Switching From Linear to Non Linear Editing

Switching from linearly editing film to editing non linearly was an incredibly innovative idea when it was conceived back in 1971. The first machine to edit non linearly, which meant you could assemble and cut anywhere in the film without disturbing the rest of it, was the CMX 600; only 6 of these were ever produced and each cost $250,000 (unadjusted for price inflation.)

The CMX 600 - the first non-linear editing machine.

1988 saw EMC2, which is now the Dell Computer Corporation, release the first non linear editing suite that was entirely digital, with the films being saved onto optical disks rather than film reels. The year after that saw the release of Avid1, which is now considered to be the go-to editing software for Hollywood films today. Avid1 was originally a Macintosh exclusive non linear editor, and it suffered from memory problems that limited to only being able to produce music videos.

1993 was the year in which Avid1 was upgraded to a system that had a 7TB storage; this was enough to store feature films, thus expanding its use massively. 1993 was the same year in which Lost in Yonkers, the first Avid edited film, was released. A few years later, in 1996, Walter Murch would accept the Oscar award for Best Editor with the film The English Patient, which was cut entirely on Avid.

Today, there are many different options for non linear editing suits and software, including Adobe's Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas, and Final Cut, which shows how much editing has evolved since manually cutting film reels via destructive editing.

Montage

Montage is a film phenomenon that has changed in its use and meaning from its early days to modern Hollywood movies.

In the early days of film, the montage was what is known as Soviet Montage, pioneered by Sergei Eisenstein. Montages would be clips of an event interjected with juxtaposing clips of different thing that would be put together in the audience's mind to associate the two metaphorically.

The stairway scene from Battleship Potemkin.

In the stairway scene from the early film Battleship Potemkin, a town falls into chaos on the Odessa Stairway. As this happens, a mother's child is pushed down the stairs in a pram. Shots of women crying, including the mother, while the pram rolls down the stairs, and the town descending into chaos are all included with each other so that the audience is given a feeling of emotional distress as the events unfold.  The pram rolling down the stairs could metaphorically symbolise the town's descent into violence. 

The training montage from Team America.

In Hollywood films, and the majority of today's films, a montage is used to show the passage of time without having to include too much in terms of unnecessary detail. Rocky is a prime example of this, as the training montage seen in that particular series of films always shows Rocky going through a long time's worth of training but the editor has compressed this down to a short space of time so as not to bore audiences.

The humorous example of a montage from Team America: World Police does a similar thing to Rocky, but includes music that has lyrics relating to montage cliches as a way of parodying this famous film technique.

Thanks to Hollywood movies, montage has stopped being the intellectual and emotion invoking technique it once was and is now used to shorten a passage of time. This means that montage has now simply become a shadow of its former self as it's seen as more of a convenience, rather than something that engages the audience on many different levels, in today's world.

Parallel Editing

Parallel Editing is a recognisable film editing technique where the audience is given the illusion that two different events are taking places right at the same time as each other. The technique is achieved to create a sense of tension for audiences to feel as the vents start to unfold with each other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_I82117oAw

In this scene from The Godfather, multiple assassinations are taking place in various different locations. At the same time, a christening is taking place.

These completely contrasting types of events take the audience's interest by creating the ironic juxtaposition of how despite Michael professes to renounces the devil  while all of the murders he has ordered all take place at roughly the same time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts1x6uADFtM

This scene from the Silence of The Lambs is an interesting take on the Parallel Editing technique. The two scenes include the film's opposing forces, Buffalo Bill, and FBI Director Jack Crawford.

In Buffalo Bill's scene, we see that he has taken a woman hostage in his house, while Crawford's scene focuses on a house raid with the FBI. We are given the impression that the FBI are raiding the house that Buffalo Bill is in, but they instead raid a completely empty home.

Back in Buffalo Bill's scene, FBI trainee Clarice Starling questions Bill at the doorstep about the people she is looking for; this is the point in which Crawford realises how much danger Starling is in but cannot warn her of it.

The tension that is built up is kept going upon the audience's realisation of what is really happening within these two events, which are conventionally supposed to culminate into one climactic end to the two scenes.

Parallel Editing is a useful technique which is best used in more tense scenes to build up audience anticipation, which would fit in very well in an action film, or a thriller.

Watching and Waiting - Scene 37 - Draft 2

After reviewing what changes to make, I have edited a second draft of Scene 37 from Watching and Waiting.

I have raised the volume of background noise at the beginning, while also lowering the volume of the dialogue overall. This made the scene both less empty at the start and less uncomfortably loud at the beginning.

Also, I have included shots of Lisa and Michael leaving the building, as my last edit didn't show the two leaving and made it look like they mysteriously disappeared. The fix adds more continuity here.

A loud door shutting was complained about it the first draft, so I replaced the audio clip with a different one and the ending of the scene is now much better.

https://youtu.be/BQ0KEUKH4Os