History Of Editing

History Of Editing

Lumiere Brothers - The Lumiere Brothers (Anguste Marie Louis Nicolas Lumiere, Louis jean lumiere) the inverters of film, they were also French and basically made cinema. They are also the sons of Antoine Lumiere who was a well know Lyons based portrait painter. Louis was the one who discovered a processes what was the development of photography, he developed a new (dry plate) plate in 1881 when he was 17, it came known as 'Etiquette Bleue' this had actually helped his fathers business. A factory was the built soon after to manufacture the plates in the Monplaisir quarter of the Lyons Suburbs. By 1894 the Lumiere Brothers were creating around 15,000,000 plates a year! This made Antonie a successful and also a well known business man. He was then invited to a demonstration of Edison's Peephole Kinetoscope in Paris. By early 1895 the Lumiere Brothers had invented their own device combining a camera, printer and also a projector and they called it the Cinematographe. The Lumiere Brothers used a film speed of 16 frames per second! They had their first screening that happened on the 22nd of March 1895 at Rue de Rennes in Paris which was at an industrial meeting where a film was shown especially for the occasion. 

They then had excitement surrounding the new technology in preparation for their first actual public screening what happened on the 28th of December at the Grand Cafe on Paris Boulevard Capuhines. This is the listings that they had one to show that day:

• La Sortie de usines Lumière (1894)
• La Voltige (1895) 
• La Peche aux poissons rouges (1895) 
• La Débarquement du congres de photographie a Lyons (1895) 
• Les Forgerons (1895) 
• L’ Arroseur arrose (1895) Repas de bebe (1895) 
• Place des Cordeliers a Lyon (1895)
• La Mer (1895)

After this The Lumiere Brothers were then began to open theatres to show people their films which then actually became known as the cinema. In the first four months of 1896 they had opened cinemas (Cinematographic) in London, Brusseks, Belgium and New York. 

George Melies - George Melies was the one who created the Jump Cut, when The Lumiere Brothers unveiled their Cinematographe to the public on December the 28th 1895 Melies was in the audience watching. After the show he had then approached The Lumiere Brothers with a view to buying their machine but unfortunately they had turned him down. He was that determined to investigate moving pictures he sought out Robert Paul in London and viewed his camera, projector building his own, soon afterwards. He was then able to present his first film screening on the 4th of April 1896. He then started by screening other peoples films - mainly those that were made for the Kinetoscope but within months he was making and showing his own work, his first films being one reel, one shot views lasting about one minute. Melies job to the cinema was the combination of traditional theatrical elements to motion pictures. He sought to present spectacles of a kind not even possible in live theatre.

In the autumn of 1896 something happened which has since passed into film folklore and changed the way that George looked at filming. While he was filming a simple street scene Melies' camera jammed and it took him a couple of seconds to rectify the problem. Thinking no more about what had happened, he carried on the film and was struck by the effect such a incident had on that scene. Then objects suddenly appeared, disappeared or were transformed into other objects. Melies the discovered from his incident that cinema had the capacity for manipulating and distorting time and space. He then expanded upon his initial ideas and devised some complex special effects. These are the things that he had pioneered

• The first double exposure (La Caverne Maudite 1898)
• The first split screen with performers acting opposite themselves (Un Homme De Tete 1898)
• The first dissolve (Cendrillon 1899). 

He tackled a wide range of different subjects as well as the fantasy films usually associated with him also including advertising films and serious dramas. He was also the first one ro present nudity on screen with (Apres le Bal). Faced with a shrinking market once the novelty of his films began to wear off, he abandoned film production in 1912. He was then forced to turn his innovative studio onto a Variety theatre and resumed his pre-film career as a showman in 1915. In 1923 he was declared bankrupt and his beloved Theatre Robert Hpudin was demolished. George nearly disappeared into obscurity until the late 1920's when his substantial contribution to cinema was recognised by the French and he was presented with the Legion of Honour and given a rent free apartment where he spent the rest of his life. He then dies in 1938 with making over five hundred films in total, financing, directing, photographing and staring in nearly everyone one.

Edwin Porter - Edwin Porter joined the Vitascope Marketing Company in 1895 where his experience with electrical engineering was called into use. While his time being there he was in the organisation of the first projected movie show in New York on the 23rd of April 1896. He then continued his engineering skills in the laboratory at Edison's Manufacturing Company but left to become a freelance projectionists at the Eden Musee Theatre in 1898. One of his many duties included the illegal duplication of George Melies films, he would look for one act to take apart and combine several of these into a fifteen minute programme. He then attempted to make his own camera and his own projector but because his effort wasn't good enough he then returned to Edison's Company in 1900, not as an engineering capacity but as a producer and also director at Edison's East 21st Street Skylight studio. He was a fan of George Melies so he tried to emulate the trick photography which Melies had introduced to the world and had proved incredibly successful in films such as:

• The Finish of Bridget McKeen (1901)
• Jack and the Beanstalk (1902)

Edwin was also one of the first directors to shoot at night in him "Pan-American Explosion by Night". He carried on with what he was doing he made a lot more movies but then after 6 years later in 1915 he then returned to his first enthusiasm (Protectors) and remained involved with projection for the rest of his working life.

D.W Griffiths - D.W Griffiths was the one who was first to do Continuity Editing, in 1897 he set out to persure a career for acting and also writing for the theatre but for the most part he was unsuccessful. So he agreed to then act in the new motion picture medium for Edwin S. Porter at the Edison's Company. Griffith was then offered a job at the financially struggling American Mutoscope & Biography Co., where he directed over four hundred and fifty short films, experimenting with the story telling techniques he would later perfect in his epic (The Birth of a Nation, 1915).

Griffith and his personal cinematographer G.W. Bitzwe decided to create and perfect such as cinematic devices such as a (Flash-Back), The Iris Shot, The Mask and Cross-Cutting. In the years following (Birth) he then never seen the same monumental success as his signature film and in 1931 his increasing failures forced his retirement. He was then similarly criticised for his blatant racism and then died in Los Angeles in 1948, one of the most dichotomous figures in film history. 

Montage Editing

Montage - Montage is French for 'Assembling' or 'editing' clips. Montages include images or clips that are put together to tell a story. There is a different with Continuos Editing and Soviet Montage, continuos editing is basically the movie based in the same location and same time. The principle contribution of 'Soviet' film theorists to global cinema was Montage Theory. Soviet Montage is also the approach to understanding and creating cinema that relies heavily upon editing.