Monday, October 28, 2013

Notes on Sound

Sound

Section I - Sound Editing

Sound in the cinema does not necessarily match the image, nor does it have to be continuous. The sound bridge is used to ease the transition between shots in the continuity style. Sound can also be used to reintroduce events from earlier in the diegesis. Especially since the introduction of magnetic tape recording after WWII, the possibilities of sound manipulation and layering have increased tremendously. Directors such as Robert Altman are famous for their complex use of the soundtrack, layering multiple voices and sound effects in a sort of "sonic deep focus." In this clip from Nashville (1975), we simultaneously hear a conversation between an English reporter and her guide, a gospel choir singing, and the sound engineers' chatter.

SOUND BRIDGE

Sound bridges can lead in or out of a scene. They can occur at the beginning of one scene when the sound from the previous scene carries over briefly before the sound from the new scene begins. Alternatively, they can occur at the end of a scene, when the sound from the next scene is heard before the image appears on the screen. Sound bridges are one of the most common transitions in the continuity editing style, one that stresses the connection between both scenes since their mood (suggested by the music) is still the same. But sound bridges can also be used quite creatively, as in this clip from Yi Yi (Taiwan, 2000). Director Edward Yang uses a sound bridge both to play with our expectations. The clip begins with a high angle shot of a couple arguing under a highway. A piano starts playing and the scene cuts into a house interior, where a pregnant woman is looking at some cd's...

...finally, the camera pans to reveal a young girl (previously offscreen) playing the piano. It is only then that we realize the music is diegetic, and that the young girl was looking at the window at her best friend and her boyfriend. The romantic melody she plays as she realizes they are breaking up in turn introduces a now possible future relationship for her -- which eventually happens, as she starts dating her best friend's ex-boyfriend later in the film.

SONIC FLASHBACK

Sound from one diegetic time is heard over images from a later time. In this example from Kurosawa's No Regrets for Our Youth (Waga seishun ni kui nashi, Japan, 1946), the heroine Yukie hears the voices of her dead father and executed husband, voicing the aspirations that sustain her continuing struggle.

Sonic flashback often carries this kind of moral or emotional overtone, making a character's motivation explicit.

Section 2 - Source

Most basically, this category refers to the place of a sound in relation to the frame and to the world of the film. A sound can be onscreen or offscreen, diegetic or nondiegetic (including voice over), it can be recorded separately from the image or at the moment of filming. Sound source depends on numerous technical, economic, and aesthetic considerations, each of which can affect the final significance of a film.

DIEGETIC/NON-DIEGETIC SOUND

Any voice, musical passage, or sound effect presented as originating froma source within the film's world is diegetic. If it originates outside the film (as most background music) then it isnon-diegetic.

A further distinction can be made between external and internal diegetic sound. In the first clip from Almodóvar's Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown (Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios, 1988) we hear Iván speaking into the microphone as he works on the Spanish dubbing of Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray, 1954). Since he is speaking out loud and any other character could hear him, this is an example of external diegetic sound. This clip has no non-diegetic sounds other than the brief keyboard chord that introduces the scene.

Sound and diegesis gets more complicated in the next clip, from Dario Argento's The Stendhal Syndrome (La Sindrome di Stendhal, Italy, 1996). As Anna looks at Paolo Uccello's famous painting of the Battle of San Romano (c1435), we begin to hear the sounds of the battle: horses whimpering, weapons clashing, etc. These sounds exist only in Anna's troubled mind, which is highly sensitive to works of art. These are internal diegetic sounds (inside of a character's mind) that no one else in the gallery can hear.

On the other hand, the Ennio Morricone eerie score that sets up the scene and mixes with the battle sounds, is a common example of non-diegetic sound, sounds that only the spectators can hear. (Obviously, no boom-box blasting tourist is allowed into the Uffizi's gallery!)

DIRECT SOUND

When using direct sound, the music, noise, and speech of the profilmic event at the moment of filming is recorded in the film. This is the opposite of postsynchronization in which the sound is dubbed on top of an existing, silent image. Studio systems use multiple microphones to record directly and with the utmost clarity. On the other hand, some national cinemas, notably Italy, India and Japan, have avoided direct sound at some stage in their histories and dubbed the dialogues to the film after the shooting. But direct sound can also mean something other than the clearly defined synchronized sound of Hollywood films -- the Cinéma verité, third world filmmaking and other documentarist, improvisatory and realist styles that also record sound directly but with an elementary microphone set-up, as in Abbas Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry (Ta'm e Guilass, Iran, 1997).

The result maintains the immediacy of direct sound at the expense of clarity. Furthermore, incidental sounds (street noise, etc) are not mixed down, but left "as it is". Impression and mood are favored over precision: not every word can be made out. The final sonic picture is blurred and harder to understand, but arguably closer to what we perceive in real life.

NONSIMULTANEOUS SOUND

Diegetic sound that comes from a source in time either earlier or later than the images it accompanies. In this clip from Almodóvar's Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown(Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios, Spain, 1988) Pepa adds the female voice to the dubbing of Johnny Guitar, the male voice having previously been recorded by Pepa's ex-lover Ivan. (You can see Ivan's dubbing here)

While Pepa's voice is diagetic and simultaneous, Ivan's voice is also diegetic, and yet it is nonsimultaneous, since it comes from a previous moment in the film. Almodóvar uses nonsimultaneous sound to establish a conversation that should have taken place but never did (Ivan is not returning Pepa's calls and she is becoming desperate) when, with a perverse melodramatic twist, he has the jilted lovers repeating the words of another couple of cinematic jilted lovers. As in this example, nonsimultaneous sound is often used to suggest recurrent obsessions and other hallucinatory states.

