Continuity Editing

• 180 degree rule
• Ensures that relative positions in the frame
  remain consistent
• Ensures consistent eyelines (i.e., gaze vectors)
• Ensures consistent screen direction (i.e.,
  direction of character movement within the frame)

8
Use of 180 Degree Rule

• Establishing shot to establish axis of action
• Sequence of shot/reverse shots
• Focuses our attention on character reactions
• Eyeline match reinforces spatial continuity
  (Kuleshov Effect)
• Match on action reinforces spatial continuity
• Following 180 degree rule allows cheat cuts
• Continuity of action can override violations of
  180 degree rule

9
Temporal Continuity Editing

• Temporal order
• Forwardly sequential except for occasional use of
  flashbacks signaled by a dissolve or cut
• Temporal duration (seldom expanded)
• Usually in a scene plot duration equals story
  duration
• Punctuation (dissolves, wipes, fades), empty
  frames, and cutaways can elide time in shot and
  scene transitions
• Montage sequences can compress time

10
Todays Agenda

• Review of Last Time
• Editing
• Editing
• Kuleshov
• Isenhour
• Burch
• Barthes
• Discussion Questions
• Action Items for Next Time

11
Kuleshov

• To determine the nature of montage is to solve
  the specific problem of cinema. (Eisenstein
  1949 48)
• Kuleshov
• First head of the Soviet State Film School after
  the October Revolution
• Lenin of all the arts for us the most important
  is cinema
• Kuleshov experiments
• Films without film
• Frame shots with hands
• Re-edit existing sequences

12
Pudovkin on Kuleshov Effect

• Kuleshov and I made an interesting experiment.
  We took from some film or other several close-ups
  of the well-known Russian actor Mosjukhin. We
  chose close-ups which were static and which did
  not express any feeling at allquiet close-ups.
  We joined these close-ups, which were all similar
  with other bits of film in three different
  combinations. In the first combination the
  close-up of Mosjukhin was immediately followed by
  a shot of a plate of soup standing on a table. It
  was obvious and certain that Mosjukhin was
  looking at this soup. In the second combination
  the face of Mosjukhin was joined to shots showing
  a coffin in which lay a dead woman. In the third
  the close-up was followed by a shot of a little
  girl playing with a funny toy bear. When we
  showed the three combinations to an audience
  which had not been let into the secret the result
  was terrific. The public raved about the acting
  of the artist. They pointed out 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 woman, and admired
  the light, happy smile with which he surveyed the
  girl at play. But we knew that in all cases the
  face was exactly the same.

13
Kuleshov Effect

• Kuleshov Effect
• Neutral Face ? Soup (Pensive Face)
• Neutral Face ? Dead Woman (Sad Face)
• Neutral Face ? Child playing with toy bear
  (Happy Face)
• How do you describe the face?
• Video has a dual semantics
• Sequence-independent stable semantics of shots
• Sequence-dependent variable semantics of shots

14
Todays Agenda

• Review of Last Time
• Editing
• Editing
• Kuleshov
• Isenhour
• Burch
• Barthes
• Discussion Questions
• Action Items for Next Time

15
Isenhour on Context and Order

• A1B A2C ? A1 NOT EQUAL A2
• Shot context affects shot meaning
• The shot before affects the shot after
• BA1 CA2 ? A1 NOT EQUAL A2
• Shot context affects shot meaning
• The shot after affects the shot before
• AB NOT EQUAL BA
• Short order effects shot meaning
• (AB)C NOT EQUAL A(BC)

16
Metropolis Sequence
17
Metropolis Re-Sequence
18
Battleship Potemkin Sequence
19
Battleship Potemkin Re-Sequence
20
Todays Agenda

• Review of Last Time
• Editing
• Editing
• Kuleshov
• Isenhour
• Burch
• Barthes
• Discussion Questions
• Action Items for Next Time

21
Burchs Transitions

• Temporal transitions
• Continuous
• Discontinuous
• Temporal ellipsis
• Measurable time ellipsis
• Indefinite time ellipsis
• Temporal reversal (flashback, overlapping cut)
• Measurable time reversal
• Indefinite time reversal

22
Burchs Transitions

• Spatial transitions
• Continuous
• Discontinuous
• Proximal
• Radically discontinuous

23
Todays Agenda

• Review of Last Time
• Editing
• Editing
• Kuleshov
• Isenhour
• Burch
• Barthes
• Discussion Questions
• Action Items for Next Time

