The Use of Moving Images in the 1900s

In the early 1900s film being to emerge with the use of multiple photos, to create a moving image. As film began to grow, film makers being to cut the strips of footage they had captured, resulting in editing to become a stage in the production of film editing. One of the early films to use editing was

Once filmmakers began editing their films, their only tool was nothing more than scissors and tape or glue. The work was painstakingly meticulous, and the editors, who were actually called cutters in those days, had to hold up the strips of film to the light, often with the help of a magnifying glass, to determine the specific cut points.

There were actually quite a few jobs in the editing room, and that came from the way that the film had to be cut.

Now first, because motion picture film operated on a negative system, the film was shot, and then, the director and editors would choose which footage to print, and both a negative and positive work print were generated.

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The negative was kept pristine, and it wasn't actually physically cut at first. The positive version of the film, the work print, is what was edited. It could be handled as much as needed, so it was scratched and trimmed, taped back up, dropped on the floor. It took a lot of abuse.

But, once all the final editing decisions had been made with the work print, then the negative, which had been kept pristine this whole time, was cut to match the editing decisions from that work print.

This was called negative conforming, and needless to say, it was an extremely meticulous job, matching up the negative splices to the exact frame, because in the very early days, there weren't even numbers to match up. At that time, most cutters and negative conformists were actually working-class women.

Okay, so back to those very early days for a bit here, and this sort of serves as our segue into the powerful machine called the Moviola. We've talked a lot about the simple methods and simple tools, and through it all, there were a lot of undesirable conditions with the entire process. Aside from the long hours, overly tedious work, the eye strain from looking at tiny frames all day, and the overall lack of recognition in the industry, these early editors were a bit handicapped in how they worked.

They were unable to actually watch the film as the editing was being performed, holding editors back in their ability to establish the proper rhythm and pacing of their scenes. In 1917, Dutch electrical engineer Iwan Serrurier, created a machine called the Moviola, so that people could watch films in their homes. It wasn't too popular though, because it cost a lot. About 600 dollars at the time, which is about the same as 20,000 dollars now.

After failing to find success in the home viewing market, he realised his invention could be adapted and used by film editors so that they could watch their film as they edit it. This resulted in the Moviola being created in 1924. The first to use this was Douglas Fairbanks, before being quickly picked up by other big studios. For the first time ever, film editors were able to really look at their footage to determine where to cut, instead of having to go frame by frame. It became the industry standard and revolutionized editing. This was because of its speed, efficiency, and technique. When silent films were replaced by talkies in the late 1920's, Serrurier installed sound heads for optical sound, turntables for disc recordings and viewers were built for all types of film. These included a 16 millimeter, 35 millimeter, 65 millimeter, and 70 millimeter viewers. A projector was added along with synchronizers, rewinders, sound readers, and preview machines. The upright Moviola was extremely popular, up until the 1970's. This was due to the fact that in the 1970's, another type of editing machine grew in popularity, the flatbed.

Continuity editing is the process of combining related shots or different components cut from a single shot, into a sequence to direct the audience’s attention to a pre-existing consistency across both time and a physical location. Continuity editing can be divided into two sub categories, temporal continuity and spatial continuity. Techniques can be used to create a physical narration to follow or discontinuous, causing viewer disorientation. Temporal continuity is persevered by avoiding the ellipsis, continuous diegetic sound and using the match of action technique. Temporal discontinuity can be created by the use of ellipsis. Spatial continuity can be created by using the establishing shot, 180 degree rule, eye line match and match on action. It can become spatially discontinuous by cross-cutting and using jump cuts.