OFFSCREEN SOUND

Simultaneous sound from a source assumed to be in the space of the scene but outside what is visible onscreen. In Life on Earth (La Vie sur Terre, Abderrahmane Sissako, 1998) a telephone operator tries to help a woman getting a call trough. While he tries to establish a connection, the camera examines the office and the other people present in the scene. Yet, even if the operator and the woman are now offscreen, their centrality to the scene is alway tangible through sounds (dialing, talking, etc).

Of course, a film may use offscreen sound to play with our assumptions. In this clip from Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown (Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios, Pedro Almodóvar, 1988), we hear a woman and a man's voices in conversation, in what it looks like a film production studio. Even if we do not see the speakers, we instantly believe they must be around. Gradually, the camera shows us that we are in a dubbing studio, and only the woman is present, the man's voice being previously recorded. Moreover, theirs is not a real conversation but lines from a movie dialogue.

POSTSYNCHRONIZATION DUBBING

The process of adding sound to images after they have been shot and assembled. This can include dubbing of voices, as well as inserting diegetic music or sound effects. It is the opposite ofdirect sound. It is not, however, the opposite of synchronous sound, since sound and image are also matched here, even if at a later stage in the editing process. Compare the French dubbed, or post-synchronized, version of Mission: Impossible 2 (John Woo, 2000), with the sychronized original.

You can hear the original English version here.

SOUND PERSPECTIVE

The sense of a sound's position in space, yielded by volume, timbre, pitch, and, in stereophonic reproduction systems, binaural information. Used to create a more realistic sense of space, with events happening (that is, coming from) closer or further away. Listen closely to this clip from The Magnificent Ambersons (Orson Welles, 1942) as the woman goes through her door and comes back.

As soon as she closes the door her voice sounds muffled and distant (she is walking away), then grows clearer (she is coming back), then at full volume again, as she comes out. We can also hear hushing remarks that gives us a sense of the absent presence of a whole web of family members in the house. The stronger the voice, the closer his/ her room. Sound perspective, combined with offscreen space, also gives us clues as to who (and most importantly, where) is present in a scene. Welles' use of sound in this scene is unusual since Classical Hollywood Cinema generally sacrifices sound perspective to narrative comprehensibility.

SYNCHRONOUS SOUND

Sound that is matched temporally with the movements occuring in the images, as when dialogue corresponds to lip movements. The norm for Hollywood films is to synchronize sound and image at the moment of shooting; others national cinemas do it later (see direct sound, postsyncronization) Compare the original English version of Mission: Impossible 2 (John Woo, 2000),

with the French dubbed version.

VOICE OVER

When a voice, often that of a character in the film, is heard while we see an image of a space and time in which that character is not actually speaking. The voice over is often used to give a sense of a character's subjectivity or to narrate an event told in flashback. It is overwhelmingly associated with genres such as film noir, and its obsessesive characters with a dark past. It also features prominently in most films dealing with autobiography, nostalgia, and literary adaptation. In the title sequence from The Ice Storm (1997) Ang Lee uses voice over to situate the plot in time and to introduce the subject matter (i.e., the American family in the 1970s), while also giving an indication of his main character's ideas and general culture.

While a very common and useful device, voice over is an often abused technique. Over dependance on voice over to vent a character's thoughts can be interpreted as a telling signal of a director's lack of creativity --or a training on literature and theater, rather than visual arts. But voice over can also be used in non literal or ironic ways, as when the words a character speaks do not seem to match the actions he/she performs. Some avant garde films, for instance, make purposely disconcerting uses of voice over narration.

Section 3 - Quality

Much like quality of the image, the aural properties of a sound -- its timbre, volume, reverb, sustain, etc. -- have a major effect on a film's aesthetic. A film can register the space in which a sound is produced (its sound signature) or it can be otherwise manipulated for dramatic purposes. The recording of Orson Welles' voice at the end of Touch of Evil (1958) adds a menacing reverb to his confession.

The mediation of Abbas Kiarostami's voice through the walkie-talkie and the video quality of the image in the coda of Taste of Cherry (Ta'm e Guilass, Iran, 1997) underscore the reflexivity that is characteristic of his films.

Monday, October 21, 2013

A few articles on "Rear Window"

Rear Window Aesthetics

Windows are usually a metaphor for freedom, but in Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) they expose privacy, they symbolize confinement, and they allude to suspenseful plot devices. Hitchcock’s aesthetic configuration of the film manipulates the audience into questioning several aspects of the film—Did Mr. Thorwald (Raymond Burr) actually kill his wife? What is buried under the garden? Will they ever discover any evidence? The biggest plot device used to produce suspense is Hitchcock’s use of point-of-view, an element that is key to suspense. With the combination of suspenseful lighting, edgy cinematography, and unique set design, Rear Window, along with all of Hitchcock’s films, proves why Hitchcock is still both remembered as one of the greatest directors of all time and influential on filmmaking today.

