Editing and Montage in International Film and Video

Theory and Technique

Luís Fernando Morales Morante

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351998475
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Editing and Montage in International Film and Video presents a theoretical and practical approach to the art of editing. In this book, Luís Fernando Morales Morante explores the international history, technology, theory, practical techniques, psychology, and cognitive effects of editing across a range of media from around the world, featuring case studies from film, dramatic television, news media, music videos, commercials, and mobile-delivered formats, from the films of Sergei Eisenstein to Michael Jackson's "Thriller" to coverage of the 2012 U.S. presidential elections. The book includes self-study exercises throughout to help readers put theory into practice.

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EDITING AND MONTAGE

Definition and Scope of Practice

Since its inception, montage has been considered the principal tool for constructing audiovisual narratives and activating emotional responses in viewers. Film theorists such as Pudovkin and Eisenstein, who developed Münsterberg’s earlier ideas, created a series of models to intensify and make more effective the filmic experience. A review of the literature on the early years of silent cinema (Eisenstein 1999c; Pudovkin 1988; Bálasz 1978) reveals the refined systematization of self-taught editing techniques used in early US silent films, such as Porter’s The Great Train Robbery (1903) and Griffith’s Intolerance (1915) and Birth of a Nation (1908). These empirical and intuitive findings of the visual connection between shots and scenes were used as the basis for the first theories and subsequent models of montage. As Eisenstein himself pointed out, cinema is founded on the expressive structures and bases of literature, theatre, painting and even music. All arts have influenced cinema in one way or another and have served to create what we know nowadays as film language. However, montage has also been the subject of study by other disciplines that are not strictly artistic. In recent decades, researchers in cognitive psychology and perception have become increasingly interested in analyzing the effectiveness of narrative methods in cinema. By using instruments to test intellectual and emotional processing, it is possible to observe in real time the sensorial and neurological activity and behavior of subjects when challenged with audiovisual stimuli, information which is essential to understanding how to create messages that are more persuasive and effective. This has without a doubt revived the proposals put forward by Jean Mitry in the 1960s that contradict many of the postulates of classical film theory. In this regard, we believe that montage, as a theoretical and practical discipline, should be approached from a dual perspective: through the analysis of its form and content, and also as a psychological processing of this message by the viewer within the framework of their cinematic experience.

THE DEFINITION OF MONTAGE

The term montage comes from engineering and theatre and means, in its literal sense, the process of construction of machines and vessels and the preparation phase of a stage. Later, this term was used to designate the last step in making a film. In the next few sections, we explore the various definitions found in general and specialized dictionaries and encyclopedias, as well as those proposed by academics working in the fields of film theory, film techniques and video.

ENCYCLOPEDIC DEFINITIONS

The Larousse Film Dictionary defines montage as: “The phase of creating a film in which images and sounds of the film are assembled and adjusted.” The Focal Encyclopaedia of Film and Television Techniques defines montage as:

a rapidly cut film sequence containing many dissolves and overlays to produce a generalized visual effect. In a more specific sense, the word montage refers to a way of cutting film that originated in the Russian school shortly after the Revolution and which is characterised by staccato transitions and violent sequence changes that are seemingly unrelated. However, this latter meaning is now obsolete.

(Spottiswoode 1976, 703)

According to the Diccionario del cine, by Jean Mitry and Ángel Falquina, montage is

the assembly of film shots after having been “synchronised” with the sound recordings (dialogues, sounds, special effects, etc.) and having decided which “take” to use. Each scene is cleaned of clapperboards and then placed in order in the “continuity.” The film thus obtained is then thoroughly reviewed to give the appropriate pace to the succession of scenes. The rushes serve as a model in the laboratory to obtain the negative image.

