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Bigricker12
student_resp_topic_1.docxAARON:
Hello All,
After watching all the films in Week Two’s content (with the exception of The Birth of a Nation) discuss at least 5 storytelling/narrative/plot) devices or editing choices that you have seen in recent films or TV shows. How did these devices or choices help drive the story? Then link those narrative techniques to the films you watched.
A: The five editing choices that I am stoked to talk about this week includes: close ups on actors, cross cutting, continuity editing, contiguity editing, and shot reverse shot.
· Close ups. He has the golden idol, his whip as well, but he did not know that a boulder was about to squash him like a bug. Who can forget the zoom in and close up of Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark? It makes sense that the average person would crap themselves upon realizing a few ton boulder is about to bid them a crushing defeat, but not for Indiana Jones. The audience shares in the pending disaster through the editing technique of a close up. As the camera pans in, we are able to see that the hero is just as worried about himself as the audience is. It is that conveyed emotion that draws us back to classics like the Indiana Jones series time and time again!
· Inception is an action movie that used cross cutting quite well. Cross cutting (Moura, 2014) is the technique of alternating between two or more scenes that are happening simultaneously but in different locations. It is down pouring in an American city while two gunmen on a motorcycle attempt to hijack a fifteen passenger bus. At the same time one of the stars of the movie is engaged in a battle of fisticuffs with a man in a hotel hallway. It turns out that the fight in the hallway is not happening in the real world, rather while the passengers in the van are in some sort of dream like state. As the van rolls off the road and flips side over side, the viewer notices that gravity is affected in the dream reality based on the orientation of the rolling van. The viewer is only aware of this phenomenon because of the use of cross cutting in nothing less than a superior manner.
· Continuity editing is the art of hiding the editing process from the viewer because the dialogue and actual scene convey enough information for the audience to understand what is happening. (Cameroon, 2012). The body is what is left after the dead guy mouthed off to the wrong good fella. As the body is being dragged out of the establishment where the murder took place, one of the men dragging the body tells the good fella who killed that man that they will take the body to his mother’s house. The scene transitions from the body being dragged through a building to a car pulling into a driveway. The audience is able to draw the conclusion that the body has been loaded into the car, and that the car has arrived to the house of the good fella’s mother without having to see those actual scenes unfold. The movie is of course the instant classic Goodfellas.
· Contiguity editing can be explained as simple as cutting from one scene to another, but to be more accurate; contiguity editing is used to follow characters through space and allow the audience to follow the narrative of a movie more easily (Lopez, 2014). Please watch any of the Fast and Furious films to view an abundant use of contiguity editing.
· Shot reverse shot is typically used in dialogue sequences where one camera focuses on one actor speaking at a time (Mott, n.d.). The numbers of examples of this editing technique are numerous to say the least, but to get a good idea of what shot reverse shot looks like you need to search no further than the prologue of a movie titled Hard Eight (Mott)
References
Mott, P. (n.d.). For the Sake of Conversation: On shot reverse shot. Retrieved on January 14, 2017 from http://www.aotg.com/index.php?page=shotreverseshot
Lopez, R. (2014). Editing Techniques. Retrieved on January 14 2017 from https://storify.com/ranierlopez/editing-techniques
Cameroon. (September 27, 2012). Continuity Editing. Retrieved on January 14, 2017 from http://newcollegefilmandtelevision.blogspot.com/2012/09/continuity-editing.html
Moura, G. (July 1, 2014). Parallel Editing. Retrieved on January 14, 2017 from http://www.elementsofcinema.com/editing/parallel-editing/
This is an interesting topic to me because I feel that it is fascinating how some film makers have demonstrated the ability to employ certain devices in order to make the film itself an actual character. Starting with my favorite new director, Alejandro Inarritu, who first got the world's attention with "Birdman" which had an interesting take on the film industry itself: he seemed to be sneering at the popularity of the Marvel and Transformers franchises. In the middle of this he employed the device of absurdity when his character, living a normal life, is suddenly thrown into a scene straight from one of the sci-fi blockbusters complete with monsters, heroes, and comic book action.
A second device that immediately comes to mind is prologue, especially since there is an interesting one in my favorite movie, "The Big Lebowski." In this film Sam Elliott introduces the main character through a folksy prologue full of witticisms and opinions about different things that will play a part in the movie.
I also have to mention ad-lib because I'm an admirer of Marlon Brando's ability in particular to do so. The first thing that comes to mind is his iconic "I coulda been a contender" speech in "On The Waterfront" which was completely ad-libbed. Brando was a master of ad-lib, even to the point of stroking a cat at the beginning of "The Godfather" which again was unscripted but the actor felt that doing so added a layer to the character.
I also thought about the device of the "locked down shot" in "Reservoir Dogs" which I watched again recently...this was employed during a horrifying scene where a gangster is cutting a police officer's ear off. The camera is slightly off while the audience has to listen to muffled screams and a radio. The shot works because it is very tense and the audience knows what is happening.
Finally ,the device of ambient lights which I mention because I feel that my favorite all time director Stanley Kubrick was amazing at this. I enjoyed the lighting in his last film "Eyes Wide Shut" especially in the fancy homes of the wealthy Tom Cruise character and those of his friends. Elsewhere the movie is quite dark which makes one wonder if there is a message that one's life is brightest when he is home with his family.
