The history of editing

Before Editing
The Lumire brothers, Auguste and Louis, were sons of well-known Lyons based
portrait painter Antoine Lumire. They became successful businessmen making
photographic equipment. In early 1895 the brothers developed their own device
that allowed them to record, print and project film. This device was called the
cinematographe and was lighter than previous cameras by about (kg 5kg) and
was hand cranked. The camera also filmed in 16fps, which meant that I went
through less film and made less noise compared to the Edison Companys
peephole kinetoscope. This development allowed filmmakers to make basic cuts
in their films. To do this they simply stopped filming, moved the camera than
began filming again resulting in two different shots on one film.
"Primitive" Editing
Georges Mlis was a theatre owner in Paris, in 1895 he was in the audience of
the first ever movie screening in the basement of the grand cafe. After seeing
the Lumire brothers screening he was inspired to buy a camera and start to
make his own films. Mlis first used editing by accident, when he was filming a
bus and hes camera broke. By the time Mlis fixed the camera, the bus was
gone and car was in the road. When he went to develop the film he discovered
the bus turn into the car on in the film, this is called a jump cut. Mlis started to
use the jump cut in his film as a form of primitive special effects. Mlis also
introduced fade ins and fade outs, overlapping dissolves and stop motion cuts.
Early Editing technology
In 1906 the first successful colour motion picture process, the Kinemacolor, was
invented in Britain. This allowed for the first colour motion pictures to be filmed.
This design was improved upon in 1916 when the Technicolor was invented in
America; many famous Hollywood films were filmed using the Technicolor such
as The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind. In 1924 the Moviola was invented.
A Moviola is a device that allows a film editor to view a film while editing. It was
the first machine for motion picture editing
Edwin S. Porter
Although Georges -Mlis had pioneered many editing techniques, he was very
much grounded in the theatre mind-set as in all of his films he never once moved
the camera. This limited him to simple narrative structures however, other
filmmakers such as (Edwin S. Porter quickly discovered that using different shots
and editing them into a sequence enabled them to tell more complex stories and
make better films as a result. you can see instances of editing in films like Life of
an American fireman and The Great Train Robbery.

DW Griffith
Although he didnt invent any of these editing techniques, DW Griffith is
considered one of the most influential directors in history because he used these
techniques in a significant and successful way. Considered the father of narrative
cinema, DW Griffith practically invented such techniques like parallel editing,
using them to great effect. His films such as For Love of Gold which featured the
first ever continuity cut, Birth of a Nation and Intolerance are famous for their
use of editing provoke emotion. DW Griffith is also one of the first directors to
use a montage. A montage is a series of short shots are edited into a sequence
to condense space, time, and information.
Soviet filmmakers
Griffith was extremely influential, particularly amongst early soviet filmmakers.
Griffiths uses of montages was so influential to soviet filmmaking that the
Moscow film school played Intolerance on a loop so that its students could study
it. Many of the most famous soviet filmmakers were inspired by DW Griffith such
as Sergei Eisenstein and V.I. Pudovkin who went on to study the theory behind
the montage.
Minimal editing
Although the new developments in editing allowed many filmmakers to push the
boundaries of film as a medium, many filmmakers preferred minimal use of
editing to ensure that their films retained their realism. 6omics such as Buster
Keaton and Charlie Chaplin often used long, unedited shots to show that no
special effects had been used and that they were performing their dangerous
stunts themselves.
The Academy Award
In 1934 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awards its first Oscar
for film editing to Conrad A. Nervig for his the film Eskimo. Thanks to the
pioneering work of filmmakers such as Porter and Griffith, editing was now
considered as much of an art as any other component of film. Nominations for
this award are closely correlated with the Academy Award for Best Picture. Since
1981 until 2014, every film selected as Best Picture has also been nominated for
the Film Editing Oscar, and about two thirds of the Best Picture winners have also
won for Film Editing.
New wave
Another example of filmmakers using minimal editing would be the French
filmmakers of the 1950s known as The New Wave (or La Nouvelle Vague in

French). Directors such as Francois Truffaut, Jean Renoir and Jean-Luc Godard
used fragmented, discontinuous editing, and long takes to create a sense of
realism in their films. In addition to these techniques, new wave filmmakers also
made films that feature realistic plots and social commentary. It was this
objective realism and experimental fashion that made new wave film so popular.

Modern Editing
In the past 30 years the rise of digital editing, or nonlinear editing, has made it
easier for filmmakers to edit their films. Modern editing software such as Avid
-media composer allows editors to work faster and more precisely. Directors such
as Alejandro G. Irritu use these advancements in editing technology to give
their movies a sense of realism, for example Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue
of ignorance) was edited to look like one seamless longshot. Other filmmakers
use editing to make their films more cinematic, for example Steven Spielberg
and his long standing editor Michael Kahn used film to make Raiders of the Lost
Arc