rhythm and editing

rhythm

  • how the duration of shot (a) relates to the duration of shot (b)

  • rhythm, therefore, describes a temporal property — but where the temporal dimension of editing refers to the represented reality of an edit, the rhythmic duration refers to its material duration. both have a temporal characteristic. but they are dffrerent characteristics

  • possibly the most complex and elusive dimension, as it arises from a whole range of factors aside from editing rhythm, such as the rhythm of movememnt within shots, and the rhythms of sound and music accompanying the shots

karen pearlman — ‘Cutting Rhythms’

  • puts rhythm at the center of editing

  • film editing as choreography: the rhythmic coordination of bodies, objects, camera movements and cuts

  • uses an analogy that film editing is dance

    • how we feel movement inside oursevles when we edit

cutting rhythms

  • how does an editor make decisions about when and where to cut to shape a film’s rhythm?

  • karen pearlman — rhythmic intuition — something we develop over time, through experience that is leared

    • implicit learning

      • much of our implicit learning is acquired through watching films, and also through our observation and participation in the world

    • expertise

      • skill, doesn’t require conscious thought

    • judgement

    • sensitivity

      • heightened attentiveness to movement and emotion in the material

    • creativity

    • rumination

      • coming to solutions whilst thinking about something else

intuition & movement

  • “the editor’s intuitive thinking is based in movement: movement of story, movement of emotion, movement of image and sound” — Pearlman, 2016: 14

  • “thinking rhythmically is what i call the intersection of the rhythms of the world and the rhythms of the editor’s body with the editor’s craft skills” (pearlman, 22)

  • editors shape movement

  • editors use kinaesthetic empathy and mirror neurons to understand movement’s expressive potential

  • editors respond with their own internal sense of movement to the movement that they perceive — embodied experience

rhythm & movement

  • rhythm is made up of movement

  • the universe itself contains rhythms, and we depend on these rhythms which are all ways in which we follow the rhythms of the world

  • when we perceive these rhythms, we are seeing, hearing and feeling movement

do we just purely notice these rhythms?

  • when an editor cuts intuitively, the body and brain are responding to movement

  • an editor can obtain a feeling for movement or kinaesthetic empathy, just as when we watch dance or sports, we may empathize with the movement we see

    • kinaesthetic empathy is feeling with movement

  • neuroscientific evidence suggests that we can obtain such a feeling for movement through mirror neurons — through brain activity, we mimic the movements that we see through mirroring as well as bodily memory

  • when we edit, we stand in for the spectator/viewer’s breathing, blinking etc. we measure the rhythms of the film’s breath, comparing it when the feeling of one’s own breathing

editing as a choeography

  • rhythm is bade up of patterns of movement

  • for an editor, movement activates their kinaestheic empathy and how they intuitively shape the film’s rhythm

  • pearlman cpmpares the creative process of editing to choreography, which is also a craft that shapes movement and rhythm

  • choreographers work with the dynamics of time, energy, space and flow just as editors work with these elements

dynamics

  • the function of rhythm in film is to create cycles of tension and release to engage the viewer emotionally, physiologically and cognitively

  • choreography and dancer rudolf laban’s effort theory, used primarily in dance, is a valuable way to consider how these cycles of tension and release can be created in film editing

units of rhythm in film

  • pulse

    • smallest and most constant

    • a film’s pulse can include accents on words, camera movements, colors, changes in light and anything else that moves in a shot

  • movement phrases

    • a coherent sequence of shots or moves that communicate a feeling or idea through their rhythm

    • the juxtaposition of different movement energies, timings and directions can express different things within a scene and the film as a whole

    • this isn’t simply about cuts but also the movement within the frame, such as the camera, dialogue, actors and the sound

types of rhythm

  • physical

    • movement patterns of image and sound create meaning directly

  • emotional

    • shaping the rise and fall of emotions in the characters and the viewer

  • event

    • movement of plot, movement of story or ‘structure’

physical, emotional & event rhythm

  • martin scorsese’s raging bull (1980) contains 8 fight sequences — expressionistic rather than realistic

  • only one camera was used ant there are only a few cuts of the audience

  • editor thelma schoonmaker was given free rein to cut the fight sequences. for the 13th round scene, she edited first for narrative structure and then reworked the scene for movement, lighting and effects (faller, 1997)

discontinuity, shock, smash, and power cuts

  • extreme discontinuity on at least one, or usually several of the 4 dimensions of editing:

    • scene from ragin bull: collusion editing, the camera frequently crosses the axis of action (180 rule), dolly zoom shot

    • a smash cut is effective when you want to change locations abruptly and/or change the tone of the scene

emotional rhythm

  • performance guides the cutting

  • blinks, pauses, hesitations, glances, swallows, twitches, sighs, sobs, smiles etc are all contractions and release of feeling

  • given that performances/scenes are often covered in more than one take and from more than one angle, interesting problems arise for the editor in terms of shaping emotional rhythm

emotional rhythm & actor’s movement

  • theater director vsevolod meyerhold’s influence on eisenstein had a key influence on the development of editing and film form. he suggested that movement should have 3 phases:

    • preperation

    • action

    • recovery

  • in editing, this is a way of seeing a trajectory through an actor’s movement

actions

  • if an editor can see the action, then they can discern a point at which the action has reached its optimal stage for the throw to achieve the impact they want to have on the viewer

  • murch — the rate and quality of the blinks, the breath, the tilt of the head, the purse of the lips, the raise of an eyebrow etc, are all movements that are effective in throwing emotion

  • beats — the point at which an actor changes or modifies their action. the beat gives the editor the opportunity to see the end of one emotional trajectory and the rise of another

event rhythms: questions and structures

  • dramatic questions

    • a question where something is at stake and an action implied