Task Ten – Understanding Pace

Speed of Editing

Each scene of a film may last a matter of a second, or it could follow minutes but the length of each sequence establish the pace of the film moving the acting along.The speed of editing is to determine the mood of what is taking place on screen, for example if the mood is angry like in an action film the scenes will be faster like in The Bourne Ultimatum. But if is is a romantic film it will be more slower because people will tend to be more happier and soother like for example in the Notebook, when they were on the boat and they basically showed the whole scene for something that felt like 30m and after if it wasn't enough, when they got off the boat they showed the whole process of him taking the boat out, and her walking down the shore bridge.In a beginning of a film the scenes need to be slower and longer, so we can see where we are, and whats going on, so we can understand the story. As the film progresses the scenes need to be shorter and quicker, so a lot of editing is going to be used, sow e wont watch unnecessary scenes.

But it isn't always this easy some films are unedited, this might sound fun but it really isn't. An example for this would be the film Russian Ark, in this film you cant really see that it wasn't edited because the director made sure to do everything right and not leave any gaps, Russian Ark was made in one take, using a Steadicam and a  digital camera. This required spicing timed seconds and organization.   

Another type of thing that needs editing is a trailer, a trailer needs to be packed in detail, from the whole film, therefore everything needs to be very fast. A trailer needs to be filled with every essential of the film so the viewer feels anxious and curious. By showing everything in the trailer the viewer will wan tot watch the film and a whole, trailers are like a taste of the film, if you feel like you are going to like it you will buy it and eat it.

Cross Cutting

Cross cutting is the technique to link two sequences together that the audience need to realize that are connected in the same way.

This is when two things are happening in the same location, or when a multiple amount of people are going to the same place. An example of this could be a character reliving a memory.

Developing Drama

Cross Cutting is usually used to show a sense of drama,to make the audience feel something, like for example if someone is being killed in one scene you would see the person being killed in the other scene you would see someone coming near the person being killed, the viewer would feel sympathy because they knew that the person had a 50/50 % , because you don't know what is in the producers mind. This happened in the scream movie, in the beginning when Casey was murder, in this scene is made more dramatic by the cross cutting to her parents approaching her home, and almost making it on time to  save her. 

Cutaways

Cutaway is used to reveal details to the audience without distracting from the narrative or the action.This is basically used to make a longer sequence.This has to do with the speed of editing, if you don't want to whole film to be 5 sec long, you will have to make each story-line long enough but not to long that just turns boring, so cutaways are used to make that happen. This also has a lot to do with engaging the viewer, by not being boring, and super long people will be engaged to it and want to watch the whole thing.