Editing skills of classic Hollywood film directors

Editing skills of classic Hollywood film directors

Since 1980s, in the development of China's film art, the introduction of long lens style, the development of wide screen (including screen shielding) and the development of TV art have had a significant impact on film editing ... Although the means of editing in creation seem to be more and more varied, at the same time, some concepts have become confused. So what are the editing techniques of Hollywood classic film directors? The following is for reference only!

Common editing methods are as follows:

1. In order to adjust the relationship between time and space, or extend the time to expand the space, increase drama rendering and adjust the rhythm, methods such as multi-use, repeated insertion and transplantation are adopted;

2. Digging and omitting the middle of the picture and splicing and extending the picture;

3. The absence and excavation of vocal cords, serial changes and displacements;

4. The method of connecting the lens with action and changing the lens with action illusion;

5. In order to get emotional aftertaste or sudden shock effect, special treatment of lens length is adopted;

6. Use the repeated jumps of short shots to enhance the rhythm of the plot, and use the static jumps of short shots to create a sense of momentum;

7. Use special "cut spaces" (refers to the stable moment caused by the number of pause spaces after the action and camera movement) to play the role of punctuation in film grammar;

8. Use additional optical techniques, such as hiding, revealing, changing, scribing and overprinting, or special techniques as the transition between scenes and paragraphs;

9. Shift adjustment, addition and deletion of drama paragraphs;

10, music and language editing (dialogue, narration, monologue, inner monologue, explanation) and natural sound configuration. Different editing methods can be adopted for films with different themes and styles.

Bipolar editing

A special montage technique is a combination of a close-up shot directly jumping to a panoramic shot or a panoramic shot directly jumping to a close-up shot. The combination of two-pole lenses can make the development of the plot change from dynamic to static or change in static, resulting in special artistic effects. The film adopts this combination form, giving the audience a strong sense of directness. A sudden change in rhythm will produce a special effect.

Step lens editing

In the same direction, the same person is connected with panoramic, middle, close-up and close-up pictures, or vice versa. This technique can only be used in specific scenes, in order to depict the inner world of the characters, emphasizing the contrast of modeling, rendering the atmosphere and strengthening the sense of rhythm.

Variable grid editing

One of the editing skills. In order to meet the special needs of the plot, the editor makes extraordinary changes to the action and time space in the process of combining the picture materials, which leads to the emphasis and exaggeration of the dramatic action and the enlargement or contraction of the time space. It is an important means to render emotions and atmosphere. Can directly affect the rhythm of the film.

The method to change the format is as follows: 1. The camera is shooting at a normal speed, but in order to enhance the audience's impression of what happened, directors and editors use editing methods to lengthen or shorten the time process and spatial distance from the occurrence, development to the end of an event or suspense; 2. In order to highlight the intensity of a character's emotions and actions, some action processes were cut out during the editing process.

Split shear

Cut a shot into several segments and use it in several places. Sometimes it is because there is not enough picture material needed, but it is impossible to make up the shot, so we have to divide a shot into several uses; Sometimes it is intentional to reuse a lens to express a person's feelings and memories; Sometimes it is to emphasize the unique symbolic meaning of a painting to make people think; Sometimes it is to echo from beginning to end, thus giving people a sense of rigor and integrity in artistic structure. If the shots of the same picture used in several places are shot in advance according to the structure of the script and the director's idea, it is not a editing technique.

Digging and shearing

In order to solve the regret and deficiency caused by some reasons in the shooting process of a lens, we adopt a method similar to surgical removal in medicine to remove some unnecessary performance processes, long pauses, and technical measures that must be removed because a push-pull action in the process of lens movement does not conform to the actor's performance.

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Make up for the lack of picture length by stitching. Due to various reasons and difficulties in the shooting process, some picture materials are not ideal. For example, shooting scenes of wildlife activities, animals don't listen to instructions and can't meet some special requirements of photographers. So sometimes, although it is shot many times and the number of feet is very long, the number of feet available is very short, which can not meet the requirements of length and rhythm. In this case, if there are spare shots with the same or similar painting content, cut their available parts and then splice them together to reach the necessary length of the picture.

Split shear insertion

In order to enhance the dramatic effect or make up for the shortcomings and deficiencies in the shooting process, two shots showing certain action content are divided into two, three or more segments in proportion, and then assembled alternately according to the development order of the story.

The following two kinds of problems can be solved by splitting and splicing:

1, in the process of editing, it is sometimes found that if two shots or a group of shots (such as two characters talking, quarreling, chasing or shooting at each other) are connected intact according to the original arrangement order stipulated in the storyboard, the shots will be too long and the rhythm will be too slow to express the emotional communication and psychological reaction between the characters in time and quickly, which not only weakens the intensity of drama conflict, but also dilutes the artistic appeal. Therefore, it is necessary to use the method of splitting and splicing to re-split and combine the original material, change the original slow rhythm, and make it compact, smooth and lively;

2. Sometimes the situation itself needs to clearly express someone's reaction to an event and a sentence, as well as the resulting intense inner activities and the sparks generated when two contradictory ideas collide with each other. However, in the process of editing, it is found that the material shot here lacks some shots to express the above content. In this case, we can divide the remaining scenes that have been used in the original material but meet the requirements of the specified situation into two or even several paragraphs as needed, and interweave them with other related montage factors, and use them repeatedly and alternately to render a certain mood and atmosphere, reveal a certain meaning or strengthen a certain drama climax.

insert shot

Also known as "clamping", cut off in the middle of one shot and insert another shot showing different objects. There are two kinds of shots: one is that in the process of a scene (such as a person walking on the road or sitting in a car looking out), the author and the director suddenly insert the subjective sight of a representative person in order to reveal a side or privacy of a person's life experience; It means that he inadvertently saw someone and something, and then intuitively felt or caused associations. The other is closely related to digging and shearing. Sometimes, in order to prevent the cut lens from showing traces and jumping, we have to insert the lens as an interval.

Action transition editing

With the help of people, animals, vehicles or war tools, action and dynamic potential are connected, and action similarity is used as a means of scene or time-space transformation. For example, fill the screen with the directional lens of the character to end a scene, and then use the character to leave the lens and go somewhere to start another scene. Use the momentum of cars, tanks and planes to pass or block the lens, and then pick up other vehicles or people to leave the lens; For example, at the end of one scene, the heroine slaps the hero, and at the beginning of the next scene, the hero throws himself on his bed in pain. Usually, the scene is changed by the way that the wheels of cars and trains fly and connect with the propellers of airplanes, which is also the editing of action transitions.

Close-up transition clip

The editing technology of ending a scene with close-up or unfolding another scene from close-up means that the last shot of a scene ends with a part of a person (such as head or eyes) or a close-up picture of an object; The latter refers to gradually expanding the field of vision from the close-up picture; To show the environment, characters and stories of another scene. Closing a scene with a close-up picture or opening a scene with a close-up picture is to emphasize the inner activities or emotions of the characters, and sometimes to express the concept of time and space and symbolic significance contained in an object and props (such as clocks, flashing red lights, crosses, etc.). ), thus creating a complete sense of paragraph. One of the main purposes of close-up transition is to unconsciously change the scene and narrative content when the audience's attention is focused on the expression of a character or an object without making people feel uncomfortable.

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