Slow cutting is a film editing technique characterized by frequent lengthy shots. Though it depends on context, it is estimated that any shot longer than about fifteen seconds will seem rather slow to many modern-day viewers, especially those who are accustomed to mainstream Western movies, where slow cuts are uncommon.
Slow cutting can be used to establish a mood before fast cutting injects energy. Slow cutting may also be used in scenes of calm or reflection, and filmmakers can use slow cutting to slow down the pace, just as the second movement of a symphony or concerto typically does. [1]
Notable films that use the slow cutting technique are: Citizen Kane , Russian Ark , [2] 2001: A Space Odyssey , [1] The Prisoner of Zenda , Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , The Adventures of Robin Hood , Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Grapes of Wrath , His Girl Friday , Mildred Pierce , Treasure Island , Darby O'Gill and the Little People , Psycho , The Omen , Rambo: First Blood Part II , Robocop , [3] and A Clockwork Orange . [4]
American director Ken Burns used slow cutting for his television documentary series about the Vietnam War. [5]
Most of the early films directed by Michelangelo Antonioni use slow cutting. [1] Other directors known for the technique include: George Marshall, John Stahl, Edmund Goulding, George Cukor, John Farrow, and Ernst Lubitsch. [3]
Film editing is both a creative and a technical part of the post-production process of filmmaking. The term is derived from the traditional process of working with film which increasingly involves the use of digital technology. When putting together some sort of video composition, typically, you would need a collection of shots and footages that vary from one another. The act of adjusting the shots you have already taken, and turning them into something new is known as film editing.
The history of film chronicles the development of a visual art form created using film technologies that began in the late 19th century.
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films were nearly all adaptations of novels or short stories, spanning a number of genres and gaining recognition for their intense attention to detail, innovative cinematography, extensive set design, and dark humor.
Fast cutting is a film editing technique which refers to several consecutive shots of a brief duration. It can be used to quickly convey much information, or to imply either energy or chaos. Fast cutting is also frequently used when shooting dialogue between two or more characters, changing the viewer's perspective to either focus on the reaction of another character's dialog, or to bring to attention the non-verbal actions of the speaking character.
Man with a Movie Camera is an experimental 1929 Soviet silent documentary film, directed by Dziga Vertov, filmed by his brother Mikhail Kaufman, and edited by Vertov's wife Yelizaveta Svilova. Kaufman also appears as the eponymous Man of the film.
Cinematography is the art of motion picture photography.
A film transition is a technique used in the post-production process of film editing and video editing by which scenes or shots are combined. Most commonly this is through a normal cut to the next shot. Most films will also include selective use of other transitions, usually to convey a tone or mood, suggest the passage of time, or separate parts of the story. These other transitions may include dissolves, L cuts, fades, match cuts, and wipes.
Cross-cutting is an editing technique most often used in films to establish action occurring at the same time, and often in the same place. In a cross-cut, the camera will cut away from one action to another action, which can suggest the simultaneity of these two actions but this is not always the case. Cross-cutting can also be used for characters in a film with the same goals but different ways of achieving them.
In filmmaking, a long take is shot with a duration much longer than the conventional editing pace either of the film itself or of films in general. Significant camera movement and elaborate blocking are often elements in long takes, but not necessarily so. The term "long take" should not be confused with the term "long shot", which refers to the use of a long lens and not to the duration of the take. The length of a long take was originally limited to how much film the magazine of a motion picture camera could hold, but the advent of digital video has considerably lengthened the maximum potential length of a take.
A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 dystopian crime film adapted, produced, and directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel of the same name. It employs disturbing, violent themes to comment on psychiatry, juvenile delinquency, youth gangs, and other social, political, and economic subjects in a dystopian near-future Britain.
Cutting on action or matching on action refers to film editing and video editing techniques where the editor cuts from one shot to another view that matches the first shot's action.
Montage is a film editing technique in which a series of short shots are sequenced to condense space, time, and information. Montages enable filmmakers to communicate a large amount of information to an audience over a shorter span of time by juxtaposing different shots, compressing time through editing, or intertwining multiple storylines of a narrative.
In film, a match cut is a cut from one shot to another in which the composition of the two shots are matched by the action or subject and subject matter. For example, in a duel a shot can go from a long shot on both contestants via a cut to a medium closeup shot of one of the duellists. The cut matches the two shots and is consistent with the logic of the action. This is a standard practice in film-making, to produce a seamless reality-effect.
George Tomasini was an American film editor, born in Springfield, Massachusetts, who had a decade long collaboration with director Alfred Hitchcock, editing nine of his movies between 1954 and 1964. Tomasini edited many of Hitchcock's best-known works, such as Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960), and The Birds (1963), as well as other well-received films such as Cape Fear (1962). On a 2012 listing of the 75 best edited films of all time, compiled by the Motion Picture Editors Guild based on a survey of its members, four films edited by Tomasini for Hitchcock appear. No other editor appeared more than three times on this listing. The listed films were Psycho, Vertigo, Rear Window, and North by Northwest.
A film —also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay, or flick—is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally accompanied by sound and other sensory stimulations. The word "cinema" is a shortening of the word "cinematography" and is used to refer to either filmmaking, the film industry, the overall art form, or a movie theater.
Post-classical editing is a style of film editing characterized by shorter shot lengths, faster cuts between shots, and containing more jump shots and close-ups than classical editing characteristic of films prior to the 1960s.
Lou Lombardo was an American filmmaker whose editing of the 1969 film The Wild Bunch has been called "seminal". In all, Lombardo is credited on more than twenty-five feature films. Noted mainly for his work as a film and television editor, he also worked as a cameraman, director, and producer. In his obituary, Stephen Prince wrote, "Lou Lombardo's seminal contribution to the history of editing is his work on The Wild Bunch (1969), directed by Sam Peckinpah. The complex montages of violence that Lombardo created for that film influenced generations of filmmakers and established the modern cinematic textbook for editing violent gun battles." Several critics have remarked on the "strange, elastic quality" of time in the film, and have discerned the film's influence in the work of directors John Woo, Quentin Tarantino, Kathryn Bigelow, and the Wachowskis, among others. While Lombardo's collaboration with Peckinpah lasted just a few years, his career was intertwined with that of director Robert Altman for more than thirty years. Lombardo edited Altman's 1971 film McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), which had "a radical approach to the use of dialogue and indeed other sound, both in and beyond the frame." Towards the end of his career Lombardo edited Moonstruck (1987) and two other films directed by Norman Jewison. While his editing is now considered "revolutionary" and "brilliant", Lombardo was never nominated for editing awards during his career.
This glossary of motion picture terms is a list of definitions of terms and concepts related to motion pictures, filmmaking, cinematography, and the film industry in general.
A still image film, also called a picture movie, is a film that consists primarily or entirely of still images rather than consecutive still images in succession, forgoing the illusion of motion either for aesthetic or practical reasons. These films usually include a standard soundtrack, similar to what is found in typical sound films, complete with music, sound effects, dialogue or narration. They may also use various editing techniques found in traditional films, such as dissolves, zooms, and panning.