(Mitry 1970, 190)

In the Diccionario espasa: cine y TV: terminología técnica, it is defined as:

1. In the making of a film, the process of selecting and joining the footage.

2. In the finished film, the set of techniques that govern the relationships between the scenes.

3. In mechanical terms, it refers to the moment chosen to move from one shot to another, the form of change, the order and duration of the scenes, and the continuity of image and sound.

(Páramo 2002, 458)

The Enciclopedia Ilustrada del Cine defines montage as:

the process by which the various shots of a film come together to form a continuity of scenes of certain duration. Montage generally designates both the technical and creative process of filmmaking, through which the temperament of an artist, in this case, the director, is expressed through a deliberate succession of scenes, the rate that determines them, and the rate at which the images occur.

(Clotas et al. 1969, 237)

Valentín Fernández-Tubau, in his book El cine en definiciones, defines montage as “the process of ordering, cutting and joining of recorded material to create the final version of a film” (Fernández-Tubau 1994, 107).

Wordreference¹ defines it as the “selection and ordering of filmed material to produce the final version of a film. The producer personally monitors the editing of the film.”

THEORETICAL DEFINITIONS

For Rafael Carlos Sánchez, montage

is the term used to indicate the specific nature of cinematographic work, as the need or requirement of film to be divided into scenes or takes (shots). It is, thus, an esthetic term that, far from referring to the creative process only, involves all phases. Therefore, in filmmaking, montage refers to the whole process, from the moment a film is conceived in the mind of a cinematographer to the moment he creates the technical script detailing the separate scenes and shots.

(Sánchez 2003, 66)

For Antonio del Amo, it is the “syntax of a language that begins to pursue its development; it is the art of directing attention” (Amo 1972, 20).

For Manuel Carlos Fernández Sánchez, montage is a “creative process which gives definitive form to a film or programme’s cinematographic narrative and content, ordering the shots and applying transitions between shots and sequences with a narrative and aesthetic meaning” (Fernández 1997, 38).

Pedro del Rey del Val understands it as the “ordering, linking, articulation and adjusting of images with others in time, movement and duration to achieve a uniform composition that reflects the scene described by the scriptwriter and captured by the camera from various angles and frame sizes” (Rey del Val 2002, 21).

For Vincent Amiel, “film montage is not only an indispensable technical procedure for filmmaking. It is also a creative principle, a way of thinking, a way of conceiving films by associating images” (Amiel 2014, 7).

Marcel Martin suggests the following definition: “it is the organising of shots of certain order and length” (Martin 2015, 169).

Jacques Aumont proposes that

montage in a film is primarily a technical job, a profession. It has, over the course of a few decades of its existence, established and progressively defined certain procedures and activities. … it consists of three major operations: selecting, combining, and joining. These three operations aim to achieve, from separate inputs, a totality that is a film.

(Aumont et al. 1996, 53)

Finally, Michael Chion states that “montage is an abstract task of assembly that involves specific operations: cutting and joining celluloid or plastic tapes” (Chion 1994, 324).

FILMMAKERS’ DEFINITIONS

Lev Kuleshov describes montage as a “technique of composition by which the film material (shots, cuts, scenes) is assembled to obtain a harmonious and expressive whole” (Kuleshov 1987, 63).

On the other hand, Sergei Eisenstein states that “montage is the expression of an intra-scene conflict (or contradiction), primarily the conflict between two scenes that are next to each other” (Eisenstein 2001a).

For Albert Jurguenson, montage

is the most specific element of film language. Its importance among the expressive media of the seventh art has changed throughout the course of film history, but its dominance cannot be doubted. It can be defined as the organisation of scenes of a certain order and length.

(Jurguenson and Brunet 1992, 17)

Vincent Pinel defines montage as “the final step in the production of a film that guarantees the condensing of the elements gathered during filming” (Pinel 2004, 4).

According to Dominic Villain, montage “is used … to denote certain specific operations, sequences of assembled effects within films. Transition sequences must demonstrate many things in a short time, and depend on the power of montage to condense time or space” (Villain 1994, 30).

