[Frameworks] Linear film editing

Tue Dec 4 13:03:13 UTC 2018

Thanks for your input Dave. I have Lenny Lipton’s book so I will have a good look at it again. I also have one called 'The Technique of Editing 16mm Film’ by John Burder, which helpfully details editing processes.

I’m interested in your response to the idea of editing as stitching and so hope you welcome my thoughts below...

That there is no analogy between editing and stitching… the research I’m working on involves constructing this argument with examples to show that the comparison has been made repeatedly by people other than myself throughout histories of filmmaking. I’ll look forward to sharing the research when it’s more finished which will be autumn 2019.

OTOH, the actual physical work may be comoparable in some ways, and it would make sense that this physical process inflects the conceptual work in some ways. That’s certainly been suggested by folks who have edited both by actually cutting film and doing it all by computer. 

It’s definitely the physical process of editing film that I am referring to as being comparable to stitching in this study, BUT I started out editing video in iMovie and Final Cut before I worked with photochemical film. It was this digital editing process that first got me thinking about editing as stitching. I remember looking at the sequence on a computer screen with different shots and sound clips laid out visually in different tracks and thinking they look like a patchwork or embroidery pattern. Then I was thinking about editing being similar to stitching because I understood editing as joining or assembling different video and sound clips together to create something new.  I should also say that my background is in textile practice, and when I was first editing video and thinking about this stuff I was in the final year of a degree in embroidery and teaching myself to edit, because when I went to see the video technicians they told me it was too late in the year for them to give me any tuition. So my background and experience of working with cloth and stitch before I worked with video and photochemical film directly informs the idea of editing as stitching and I still continue to work with both practices now. 

> Some ways the conceptual (and physical) prosesses are different: 
> 1) The whole point of editing workprint is you can try an edit, see how it works, then change your mind… at any point. That is, after you’re ‘finished’ you can go back and change the trim on the first cut you made. I don’t think of stitching as temporary. Workprint is always edited with tape splices, so you can pull the splices apart to change them. [You save your trims in case you want to put a few frames back in]. 
This is interesting because I definitely understand stitch as temporary, it can always be unpicked and then re-sewn.  For example, skirts can be made with a hem that can be let down as the child grows and as long as there is enough seam allowance then the fit of a garment can be altered by unpicking and then re-stitching. So then seam allowance is like ‘handles’ on either side of a video clip or a physical film clip? The idea of saving the trims is interesting too. In terms of cloth and stitch, especially making clothes, it is the cut that is more permanent and decisive than with film editing perhaps? Because if you cut the fabric too small or short then it is difficult to stitch a piece back in without it looking obvious, whereas you suggest that ‘trims’ can be re-inserted ‘seamlessly’(!)

> 2) I imagine stitching is usually done more or less linearly: you start with one piece, add another and another -- the work grows and gets larger as you go. Film editing, especially narrative work, OTOH, is typically a process of subtraction. a) The editor first cuts all the discrete shots from the original — camera start to camera stop — and hangs them in a bin. b) Then they’re spliced into one long reel — called an assembly — in the rough order you expect they’ll appear, with multiple possibly-usable takes one after the other: S1T1, S1T2, S1T3, S2T1, STT2, S3T1 etc. c) From then on, it’s mainly subtraction: choosing which takes to discard, deciding to disacrd whole shots or sequences, shortening the shots to the proper in-and-out points. This is why you often hear that feature films had really long rough cuts at one point — ‘legendary 4 hour version’ … that’s normal, and those are never intended to be finished products. The operative maxim that oftens applies to student films: “I didn’t have enough time to make it shorter!’

This all depends what is being stitched. If it's making clothes, then the order of stitching all depends on the construction of the garment, which may well be dictated by a pattern, unless you are freestyling making a garment. The cloth is rolled out or spread out, a larger piece of cloth is cut from the roll, then smaller pattern pieces of cloth are measured, pinned and cut, then stitched, so I think of this as assembling rather than a process of addition. The pinning of the pieces together would be like the assembly, and then the trying on and stitching up with adjustments would be like the rough cut to final cut process. For example,  people have multiple fittings for a wedding dress or a tailored suit before the final garment is worn. 

Thanks again for your comments, very stimulating and helpful. I’d love to know what you think. 