Not only does lighting convey the tone of the film, but it also provides a psychoanalytic aspect of the film. This psychoanalytic light is used “…to escort us across the boundary between knowledge and suspicion” (Pomerance). Various light sources—lamps, windows, and the sun—are significant for tonal, temporal, and psychoanalytical purposes. Through lighting we are told when to be fearful, when to be anxious, and when to be scared. The main drive for these lighting elements is the notion of voyeurism conveyed in the film (Pomerance). Jeff (James Stewart) is always watching others from his wheelchair. His point-of-view, often shown through binoculars or a camera in a circular frame, establishes Jeff’s view of the neighborhood and we automatically find ourselves sided with his intuition. What he sees, however, can be very misleading. Looking through the windows of his neighbors requires a necessary amount of light to be certain of what actions occur. When the rooms are dark, or the curtains are drawn, either we can barely make out what is happening or we have no idea. If we have no idea, then Jeff’s intuition and our own intuition kick in. Through the film’s contextual elements, especially lighting, we are lead to believe that Mr. Thorwald murdered his wife. While are hypothesis seems convincing, there is still a shred of doubt due to the absence of sufficient lighting and visibility. This “subjective suspense” (Morris) suppresses the most important detail and leaves us with only one perspective. With intentionally limited lighting, perspective adds to both suspense and Hitchcock’s ingenuity.

Cinematography is another important aspect of perspective that Hitchcock utilizes masterfully. One instance is the burial theme of the flower garden. Every time we look at the garden—the dog digging, Mr. Thorwald watering, Lisa and Stella digging—we are getting closer and closer to uncovering the mystery. We watch in suspense as we hope that they uncover something worthwhile before Mr. Thorwald returns. What is most significant here is not necessarily the uncovering, however, but the burial theme. Burial is darker than the buried thing, denial is darker than the denied thing (Pomerance). Burial is related to death, as if at a funeral. This relation matches with the possibility of Mrs. Thorwald being the buried object. The camera moves closer and closer to the unearthed flowerbed, and when we get close enough to look inside, we see there is nothing there. At first it seems to be a let down to the suspense, but it quickly reverts itself as a plot-driver and Lisa feels inclined to continue her investigation into Mr. Thorwald’s apartment. Jeff’s struggle against impotence (Boyd and Palmer), that is, his inability to leave his wheelchair, adds to the suspense as the camera sits inside of his apartment and we are helplessly forced to watch Lisa dangerously venture into the apartment—we too become impotent. Another camera technique that adds to this sense of constraint is the panning shots across the neighborhood, which feels like Jeff’s point-of-view but turn out to be our own. We then find ourselves back in Jeff’s apartment in the middle of something. We are just like Jeff, trapped.

Within the first five minutes of the film, a contemporary eye can notice how the neighborhood is built upon a set, whether done intentionally or efficiently. This, however, does not distract us from the events that ensue. Hitchcock carefully sets up the neighborhood to allow room for suspenseful camera movement and a mostly believable diegesis. The use of the window is variously understood as his eye, his opening on the world, his perspective, his camera (Morris). This is his only connection to reality, and although a window is usually understood as a symbol of escape, he is ironically trapped behind it, looking into other windows and into other peoples’ private lives. The backyard square of windows provides several moments of panning shots to engage the spectator into peering into the lives of these side characters. The set’s intentional arrangement in a bustling urban environment allows for multiple uses of foley and sound effects to reinforce the reliability of the diegesis. Hitchcock brilliantly uses a sliver of an alleyway to convey the neighborhood’s location, the only “window” to the outside world that Jeff is unable to reach. The set up of Jeff’s apartment above the ground level allows for a more intensified climax, in which Jeff becomes a “hanging figure” (Morris), clinging on to his life before plunging down and breaking his one good leg. Hitchcock had an infinite amount of ways to arrange his backyard neighborhood, and the way he chose was successfully original and engaging, allowing for the reliability of the story and the diegesis.

Aspects of this film survive today—not as Rear Window, but as key elements in other films. D.J. Caruso’s Disturbia (2007) is almost identical to Rear Window—a teen living under house arrest becomes convinced that his neighbor is a serial killer. Like in Rear Window, we only see through Kale’s (Shia LaBeouf) perspective. Windows become a prominent figure for entrapment and unveiled privacy, while concealing any solid evidence. Robert Ben Garant’sReno 911: Miami (2007) has a similar sequence in which the main characters are each in a separate motel room. The camera pans across the windows of their rooms in a long shot, uncovering their privacy in a humorous way. Hitchcock’s originality and mastery of lighting, cinematography, and set design in Rear Window were not only successful during the golden age of Hollywood, but will continue to be creatively adapted and consistently influential throughout the future of the cinema.

Post by: Doug Yablun

REAR WINDOW

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 ‘Rear Window’ is a film full of symbolism, narratives, voyeurism and characterisation. It shows Hitchcocks as a strong auteur by creating it in a way in which he uses similar themes and motifs previously recognised. He also uses specific signature motifs, such as; character parallels and heavy use of vertical lines, as well as a strong protagonist. It is a film which focuses around the main protagonist Jefferies, who is a photographer who recently broke his leg and is restricted to a wheelchair. In the opening scene where the credits are shown, a lot is given away with regards to the forthcoming storyline and Hitchcock has created an opportunity to set the tone of the film. He also creates a great ambience, as a bamboo curtain is raised and the courtyard is shown, which is what the whole film revolves around.