PRACTICAL DEFINITIONS

For Carliza and Forchino, “montage is a process in which a set of filmed images is divided into sequences that are then selected and recomposed in the order established by the author” (Carlizia and Forchino 1992, 73).

Jaime Barroso García claims that montage “is the production stage in which, through combining shots (visual system) with other important systems of television, such as sound and written/visual systems, the whole television narrative is shaped” (Barroso García 1988, 425).

According to Kevin Brownlow, montage “involves directing a film for the second time. Finding the psychological moment—knowing exactly where to cut—requires the same intuitive skills that a director needs” (Brownlow 1989, 280).

THE DEFINITION IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES

In other languages the term is similar and comes from the same root. In some cases it is influenced by the American meaning of editing or cutting. The following are just some examples: French: montage and découpage; German: Mon’tage and Schnitt; Italian: montaggio; Portuguese: montagem; Holland and Belgium: montage; Polish: montaz; and Russian: montazh.

DOES MONTAGE = EDITING?

To talk of montage and editing is to talk of the same thing because in both cases we are referring to a creative technical process involving a series of steps aimed at constructing an audiovisual message, regardless of whether it is carried out through manipulating pieces of film, checking a recorded tape or transferring digital fragments from a non-linear editing system.

From the beginning of cinema and throughout the time the seventh art was the only way of reproducing reality in movement, the term montage has been used to refer to the last stage in the process of filmmaking. Directors would shoot and the fragments of film would be mechanically joined in a cutting, gluing and synchronization machine referred to as a Moviola. When the video emerged in the 1950s, electronic material was handled on reels, tapes and files through a linear editing system, or editing suite. The industry refers to this work as “video editing.” In the last two decades, as recording and audiovisual transfer technologies have evolved, operational functions and professional profiles have moved a lot closer to the point where it is practically impossible to distinguish them. With the development of computer technology, film and video have become digital and, as such, the same system and similar work procedures are used to handle the two formats: software with the same functions and data storage servers with similar features. The end product is exported either in film or video format. The differences that existed previously are, these days, practically imperceptible and we can use the term montage or editing for both the cinema and video with absolute validity.

We can therefore conclude that both concepts reflect the same task or the same set of actions and decisions, whose only difference lies in the nature of the capture or export media—film, magnetic tape or digital image—in which the sequence is finally created.

POSTPRODUCTION

Since the 1990s, the editor’s way of working and professional profile has undergone further change. The availability of new audiovisual systems has provided a greater range of options, combinations and more agile ways of handling images through the way diverse files, folders and EDL (editing decision list) tracks can be accessed. Thus, an editor’s approach and how he/she interacts with various fragments has changed. All of which marks a milestone: the beginning of the end of analogue systems and the birth of a new way of editing, headed by an editor with a new profile and a wider knowledge of man–machine interactions. The once glitzy computerized editing that shocked many in the early 1980s was completely superseded by non-linear systems, thereby bringing about a wholesale transformation, both procedurally and in the way in which editors interact with their material. The work of an editor is now more versatile, faster, intuitive, and the recreational possibilities are almost limitless, allowing for the totally unfettered computerized manipulation of audiovisual material throughout the process, as well as the adjustments, retouches and substantial changes that can be made without having to rely on editing the tape itself—as used to happen in conventional sy...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Figures and Sequences
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Editing and Montage: Definition and Scope of Practice
• Chapter 2 Development of Techniques and Theories
• Chapter 3 Spaces, Functions and Possibilities of Editing
• Chapter 4 Cuts, Transitions and Audiovisual Grammar
• Chapter 5 A Theoretical Model of Editing
• Chapter 6 Technological Beginnings and Evolution of Editing
• Chapter 7 Filming with Editing in Mind
• Chapter 8 Editing in Practice
• Chapter 9 Psychological and Perceptual Bases of Editing
• Chapter 10 Research on Editing and its Effects
• Bibliography
• Index