On 2 Dec 2018, at 19:12, Dave Tetzlaff <djtet53 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Mary:
> 
> You might want to pick up an old filmmaking book that covers the different processes on physical editing of photochemical film. E.g. Lenny Lipton’s “Independent Filmmaking”.
> 
> 
> A. There are two methods of putting the cut pieces of film together: 
> 1) glue splices and 
> 2) tape splices. 
> • Both forms of splice are easily visible, the tape will have little bubbles on the frames on either side of the cut. The glue splice makes a noticable lap joint on one side of the cut.
> 
> B. There are two broad categories of workflow: 
> 1) Cutting the camera original of reversal stock directly. This would be how most 8mm and Super8 ‘amatuer’ films were made. It’s also how “Meshes of the Afternoon was put together (you can see the laps of the glue splices).
> 2) Striking a ‘workprint’ copy, editing that (typically with tape splices), then ‘conforming’ the original into 'A and B rolls’ There are two rolls, each running the length of the finished fedit, but with only half of the shots: The A roll would have the originbal footage of all the odd shots, and black leader corresponding to the even shots, the B roll vice versa. These rolls are assembled with glue splices, the lap of each splice going over into the black leader, so no actual exposed frames become fogged by the glue. Then you send the rolls off to the lab, with instructions, and they marry them into a single print with invisible splices.
> • Conforming negative film stock is a tricky business that requires an ultra-clean environment, so few filmmakers do that themszelves. Thus, for most ‘traditional’ 16mm film work, the only creative editing is done with/on a workprint.
> 
> C. There are two basic tools for film editing, 
> 1) An edit bench with hand rewinds and a simple viewer. This is all you need to cut a silent film (or one with a not-precisely synced ‘wild’ soundtrack) 2) a ‘flatbed’ editing table (Steenbeck and Moviola being the most common makes) that motorizes the shuttling of film, and keeps the film in sync with one or more audio tracks recorded on mag stock (perforated film covered with magnetic particles like audio tape instead of film emulsion). A flatbed is more or less necessary to edit films with sync sound, whether lip-sync or just precise sync for added music, sfx, narration…
> 
>> the hypothesis that film can be compared to fabric and editing to stitching.
> 
> Hmm. From the standpoint of what motion picture editing is conceptually, there’s really no analogy. But then. conceptualy, editing is editing, no matter how it’s done. OTOH, the actual physical work may be comoparable in some ways, and it would make sense that this physical process inflects the conceptual work in some ways. That’s certainly been suggested by folks who have edited both by actually cutting film and doing it all by computer. [There’s also typically a difference between film original and video original: since video is cheaper to shoot you tend to wind up with a lot more footage, more repeated takes, and that can be both a blessing and a curse…]
> 
> Some ways the conceptual (and physical) prosesses are different: 
> 1) The whole point of editing workprint is you can try an edit, see how it works, then change your mind… at any point. That is, after you’re ‘finished’ you can go back and change the trim on the first cut you made. I don’t think of stitching as temporary. Workprint is always edited with tape splices, so you can pull the splices apart to change them. [You save your trims in case you want to put a few frames back in]. 
> 2) I imagine stitching is usually done more or less linearly: you start with one piece, add another and another -- the work grows and gets larger as you go. Film editing, especially narrative work, OTOH, is typically a process of subtraction. a) The editor first cuts all the discrete shots from the original — camera start to camera stop — and hangs them in a bin. b) Then they’re spliced into one long reel — called an assembly — in the rough order you expect they’ll appear, with multiple possibly-usable takes one after the other: S1T1, S1T2, S1T3, S2T1, STT2, S3T1 etc. c) From then on, it’s mainly subtraction: choosing which takes to discard, deciding to disacrd whole shots or sequences, shortening the shots to the proper in-and-out points. This is why you often hear that feature films had really long rough cuts at one point — ‘legendary 4 hour version’ … that’s normal, and those are never intended to be finished products. The operative maxim that oftens applies to student films: “I didn’t have enough time to make it shorter!’
> _______________________________________________
> FrameWorks mailing list
> FrameWorks at jonasmekasfilms.com
> https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/pipermail/frameworks/attachments/20181204/e1e6e83c/attachment.html>