Task one Editing on Early Cinema

Editing is used everywhere in our media Industry, from images to videos.This blog will show you the big improvement that film editing had. In the early 50s, editing was not as easy as it is now, film editing was hard work and took long hours. In this Unit I will be talking about how the early films were edited,the developments of early cinema, who were the big men that helped improve the film Industry and how they Improved it. 

In this blog I will be sharing my knowledge about:

• Thomas Edison
• The Lumiere brothers
• GA Smith 
• George Méliès
• Edwin S.Porter
• and how all of them improved film editing.

Thomas Edison


If you are the type of person that enjoys watching films, you should be thanking Thomas Edison.
Thomas was born in February 11, 1847, in Milan Ohio US, and died on October 18,1931 at age 84.
Edison began his career at a young age, the invention that made him be recognised was the phonograph.
At just the age of 22 Thomas Edison quit his job to become a full-time Inventor, Edison was the first person to do film editing , he opened a laboratory where he invented the Kinetograpic camera and the Kinestocope .Edison was the first person to make a film,he made it on a long real footage which when all put together would become a film, he called it the 35mm film strip, he also created a projector to play the film on, so everyone could watch it easily.
His invention became important because he gave people the chance to watch other people inside of a screen, at that time that was like a miracle, because most people didn't even know that was possible.

The Lumiere brothers

Edison and the lumiers worked together and they made short films, like for example Sortie d`usine which was made in 1895. The film was  less than a minute long and it showed workers leaving a factory after work, others films showed moving traffic or other types of activities, this may not sound as interesting now, but it amused people at that time because film didn't exist, it was a new thing never seen before, and people believed that if they can do that in this film, in means that the next ones would be even better, and for who at the time didn't have cinema or theater it definitely was an exciting thing.

GA Smith 

Smith was the one that took editing  a step forward, he was the first person to include a Story in a film and make it longer, the previously films were plain activities with no story and less than a minute long.Smith made a film called The Miller and the Sweep in 1897,in this film you see 

a man with a flour bag that gets hit by another man, we could say  that the film had a little bit of action and comedy because they started hitting each other with the bags that were on their shoulders and right after that they get chased by a group of people, the funny thing is that no one  knows why and that is what it makes the film entertaining. 

His other film was "The Kiss in the Tunnel"this one also had a story line, the film starts with the outside of a train, that was filmed by putting a camera on a train and filming while the train was moving then the  train goes inside a tunnel, because a black tunnel wouldn't be a fun thing to watch they cut it and added a different scene, a scene that shows a room with a lady and man kissing, the kissing scene was another step forward because at that time kissing was still something sacred and watching two people making out on a screen  could have been kinda of a surprise, straight after that it shows the outside of the train, this was a risky one because they weren't probably sure if the audience would understand it, but the audience realises that the room was the inside of the train, and that anything that they would see afterwards  would be something to do with the train.This film was the beginning of  Narrative editing, and that was a big deal because it meant that the film industry was already improving and it was happening fast.

George Méliès

Méliès was a French magician that saw the possibility of earning money while doing something he liked magic, he had the idea of using his magic in films and do things that he couldn't do in real life. Méliès first film was the Vanishing Lady, in this film you could see a lady and George himself , his plan was to make people think that he could make the lady vanish so that's what he did , using the method of in camera editing he threw a blanket over the woman that was sitting down on a chair,
when the blanket was over the woman,he removed the blanket and by that time the woman had vanished.You probably asking "how did this happen" In between the process he stopped the camera for the woman to walk off the stage, then he turned  the camera back on, with the camera on  a skeleton appeared, which landed on the chair, Méliès covers the chair again while the skeleton is on it then uses the same method again to make look like the lady appeared back on to the chair.This improved the way people edited because, Méliès found a new way to edit, by stopping the camera and play it again,so you could make stuff off camera to make a film seem more interesting. He did that with the idea of becoming famous and rich, but that was not what happened instead no one believed his films and he died poor and lonely.

Edwin S.Porter

Porter was another cause of advance in early editing,he worked as an electrician,then he joined a film laboratory of Thomas Edison in the late 1890.Their plan was to improve the duration of the films by  making them longer,and that dream was successful when they created a film called A life of an American Fireman in 1903,  it was a success because it had action and a plot and even a close up, and it was 6 minutes long.
A life of an American film was 6 minutes long, longer than ever before and it showed the day to day of a firemen.They leave the station with their horse drawn pumper, arrive on the scene, and effect the safe rescue of a woman from a burning house. But wait, she tells them of her child yet asleep in the burning bedroom, and they go back to save her. He also made a film called Train Robbery in 1903. Train robbery was more of an action film, the film was about  a group of robbers that robed a train,  the first thing you see is a small group of men attempting to get inside a train, then  bunch of different  scenes appear,  at that time you could see that hey were experimenting with editing and using the art of in camera editing a lot more.

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Charles Pathe 

Charles was born in December 26 of  1863 and died on December 25 of 1857, .made a film called Bolt in 1907. Phate was born in France and raised by his butcher father, Charles and his brother Emile Phate created the Société Phate Frerer  together. Phate made a film called the runaway horse In his film  Pathe used a new technique called parallel editing, which was used to show a story line between the horse and his owner In this film you would be able to see a story line, about a man that delivers laundry, and he left his horse outside while he is delivering the laundry the horse eats a full bag of oats, an by the time he gets back the horse begins to race out of control.

D.w. Griffith

Griffith was born in the USA,he made a film called the Birth of the Nation in 1915, this film was the longest film ever and even longer than most films now a days, Birth of Nation used a technique called cross cutting, by showing action in a lot of different areas.The Birth of Nation was the longest movie ever, in the film was used every single type of editing skills they knew at the time, and even new ones,this film was 3 hours long.