Jeff spends his days and nights watching his neighbours through a pair of binoculars. The audience are shown life through Jefferies eyes within the six weeks in which he is restrained to just a chair. The window looks out onto a courtyard and displays a number of different windows which are representative of different ways of living in America in the 1950s. Throughout this film the audience are shown many different characters and each window represents a different style of living and snippets of these characters lives as Jefferies sees them. There are three main protagonists in the film, the first, previously mentioned Jefferies, the second being Jefferies girlfriend (Lisa) and the third being Jefferies nurse (Stella). Throughout the film the relationships between these main protagonists change due to the change of happenings which unfold in front of Jefferies when he believes one of the neighbours of which he has been following commits the serious murder of his wife. Lisa is represented as the “perfect woman” as she is elegant, beautiful and a successful business woman, in this film whenever she is shown, she is always represented perfectly and lighting is used to continuously make her glow. She is always extremely stylish and graceful.

When analysing the visual structure of “Rear Window”, there is a parallel structure in which everyone is going about their daily lives. The audience are even shown people shaving, waking up in the morning and answering the phone. (The type of behaviour seen as normal everyday activities) This represents the fact that each of these windows show a sneak preview of what life was like as an American, living in this part of America in the 1950s, each character represents a different background. But these characters, although living so close to each other, barely interact or ever meet. Some of these characters include; a happy newlywed couple, a lonely dancer, a songwriter and Thorwald (the murderer). All these different people through the windows and their stories flow together seamlessly and music is used to proceed each scene, leading us to show what will happen next.

The newlyweds are shown through the binoculars and create a strong representation of how Jeff and Lisa could be. At the beginning of the film, Lisa and Jeff are seen as quite distant with each other and almost as strangers, they are shown as two very different characters. There is, however, a strong friendship built up with the nurse, Stella. As the film goes on Lisa and Jeff’s relationship changes, as Lisa soon becomes Jeff’s legs, when she begins to investigate the happenings of the flat in which Jeff suspects murder. With Jeff and Lisa working together to figure out if Thorwald does commit this terrible crime, it makes them work as a team and brings them closer and also makes them a lot stronger as a couple. Lisa is seen as the eyes and legs outside the apartment. Without Lisa, Jeff would be helpless.

The camera man uses shots of panning and zooming to make it ever more realistic and makes it seem like the audience are viewing this through Jeff’s eyes. There is a good use of levels throughout which show the audience that a lot goes on behind closed doors which no one knows about, this is truly represented when the musician has the social gathering which is full of well off people enjoy themselves at a party and below there is the troubled wife, hidden behind the blinds.

When analysing the visual structure, the audience are constantly shown natural framing, which is a well-known theme in Hitchcocks films and truly represents him as an auteur. There are constantly shots which are framed by, openings such as; window frames, door frames and hallways. The window is shown to represent almost a cinema-like view for Jeff. He is the spectator of the film and sits and watches from his chair. Even when he becomes involved with one of the other characters, he does not leave the comfort of his chair or his home. This makes Thorwalds entrance into Jeff’s apartment, during the end of the film, ever more dramatic, as it is the first time someone which he has been watching interacts with him, whereas before there was the distance of the courtyard and this distance created a safety.

The use of props throughout this movie are very symbolic, the audience are shown everything through Jeffs eyes by the use of binoculars, these binoculars represent his sight. By using this it means the audience get a real feel for Jeff and his isolation.

The setting in the film is also incredibly symbolic, due to the fact the audience only see Jeffs flat, the courtyard and a small alleyway emphasises the idea of Jeff being confined and trapped. Also with him watching the dinner party of the musician it makes the audience feel sympathetic towards him as it makes him feel he is missing out on social events. The use of the small alleyway also does this, from his window and from what the audience are shown, all that is seen is an alleyway and at the end of the alleyway is a busy street. This represents Jeff being socially isolated and any social encounters are far away, in the distance.

The sound in ‘Rear Window’ is very interestingly pieced together. The majority of the sound throughout the film is diegetic opposed to non-diegetic. On the opening scene we see a man shaving, there is a radio which is blaring a commercial, we then see a man changing this to music and discover it is coming from the radio which is within the scene. This is then followed by the noise of an alarm clock, which shifts the attention from one flat to another, as this alarm clock is going off in a different flat. By doing this and making the viewer discover where this noise is coming from it makes the viewer more involved in the scenes, it leads the viewer towards the source as if they were there themselves.

When returning to analysing the beginning of the film, a lot of clues are given away on the structure and storyline of the film. Bamboo curtains are shown rising up slowly, this represents a theatre styled theme, rising up at the very beginning similar to that of a theatre show. The theme of theatre and drama is something which carries on throughout the film.

In conclusion, Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Rear Window’, is a representation of life in the 1950s. It has been created in a way in which the cinema goer or the audience is the spectator and we see the film through the eyes of the main protagonist Jeff, who is the spectator in the film. We are shown a stereotypical example of Alfred Hitchcock as an Auteur as recurring, well known themes are shown throughout such as parallel structure, strong protagonists and a linier structure. The sound in this film helps the audience to interact with the film as it draws them in and gives them clues of where the next piece of action is going to happen. All the characters play a large part in the representation of the 1950s and the stereotypes which went along with that specific era.

What Film Is: An Analysis of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window

The love of cinema is rooted in the love of voyeurism. The love of voyeurism is rooted in lack of excitement in life. Cinema, first and foremost, is a visual medium. Literature allows for the imagination of readers, but cinema defines it through the concrete visuals it possesses. Novels can pinpoint every thought and feeling of a character at every second, but film can’t. As famously noted from a Chinese proverb though, “A picture is worth a thousand words”, so every frame of a film contains multitudes of detail. Films have the ability to connect to audiences in a more personal way than novels because actors and actresses are far easier to relate to than paragraphs.

