Film Editing and Production: Techniques and Elements
Film Editing Techniques
Transitions: Narrative scoring elements operating inside the assembly.
- The Cut: Direct transition between shots, the most common way to link maps. It gives momentum to the story, removing the unnecessary, and the *raccord* needs to maintain continuity.
- The Fade: The image gradually disappears and goes to black or another narrative color. Used to mark the passage of time, indicate the end of a block, or the start of a new situation.
- The Dissolve: One image gradually disappears as another image gradually appears. Uses include marking a period of time or temporal ellipses, showing a continuing action while maintaining adequate clear space.
- Effects: Overlays, inlays, displacement of an image, curtains, and digital effects. Uses include moving from one medium to another, marking a total change of location, or indicating a temporal ellipsis with evident spatial continuity.
Lighting in Film
Lighting: The impact of an image is due to the manipulation of light. It is one of the most determinant components of staging. It contributes to the overall composition of the plane, leads the viewer’s attention, and creates reflections and shadows.
Types of Shadows
- Attached Shadows: Occur when light fails to illuminate part of an object due to the characteristics of its surface.
- Projected Shadows
Characteristics of Lighting
- Quality: Relative intensity of illumination – hard light and soft light.
- Hard Light: Defined shadows, sharp contours, like the midday sun.
- Soft Light: Softer contrast between lights and shades, like an overcast sky.
- Direction: The path of light from its source to the illuminated object.
- Front Lighting: Eliminates shadows, creating a uniform appearance with no separation from the background.
- Side Lighting: Used to sculpt character traits.
- Backlighting: Comes from behind the illuminated subject, set at various angles. It outlines the subject and can be combined with other light sources.
- Under Lighting: Comes from under the subject, distorting the features.
- Top Lighting: High light that highlights the line of the cheekbones.
Light Sources
Even outdoors, filmmakers need light sources to achieve desired effects.
- Key Light: The primary source, providing dominant illumination and casting the most pronounced shadows.
- Fill Light: Less intense, it softens the shadows cast by the key light.
- Three-Point Lighting: Each time the camera is changed, the lights must be adjusted. It consists of the key light, the fill light, and the backlight.
Lighting Styles
- High-Key Lighting: Soft quality of light, low contrast, airy shadows, and a photogenic purpose.
- Low-Key Lighting: Sharper contrasts, darker shadows, hard quality of light, softer backlight, with brightly lit areas and areas completely in shadow.
Color
Two main color temperatures are used: daylight (white) and interior lamps (soft yellow).
The Power of Sound in Film
Sound: A very expressive element, it constructs important aspects of the images separately. It is easily manipulated, and by not paying attention to it, a different way of perceiving is created.
Elements of the Soundtrack
- Voice, word, dialogue
- Music
- Environmental sound effects
The Voice
- Dialogue articulated by characters
- Voice-over
Commentary
Explains what the image cannot clarify. It should not fall into systematic redundancy with the images. Functions include providing data to help understand the image, creating an appropriate climate, guiding attention, and serving as a resource in transitions.
Synchronized Dialogue
Dialogue is the main component of the soundtrack. The sound corresponds temporally with the image. Functions include completing the action and characterization of characters through their behavior and stage presence.
Music
Fundamental since silent films, movies used to have live music. It is able to create an appropriate climate, establish mood, and give rhythm to images. Functions include rhythm, drama, and lyrical expression.
Sound Effects
Used to give a greater sensation of reality.
- Integral Objective Realism: Strictly physical.
- Subjective Listener Realism: Psychologically reproduced sound.