Task 1- Editing In Early Cinema

Development In Editing 

In this unit I will be explaining how the concept of "editing" has developed over the over 50 years.I'll help young film makers, like myself,  understand how the post-production stage of film making work.
Firstly, I'm going to tell you all about the history of editing and important people that was involved in the history of editing that was involved in the history of editing. Did you know that editing would have never changed without the help of these people:

• Thomas Edison
• Lumiere Bros- Sortie d'usine 
• G.A Smith - The Miller and Sweep
• G.A Smith - The Kiss in the Tunnel 
• George Meiles- The Vanishing Lady
• Edwin s Porter- The Life of an American
• Edwin s Porter- The Great Train Robbery 
• Charles Pathé - The Horse that bolted 
• D.W. Griffith  - Birth of a Nation 

Thomas Edison 

Thomas Edison was an American inventor and a businessman. He established many device that significantly changed life around the world, including practical electric light bulb.
Thomas Edison ran a film laboratory where the "kinethographic" camera and the "kinetoscope" were invented.In addition, he developed the 35mm film strip that came to be the industry standard which made it easy for them to film. Furthermore, later in his invention , he eventually developed a projector to play the film on.  

The Lumiere Brother 

Thomas Edison worked with the Lumiere brothers and produced a short film that were one long, static and locked-down shot. The motion in the shot was all that was necessary to please an audience, so the first films simply showed activity such as 'traffic moving on a city street'. This can be seen in the film 'Sortie d'usine' (1895) by the Lumiere brothers.

Workers Leaving the Lumiere factory, also known as Employees Leaving the Lumiere factory and Exiting the Factory, is an 1895 French short black-and-white silent documentary film directed and produced by the Lumiere brothers. It is often stated to as the first real motion picture ever made

workers leaving the Lumiere factory


G.A. Smith
At the start, there was no story and no editing. Each film ran as long as there was film in the camera. An earliest example of which is 'The Miller and the Sweep' by G.A.Smith story line. In 1899, G.A.Smith later on made 'The kiss in the Tunnel'. This film was said to mark the beginning of narrative editing (creating a story). GA.Smith "felt that some extra spice was called for" in the popular "Phantom ride" genre camera in front of the train. Furthermore, he took advantage of the brief on set of darkness, as they went into the dark tunnel to Spice (cut and the stick two pieces of film together) in the shot of the couple. This was a very great turning point of the history of editing.
 

George Melies

George Melies  was a magician who had seen the films made by the Lumiere brothers. So therefore he saw at once the possibilities of a novelty more than just a motion itself. In 1890, he made ‘The Vanishing Lady’ using a technique known as “In camera editing”. It was rumoured that he discovered the art of motion purely by accident when a camera of his broke down for a brief second.  Unfortunately, it never occurred to him to move the camera for close-ups or long-shots, so therefore his work was soon overlooked. Furthermore, the commercial growth of industry forced him out of the business in 1913 and as well as he died in poverty which was very sad. Till now element of his life are depicted in the recent film ‘Hugo’.

Porter and Edison  

Edwin Stanton Porter was an American early film pioneer, most famous as a director with Thomas Edison's company. Of over 250 films created by Porter, the most important films include Life of an American Fireman and The Great Train Robbery. Firstly, Edwin. S. Porter worked as an electrician before joining the film in the late 1890s. He and Edison worked together to make a longer more interesting films, for example porter made the breakthrough film ‘life in an American fireman’ in 1903. The film was among the first films that had a plot, action and even a close up shot of a hand pulling a fire alarm. In addition, Porter discovered important aspect of motion picture language: ‘that the screen image doesn’t need to show a complete person from head to toes. During the film, that splicing together two shots creates in the viewer’s mind a contextual relationship. These were the key discoveries that made all narrative motion pictures and television possible. Lastly, ‘The Great Train Robbery’ 1903, Porter’s ground breaking film which was an excellent example of how early film began to resemble the types of films we see today.

 

Charles Pathé was a major French pioneer of the film and recording industries. In the film ‘The horse that bottled’ (1907), Charles Pathe introduce the first example of a technique known as parallel editing- cutting between two story lines.

DW.Griffith 

US film director DW.Griffith was one of the early supporters of the early supporters of the power of editing. He made use of cross-cutting to show parallel action in different location. In addition, he was one of the first of the early directors to use editing techniques in the products if “Feature Length films”, “The Birth of Nations”. His most controversial film and the one he is best remembered for was the “ The Birth of Nations” 1915