It is because of our need to connect with humans in a behavioral way that makesRear Window more of a film about relation and the evolution of cinema than the heart pounding intensity of a thriller. Through the view of his binoculars, Jeff watches the neighbors across him with increasing obsession from his apartment living room after being hospitalized for an injury he incurred while on the job. Jeff is a photographer, so his natural inclination is to observe people and take photos of them. His inability to do this due to his profession has made him turn his head to the window. The inability to live out one’s own life forces one to live through the lives of others. Across Jeff’s window lie several stories that encapsulate stories that Jeff can relate to. He cannot hear the people in the apartment, he can only relate through the demeanor of their character and the actions of their behavior. This aspect ofRear Window is clearly reflexive because what the protagonist is essentially viewing is several different silent films. Silent films remain the purest way of telling stories through film because it is strictly image based. The phrase, “actions speak louder than words” also connects this idea of image based storytelling back to human interaction. The way emotions are conveyed by the human body and face are easier to relate to than words that define a character as being sad. Jeff uses these people as his subjects to escape his current predicament, but his girlfriend’s act of relating their situation to one of the subjects, a lonely woman, pulls him back into his real life situation. This calls back the famous quote that Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger wrote to Wendy Hiller in a letter, “No artist believes in escapism. And we secretly believe that no audience does. We have proved, at any rate, that they will pay to see the truth, for other reasons than her nakedness.” Art naturally reflects life because art is rooted in real life. The only way to create true escapism is to avoid any kind of human vulnerability whether its emotional or physical. Jeff’s observational tendencies is meant for a source of entertainment, but as he continues to watch people, he begins to become more and more involved in their lives until the inevitable happens; suspicion of one of them as a murderer.

With Rear Window, Hitchcock is showing us the history of cinema because cinema is rooted in voyeurism and voyeurism is due to lack of excitement in life. Constant viewing of another person’s life gets boring after a while, so Jeff, whether his claims are true or not, imposes a narrative on one his subjects. He believes that his neighbor has killed his wife and he tries to convince friends and policemen that his claims are true. During the 1910s and 1920s, people grew tired of watching a train moving towards them or watching people play cards, so naturally film became more focused as a storytelling medium along with being a medium to express behaviors. Jeff wants to give his subject a narrative structure because he is bored of what he is seeing. There is comfort in placing a narrative structure to life because life is seemingly without one.

Until the very end of Rear Window, the audience is still uncertain that Jeff’s accusations against his neighbor are valid. The ending culminates in a battle between Jeff and his neighbor where Jeff literally uses his camera lights to fight the supposed villain off. The lights are as artificial as the assumptions that Jeff is using against the neighbor to accuse him of a crime. The neighbor uses his own natural strength to fight Jeff back. The battle of the audience and the actor figuratively plays out with the audience winning; Jeff is validated of his claims and evidence is found that convicts the neighbor of killing his own wife. The fictional suspicion of Jeff’s mind becomes the truth. Does Hitchcock convey the message to fight for the fiction instead of the truth? No, he’s not demanding that we do, he’s rather stating that it is what we do through the unwavering faith Jeff puts in his suspicions. The realistic ending of the film would be that the neighbor is not the killer, and that Jeff has been deluding himself the entire time. Realism and honesty are not virtues of cinema because art, in and of itself, is a lie. Pablo Picasso once said, “Art is the lie that tells the truth”. With Rear Window, Hitchcock disproves the Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger quote that audiences don’t want escapism in films through the actions of Jeff.

Hitchcock explains about CUTTING

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG0V7EVFZt4

EXAMPLE OF CONTINUITY EDITING:

Examples of different techniques used in filming and video editing.

Video Editing and Shot Techniques: Study of jump cuts, match cuts....

The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJcQgQHR78Q&list=PLB5500BE354F41C78

THE CUTTING EDGE: the magic of movie editing (pt2)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex4XGiyJugY&list=PLB5500BE354F41C78

---EDITING-----

Editing

Section 1 - Devices

a) TRANSITIONS

The shot is defined by editing but editing also works to join shots together. There are many ways of effecting that transition, some more evident than others. In the analytical tradition, editing serves to establish space and lead the viewer to the most salient aspects of a scene. In the classical continuity style, editing techniques avoid drawing attention to themselves. In a constructivist tradition such as Soviet Montage cinema, there is no such false modesty. Vertov's Man with the Movie Camera (Chelovek s kinoapparatom, USSR, 1929) celebrates the power of the cinema to create a new reality out of disparate fragments.

CHEAT CUT

Cheat cut. In the continuity editing system, a cut which purports to show continuous time and space from shot to shot but which actually mismatches the position of figures or objects in the scene. In this sequence from Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minelli, 1944) the editing sacrifices actual physical space for dramatic space. As we can see in the first shot, there is a wall behind the telephone.

However, that wall magically disappears in the third shot in order to show both the telephone and the family seated around the dining table (an important element in the film) from an angle that would had been impossible in an actual room. Cheat cuts were also often used to disguise the relatively short stature of leading men in relation to their statuesque female co-stars.