24
Barthes Action Sequences

• Consecutive
• Temporal succession
• Consequential
• Causal succession
• Volitive
• Action results from an act of will
• Reactive
• Causal succession based on stimulus-response
• Durative
• Indicating the beginning, ending, or duration of
  an action
• Equipollent
• Necessarily paired actions (e.g., asking a
  question and answering a question)

25
Todays Agenda

• Review of Last Time
• Editing
• Editing
• Kuleshov
• Isenhour
• Burch
• Barthes
• Discussion Questions
• Action Items for Next Time

26
Discussion Questions (Kulsehov)

• Gökçe Kinayoglu on Kuleshov
• When two shots are stitched together via montage,
  the resulting meaning of the sequence always
  transcends the individual meanings of the shots.
  Sometimes they transform and frame our perception
  to obtain certain meanings from the individual
  frames, yet mostly a third meaning arises which
  did not exist in either of the frames before they
  were joined together.
• How much of this new meaning relies on the
  cinematic context, how much of it on the cultural
  background of the viewer?
• Does watching the same sequence second time
  result in a change in its meaning?

27
Discussion Questions (Kulsehov)

• Gökçe Kinayoglu on Kuleshov
• An average feature film consists of 1,000 to
  4,000 very short shots. As discussed in class
  before, a Tarkovsky film may consist of less than
  250 shots and still be two times longer compared
  to a Hollywood film. Hitchcock and Warhol
  investigated the cinematographic potentials of
  making films with a single long shot. In which
  situations may a longer shot be more effective
  than a series of shorter shots?

28
Discussion Questions (Isenhour)

• Simon King on Isenhour
• The meaning of a shot varies when the shot that
  precedes it or the shot that follows itthe
  contextvaries. Reminiscent of Saussure the
  meaning of signs is determined by their relation
  to other signs.
• Does this theory explain subliminal advertising?
  Are surrounding shots affected by shots/images
  that are too brief to consciously register with
  the viewer?

29
Discussion Questions (Isenhour)

• Simon King on Isenhour
• Can the meaning of a shot vary due to repetition?
  (Think A, B, A, C, A) Usually there have been
  other intermediate shots between repetitions that
  also affect the meaning of shot A, but does the
  repetition alone affect the meaning of shot A?
  Can anyone think of good examples? (Groundhog
  Day, Solaris, M ?)

30
Discussion Questions (Isenhour)

• Simon King on Isenhour
• I found the attempt to quantify shot impact,
  e.g., The degree of change in the meaning of
  each shot is inversely proportional to the
  intensity of its original meaning, a bit forced.
  Can we quantify subjective notions such as
  intensity and meaning?

31
Discussion Questions (Burch)

• Alison Billings on Burch
• In thinking about creating a system to
  effectively categorize pieces of media for
  storage and retrieval, how useful could the
  breakdown of space and time into the 15 possible
  combinations of articulation be for a multimedia
  information system?

32
Discussion Questions (Burch)

• Alison Billings on Burch
• As people have become more media literate, have
  the uses of spatial and temporal articulations in
  film changed? How?

33
Discussion Questions (Barthes)

• Jaiwant Virk on Barthes
• If The principle of narrative art it is a
  matter of producing a discourse which best
  satisfies the demand for completeness, then how
  does one define the boundaries of the action
  sequence? How much cultural history does one pack
  to prevent the horror of the vacuum? Or should
  the sequence be completely abandoned to a
  subjective analysis of the reader/viewer?

34
Discussion Questions (Barthes)

• Jaiwant Virk on Barthes
• What are the possible factors that can be
  considered to define/label an action sequence for
  media metadata purpose (motion, etc.)?

35
Todays Agenda

• Review of Last Time
• Editing
• Editing
• Kuleshov
• Isenhour
• Burch
• Barthes
• Discussion Questions
• Action Items for Next Time

36
Readings for Next Week

• Monday 09/27 Semiotic Media Theory
• Eco, U. Articulations of the Cinematic Code. in
  Nichols, B. ed., University of California Press,
  Berkeley, 1976 pp. 590-607. (Yong)
• Metz, C. Film language a semiotics of the
  cinema. University of Chicago Press, Chicago,
  1991 pp. 92-146. (Rebecca)
• Wednesday 09/29 Film Theory Application
  Assignment 1 Introduction
• Eisenstein, S.M. Film Form Essays in Film
  Theory. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers,
  San Diego, 1949 pp. 45-63. (Cecilia)