Task One - Editing in early cinema

TASK One: Editing in early cinema.



Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison was the first person to start film editing, he ran a film laboratory where the Cinematographic camera and the Kinescope were invented. Thomas Edison had developed a 35mm film strip which was the longest film strip at the time, this reason was to make the films a bit longer so then the audience can enjoy their experience for a longer time. Also after the 35mm film strip he eventually developed the projector to make the films more clear and enjoyable, this allows more people to watch at the same time.


Lumiere Brothers

The Lumiere Brothers and Thomas Edison was great friends and they worked together in helping each other produce and editing their films. The Lumiere brothers produced short films that were one long, static, locked up down shot. These films was about reality, what people would normally do in everyday life for example people was traffic moving in the streets going to work. This was to amuse the audience. In 1895 This was all seen in the film "Sortie D'usine" by the Lumiere Brothers.


G.A. Smith

G.A Smith had a unique and different way of filming. In his films he will not use no storyline or editing, which made it different to all other films that was created. There was one example of a film called The "Millers and the Sweep" created by G.A. Smith in 1898. Later on in 1899 G.A. Smith made a film called "Kiss in the Tunnel", it was the first ever romance story at the time and this is how narrative editing was introduced by creating a story. He also took advantage of the brief on set of darkness as they went into the tunnel to splice the shot of the couple.

George Melies

George Melies had seen many films made by the Lumiere Brothers and so he started his own films. He was a magician and he was able to show that in his films. He acquired a camera, he built his own studio were he performs, wrote his own script and designed sets and soon he discovered and exploited. George Melies created a film called the "Vanishing Lady" in 1886, He used a technique known as In-camera Editing. So what he would do is start recording with the camera and he would try and make the lady disappear by stop recording, removing her and then started recording again which made it look like one shot, so you cant see her which was the whole point of the trick. In the whole time of In-Camera Editing
it never accurred to him to do close-ups or long shots. Sadly in 1913 he got forced out of business because the commerical growth forced him out and later on died in poverty. Elements of his life will be remembered through the movie HUGO.

Porter & Edison

Edwin S. Porter, before joining the film laboratory with Thomas Alva Edison in the late 1890s, he used to work as an electrician. Edwin Porter and Thomas Edison worked together to make more longer and interesting films. In 1903 Edwin porter made a extraordinary flim called "Life of an American Fireman". The film was the first film to have a plot, action and even a close up of the firman's hand pulling the fire alarm. Edwin porter discoverd important and valuable aspects of motion language, for example when recording somebody the image doesnt have to show the whole person's body from head to toe. In the viewers mind it creates a contextaul relationship. This is what made all narrative motion pictures and television possible. Later on in 1903 he made another ground-breaking film called the "Train Robbery", this was a great example of the development from early films to what we watch now.

Charles Pathe

Charles Pathe also got involved in the film industry, in 1907 he made a film called "The Horse" that expanded rapidly around the world, almost everyone knew about it. The reason this movie was special is because there was a new technique was introduced known as parallel editing-cutting between two story lines: "The Horse and The Delivery".

 

D.W Griffith

U.S director D.W Griffth was one of the early supporters of the power editing. He made good use of cross-cutting to show parallel action in many different locations. D.W Griffith had a great understanding of film editing, his work was highly regarded by many and infleuenced the early filmmakers.