CROSSCUTTING, aka PARALLEL EDITING

Editing that alternates shots of two or more lines of action occurring in different places, usually simultaneously. The two actions are therefore linked, associating the characters from both lines of action. In this extended clip from Edward Yang's Yi Yi (Taiwan, 2000), father and daughter go out on dates at presumably the same time, and go through the same motions, even if the father is in Japan and the daughter in Taipei.

To further stress the similarities, the father is actually reliving his first date with his first girlfriend (whom he has just met again after 20 years), while his daughter is actually on her first date! Yang uses parallel editing across space and time to suggest that history repeats itself, generation after generation.

CUT-IN, CUT AWAY

An instantaneous shift from a distant framing to a closer view of some portion fo the same space, and vice versa. In Lars Von Trier's Dancer in the Dark ( Denmark, 2000) Selma and Bill have a dramatic conversation in Bill's car that is framed by a cut-in and a cut-away.

The two cuts neatly bracket Bill's anguished confession as a separate moment, private and isolated, that only Selma knows about. This editing-constructed secrecy will ultimately have drastic consequences for Selma.

DISSOLVE

A transition between two shots during which the first image gradually disappears while the second image gradually appears; for a moment the two images blend in superimposition.Dissolves can be used as a fairly straighforward editing device to link any two scenes, or in more creative ways, for instance to suggest hallucinatory states. In this series of shots from The Stendhal Syndrome (La Sindrome di Stendhal, Dario Argento, 1996), a young woman becomes so absorbed by Brueghel's The Fall of Icarus that she actually dives into the painting's sea! (at least in her imagination, in "real life" she faints).

IRIS

A round, moving mask that can close down to end a scene (iris-out) or emphasize a detail, or it can open to begin a scene (iris-in) or to reveal more space around a detail. For instance, in this scene from Neighbors (Buster Keaton, 1920), the iris is used with the comic effect of gradually revealing that the female protagonist is 1) ready for her wedding and 2) ready for her not-too-luxurious wedding.

Iris is a common device of early films (at at time when some techniques like zooming were not feasible), so much so that when it is used after 1930 it is often perceived as charminlgly anachronistic or nostalgic, as in Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player (1960).

JUMP CUT

An elliptical cut that appears to be an interruption of a single shot. Either the figures seem to change instantly against a constant background, or the background changes instantly while the figures remain constant. See also elliptical editing, steadicam.. Jump cuts are anathema to Classical Hollywood continuity editing, but feature prominently in avant-garde and radical filmmaking.When the French Nouvelle Vague films of the 1960s made jump cuts an essential part of their playful, modern outlook, many directors from around the globe started to use jump cuts --either creatively or in a last ditch attempt to become "hip". More recently, jump cuts are more commonly associated with music videos, video or alternative filmmaking, like Lars Von Trier's Dogma films. Here is an example from Dancer in the Dark (Denmark, 2000).

Jump cuts are used expressively, to suggest the ruminations or ambivalences of a character, or of his/her everyday life, but they are also a clear signifier of rupture with mainstream film storytelling. Rather than presenting a film as a perfectly self-contained story that seamlessly unfold in front of us, jump cuts are like utterances that evidentiates both the artificiality and the difficulties of telling such a story.

ESTABLISHING SHOT/REESTABLISHING SHOT

A shot, usually involving a distant framing, that shows the spatial relations among the important figures, objects, and setting in a scene. Usually, the first few shots in a scene are establishing shots, as they introduces us to a location and the space relationships inside it.

In the initial sequence from Peking Opera Blues (Do Ma Daan, Honk Kong,1986), director Tsui Hark uses three shots to establish the locale. In the first one, three musicians are shown against a fireplace in what looks like a luxurious room. Our suspicions are confirmed by the second establishing shot, which shows us the other half of the ample room (shot/ reverse shot) and reveals a party going on.

After this introduction, the camera moves forward with several close-ups of both the musicians and the spectators. At the end of the sequence, Hark shows us the entire room in a larger shot. This final establishing shot is called a reestablishing shot, for it shows us once again the spatial relationships introduced with the establishing shots.

SHOT/REVERSE SHOT

Two or more shots edited together that alternate characters, typically in a conversation situation. In continuity editing, characters in one framing usually look left, in the other framing, right. Over-the-shoulder framings are common in shot/reverse-shot editing. Shot / reverse shots are one of the most firmly established conventions in cinema, and they are usually linked through the equally persuasive eyeline matches. These conventions have become so strong that they can be exploited to make improbable meanings convincing, as in this sequence from The Stendhal Syndrome (La Sindrome di Stendhal, Italy,1996). Director Dario Argento has his protagonist Anna looking at Botticelli's The Birth of Venus (c1485)...

...but with the use of successive shot/ reverse shots, eyeline matches and matching framings, it soons begins to look as if Venus herself is looking at Anna!

SUPERIMPOSITION

The exposure of more than one image on the same film strip. Unlike a dissolve, a superimposition does not signify a transition from one scene to another. The technique was often used to allow the same performer to appear simultaneously as two characters on the screen (for example Son of the Sheik), to express subjective or intoxicated vision (The Last Laugh), or simply to introduce a narrative element from another part of the diegetic world into the scene. In this clip from Neighbors (Buster Keaton, 1920), the resentful father of the bride looks at the wedding ring and immediately associates in his mind with a five and dime store. The subjective shot gives us a clear indication of his opinion of his soon to be son-in-law.

