Editing for a Purpose

There are many various purposes for editing a piece of film, from trying to inspire the viewer or just for visual effect, having a reason for editing is crucial in carrying out a vital and creative job.

Storytelling:

The whole point of a film is to tell the viewer some form of story. Therefore storytelling through editing is one of the most important purposes. You have to paint a vivid picture as to how the story is developing and make the viewer have some form of emotive connection and engagement to the piece. 

Development of drama should also be considered when editing to tell a story. The story has to start and end, therefore developments or progress should be made in order to reach the ending. A way to encourage and increase the development of drama is to use editing, techniques such as editing to a soundtrack can help higher the level of drama or emotion the viewer is feeling. Using various different camera angles and shots in a fast paced way can also develop drama, jump cuts can help create a feeling of time lapse in events, which in turn can help the story move along.

The genre of the film should be taken into account when deciding the style in which to edit. If it is a horror/thriller film such as 'The Conjuring', the editing should be slow at first, using slow cuts to build suspense, then switching to fast paced cuts of all the horror and action to create an intense feeling within the viewer. Music should be considered too, with 'The Conjuring' a classic horror style of screechy music when the action is occurring and slow drum sound to build suspense which is used to add drama. This film also uses editing to tell a story, often using parallel editing in order to show time has passed.

The clip above is also a great example of a 'motivational edit', this type of edit in its simplest form means to cut to an object or person that was not in the previous frame but then shows up to be in the same location as the previous frame. For example in 'The Conjuring' trailer, the woman is seen to be looking in the jack in the box, she then turns to see if anything is behind her and then returns to looking at the box only to find the object of horror staring at her that was not in the previous frame.

Combining shots into sequences involves using different edits and cuts of frames and putting them together to create one flowing sequence of events. This goes well with creating pace using editing. To create pace, in the example of a running sequence, upbeat and fast music should be played and fast paced cuts should be used. This scene from the German film 'Run Lola Run' has both combining shots and angles into sequences and great example of creating pace.