As mentioned earlier in this post the Lumiere Brothers were the first editors, making the earliest of films. Although there were no cuts in these films as they did not know how, so these films came out as static one shot pieces. Here is a video showing some examples of their films, as you can see these films are just one shot and one camera angle.
Edwin Porter then became a renowned editor working for Thomas Edison’s company directing the famous film The Great Train Robbery. He was famous for his use of cuts in his films, this was a new technique and after the release of The Great Train Robbery gained momentum in use.
As you can see there is a vast amount of cuts in this film, although the camera angle is always that of a long shot.
D.W Griffith was known as the first editor, he was an essential in the development of the film industry. He introduced what we call the narrative of the film and also the close up shot, the narrative in my opinion being his most important contribution, because without this films would be harder to understand. Without giving a backstory, or an explanation of what is going on films would be confusing for the audience for example a film that uses a narrative is Star Wars with the explanation at the beginning setting the scene and explaining what is happening at that moment in the Star Wars timeline. Charlie Chaplin described D.W Griffith as the father of us all (from a film point of view) in that without him film would not be what it is today. With many famous directors speaking of their respect for him ranging from Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock.
It is also surmised that he was the first to understand that different camera techniques allowed the film maker to use an expressive language, what I think this means is that it allowed the director to express their meaning through the camera techniques, for example a close up shot of a certain character to show their importance within the story. And Griffiths attention to camera placement and lighting developed and heightened the mood and also the tension. This is called positioning the audience, what this means is that the director does things in a certain way to make the audience feel how the director wants them to feel, using different techniques to manipulate the audiences feelings.
In film flashbacks are sometimes used to go back to a certain point in the film or to show something that happened further in the past of the films timeline, if used correctly flashbacks can be used in a complex and professional way, D.W Griffith was the first to use this technique. He used it in his film Intolerance.
The creator of the flashback technique in cinema was D.W. Griffith. One of the earliest examples is a single shot of a mother rocking a cradle, repeated many times representing the passing of generations, in his film Intolerance (1916).Parallel action is where two scenes are taking place at the same time, an example of that is this scene from the Silence of the Lambs. It shows that parallel action can be used to confuse the audience into thinking something is happening when in actual fact it isn’t and it is something else entirely.
Alfred Hitchcock has been described as the master of suspense, whos films have stood the test of time to become instant classics films such as Psycho and Vertigo, the main technique he is remembered for is one that mimics some ones gaze. He made sure that the shots he did in film conveyed the message he wanted to get a cross in a sense controlling and manipulating people’s feelings to become fearful, anxious or empathic feelings.
Others
- Eisenstein
- Jean Luc Godard
- George Lucas
- Tarantino