WIPE

A transition betwen shots in which a line passes across the screen, eliminating the first shot as it goes and replacing it with the next one. A very dynamic and noticeable transition, it is usually employed in action or adventure films. It often suggest a brief temporal ellypsis and a direct connection between the two images. In this example from Kurosawa's Seven Samurai(Sichinin No Samurai, Japan, 1954), the old man's words are immediately corroborated by the wandering, destitute samurai coming into town.

As other transitions devices, like the whip pan, wipes became fashionable at an specific historical time (the 1950s and 1960s), so much so as to became stylistic markers of the film of the period.

b) MATCHES

Editing matches refer to those techniques that join as well as divide two shots by making some form of connection between them. That connection can be inferred from the situation portrayed in the scene (for example, eyeline match) or can be of a purely optical nature (graphic match).

EYELINE MATCH

A cut obeying the axis of action principle, in which the first shot shows a person off in one direction and the second shows a nearby space containing what he or she sees. If the person looks left, the following shot should imply that the looker is offscreen right. The following shots from Dario Argento's The Stendhal Syndrome (La Sindrome di Stendhal, Italy, 1996), depict Anna looking at a painting, Brueghel's The Fall of Icarus. The scene takes place inside Firenze's most famous museum, the Uffizi Gallery.

First we see her looking... then we see what she looks at.

As her interest grows, the eyeline match (that is the connection between looker and looked) is stressed with matching close-ups of Anna's face and Icarus's falling into the ocean in the painting.Again, this implies that Anna is looking directly at Icarus's body.

Ironically, even if Argento managed to film inside the real Uffizi gallery, the painting he wanted to use, The Fall of Icarus, is not part of the museum's collection! The painting that we see is probably a reproduction, shot in the studio, and edited together with Anna's shots in the Uffizi to make us believe that they are both in the same room. As this example demonstrates, eyeline matches can be a very persuasive tool to construct space in a film, real or imagined.

GRAPHIC MATCH

Two successive shots joined so as to create a strong similarity of compositional elements (e.g., color, shape). Used in trasparent continuity styles to smooth the transition between two shots, as in this clip from Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown (Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios, Almodóvar, 1988).

Graphic matches can also be used to make metaphorical associations, as in Soviet Montage style. Furthermore, some directors like Ozu Yasujiro use graphic matches as an integral part of their film style.

MATCH ON ACTION

A cut which splices two different views of the same action together at the same moment in the movement, making it seem to continue uninterrupted. Quite logically, these characteristics make it one of the most common transitions in the continuity style. Here is an example from Traffic (Steven Soderbergh, 2000)

A match on action adds variety and dinamism to a scene, since it conveys two movements: the one that actually takes place on screen, and an implied one by the viewer, since her/his position is shifted.

c) DURATION

Only since the introduction of editing to the cinema at the turn of the 20th century has not-editing become an option. The decision to extend a shot can be as significant as the decision to cut it. Editing can affect the experience of time in the cinema by creating a gap between screen time and diegetic time (Montage and overlapping editing) or by establishing a fast or slowrhythm for the scene.

LONG TAKE, aka PLAN-SEQUENCE

A shot that continues for an unusually lengthy time before the transition to the next shot. The average lenght per shot differs greatly for different times and places, but most contemporary films tend to have faster editing rates. In general lines, any shot above one minute can be considered a long take. Here is an excerpt from the initial shot of Robert Altman's The Player(1992) which not only runs for more than eight minutes, but it is in itself an hommage to another famous long take, the first shot of Welles's Touch of Evil (1958).

Unless shot at a fixed angle, with a fixed camera and no movement, long takes are extremely hard to shoot. They have to be choreographed and rehearsed to the last detail, since any error would make it necessary to start all over again from scratch. Sophisticated long takes such as this one from The Player, which includes all kinds of camera movements and zooms, are often seen as auteuristic marks of virtuosity. Aside from the challenge of shooting in real time, long takes decisively influence a film's rhythm. Depending on how much movement is included, a long take can make a film tense, stagnant and spell-binding, or daring, flowing and carefree.Indeed, directors like Altman, Welles, Renoir, Angelopoulos, Tarkovski or Mizoguchi have made long takes (usually in combination with deep focus and deep space) an essential part of their film styles.

OVERLAPPING EDITING

Cuts that repeat part or all of an action, thus expanding its viewing time and plot duration. Most commonly associated with experimental filmmmaking, due to its temporally disconcerting and purely graphic nature, it is also featured in films in which action and movement take precedence over plot and dialogue: sports documentaries, musicals, martial arts, etc. Overlapping editing is a common characteristic of the frenzied Hong Kong action films of the 80s and 90s. When director John Woo moved to Hollywood, he tried to incorporate some of that style into mainstream action films, such as Mission: Impossible 2 (2000).

RHYTHM

The perceived rate and regularity of sounds, series of shots, and movements within the shots. Rhythmic factors include beat (or pulse), accent (or stress), and tempo (or pace). Rhythm is one of the essential features of a film, for it decisively contributes to its mood and overall impression on the spectator. It is also one of the most complex to analyze, since it is achieved through the combination of mise-en-scene, cinematography, sound and editing. Indeed, rhythm can be understood as the final balance all of the elements of a film. Let us compare how rhythm can radically alter the treatment of a similar scene. These two clips from Deconstructing Harry (Woody Allen, 1997) and Cries and Whispers (Viskingar Och Rop, Ingmar Bergman, Sweden1972) feature a couple at a table, and both clips feature a moment of fracture between the two characters. Still, they could not be more dissimilar. Allen employs fast cuts (even jump cuts), pans, quick dialogue and gesturing, as he concentrates exclusively on the two characters, shot from a variety of angles but always in medium close-up and close-up.

Even if both characters overtly disagree with each other, there is an overall feeling of warmth and inmediacy between them, suggested by their proximity (established in short pans and close-ups) and in the tone of their speech. The quick camera movements and different camera placements suggest the uneasiness of both characters, as they budge on their seats.

Cries and Whispers, on the other hand, present us with a scene of horrifying stillness. Bergman accentuates the separation between man and woman by shooting them frontally and almost eliminating dialogue. In this context, even the smallest sounds of forks and knives sound ominous; a glass shattering resonates like a shot.

Furthermore, the mise-en-scene becomes as equally, if not more, important than the characters, reducing everything to dour red, black and whites. The feeling of claustrophobia is enhanced by the use of shallow space, having the characters become one with the austere backgrounds. Pace is deliberately slow, and it only quickes when the glass breaks and both characters lift up their heads, only to immediately return to normal. Bergman accelerates the rhythm for a second, punctuating the moment of the glass breaking so that a trivial incident is magnified into a clear signal of disaster.

Lastly, rhythm is, almost by definition, intrisically related to music and sound. Some of the most striking examples of the use of music as a film's driving force occur in the (endlessly imitated) spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone, which were written in close collaboration with composer Ennio Morricone. In fact, sometimes the music would be composed first and then a scene that fitted that rhythm would be shot, thus reversing the customary order.

The prelude to the final shotdown of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo, Italy, 1966) runs for several minutes (of which we only see the last minute here), as three men face each other in a triangle, waiting to see who will take the first step. One of the film's theme songs is played in its entirety, from a slow, elegiac beginning to a frenzy crescendo that is abruptly cut off by the first gunshot. The slow mounting crescendo is paralleled by an increase in the editing rate, and an intensified framing (the sequence actually begins on a long shot similar to the previous one).

Section 2 - Styles

The patterned use of transitions, matches and duration can be identified as a cinematic style. Editing styles are usually associated with historical moments, technological developments, or national schools.

CONTINUITY EDITING

A system of cutting to maintain continuous and clear narrative action. Continuity editing relies upon matching screen direction, position, and temporal relations from shot to shot. The film supports the viewer's assumption that space and time are contiguous between successive shots. Also, the diegesis is more readily understood when directions on the screen match directions in the world of the film. The "180° rule," shown in the diagram below, dictates that the camera should stay in one of the areas on either side of the axis of action (an imaginary line drawn between the two major dramatic elements A and B in a scene, usually two characters).

By following this rule the filmmaker ensures that each character occupies a consistent area of the frame, helping the audience to understand the layout of the scene. This sense of a consistent space is reinforced by the use of techniques such as the eyeline match or match on action. In this sequence from Neighbors (Buster Keaton, 1920), continuity is maintained by the spatial and temporal contiguity of the shots and the preservation of direction between world and screen. More importantly, the shots are matched on Keaton's actions as he shuttles across the courtyard from stairwell to stairwell.

In the Hollywood continuity editing system the angle of the camera axis to the axis of action usually changes by more than 30 ° between two shots, for example in a conversation scene rendered as a series of shot/reverse shots. The 180° line is not usually crossed unless the transition is smoothed by a POV shot or a reestablishing shot.

MONTAGE

1. A synonym for editing. 2. An approach to editing developed by the Soviet filmmakers of the 1920s such as Pudovkin, Vertov and Eisenstein; it emphasizes dynamic, often discontinuous, relationships between shots and the juxtaposition of images to create ideas not present in either shot by itself. Sergei Eisenstein, in particular, developed a complex theory of montage that included montage within the shot, between sound and image, multiple levels of overtones, as well as in the conflict between two shots. This sequence from October (Oktyabr, USSR, 1927) is an example of Eisenstein's intellectual montage. The increasingly primitive icons from various world religions are linked by patterns of duration, screen direction and shot scale to produce the concept of religion as a degenerate practice used to legitimate corrupt states.

Soviet Montage proved to be influential around the world for commercial as well as avant-garde filmmakers. We can see echoes of Pudovkin in The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford, USA, 1939), Mother India (Mehboob Khan, India, 1957), and The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, USA, 1973). In a famous sequence from the latter film, shots of Michael attending his son's baptism are intercut with the brutal killings of his rivals. Rather than stressing the temporal simultaneity of the events (it is highly unlikely that all of the New York Mafia heads can be caught off guard at exactly the same time!), the montage suggests Michael's dual nature and committement to both his "families", as well as his ability to gain acceptance into both on their own terms -- through religion and violence.

ELLIPTICAL EDITING

Shot transitions that omit parts of an event, causing an ellipses in plot and story duration. In this clip from Traffic (Steven Soderbergh, 2000), a drug party is rendered through elliptical editing (achieved with a plentiful use of dissolves and jump cuts) in order to both shorten the time and suggest the character's rambling mental states.

Elliptical editing need not be confined to a same place and time. A seven-minute song sequence from Hum Aapke Hain Koun (Sooraj Bartjatya, India 1994) dances us through several months in the life of a family, from a cricket match to a ritual welcoming a new wife.

from scenes of the newlyweds' daily life... to the announcement of Pooja's pregnacy,

from a gift shower for the upcoming baby... to multiple scenes of celebrations, as Pooja's approaches her ninth month.