MEDIA LANGUAGE - Types of Editing

Types of editing:

DISCONTINUITY EDITING

vs CONTINUITY EDITING

NON-LINEAR EDITING

CUTS

• Cutting/Match on action 
• Cutaway, add an Insert Shot
• Cross-Cut
• Jump Cut
• Match Cut, this video says:  "jumps from one shot to a similiar shot by either matching the action or the composition", change in space mostly but also in time, it is not cutting on action because we are changing to a different moving subject/action, where as with cutting on action we're still following the same subject. Like in The Two Towers, when Gandalf falls after trying to heal the king 
• Verbal Match Cut, the diegetic sound spoken by one character is, is not the same as an audio bridge, because we there we can't see the first part spoken, here one sentence is completed by the other (like in Candalabra)

TRANSITIONS:

• Fade In & Fade Out
• Dissolve (The panning shot from one to another of Billy's room)
• Smash Cut, sudden abrupt change, often waking up from a dream (if I had done the dream where Billy dreams of kissing Rachel)
• Iris, an alternate way of cutting to or zooming in on a close-up 
• Wipes, simple square, or can be different types of shapes (like with the pool table)
• Invisible Cut, where it's made to look like that it's still one single take, but it really is done through camera angles, like in whip pans, or mise-en-scene, like lighting
• L-Cut, audio carries over but is different 
• J-Cut, same as audio bridge? Also difference that sometimes diegetic sound turns into non-diegetic sound. Also "the audio of the next scene starts before you get to it", you hear what's going on before you see what's going on. Also great to introduce a new element of a scene(Tom Hanks stepping on piano and hearing it before we see it)

Both L- and J-Cut are designed to create a seamless flow, continuity editing, to make it look real, to achieve verisimilitude.

CREATIVE COMBINATIONS

The Graduate: Match Cut into a J-Cut

Fight Club: Match J-Cut

Man on the Moon: Verbal Match J-Cut

Fight Club: Cross-Cutting Cutaway 

Mad Max, Fury Road: Cutaway Jump Cut

Adaptation: Jump Cut Cross Cut Smash Cut

REPRESENTATION/NARRATIVE THEORY: Levi-Strauss´'s Binary Opposition

"Conflict, the root of any narrative, is offered by binary opposition."

Theory that states narrative comes from conflict between two polar opposites, thereby the Proppian hero/protagonist and villain/antagonist will be the anthithesis of each other.

Or in the case of the antihero they could be struggling with opposite facets of their personality, the binary within themselves.

Male vs Female

Young vs Old

Urban vs Natural 
Humans vs Machine

NARRATIVE/REPRESENTATION THEORY: Propp's 7 Character Archetypes

Vladimir Propp was a Russian folklorist who looked at the basic plot structures of fairytales, a precursor of the study of popular culture.

His seven character archetypes from the study of fairytales, of folk culture, which is the first pop culture:

1. The Hero
2. The Villain
3. The Princess
4. The Dispatcher
5. The Donor
6. The False Hero
7. The Helper

Applied to Star Wars

1. The Hero, Luke Skywalker
2. The Villain, Darth Vader
3. The Princess, Princess Leia
4. The Dispatcher
5. The Donor
6. The False Hero
7. The Helper

Applied to Bridget Jones

1. The Heroine, Bridget Jones
2. The Villain & False Hero, Daniel Cleaver
3. The Prince, Mark Darcy
4. The Dispatcher, Bridget Jones's mother
5. The Donor, Bridget's father?
6. The Helper, Bridget's gang of friends 
7. The Father

Applied to Submarine

1. The Hero
2. The Villain
3. The Princess
4. The Dispatcher
5. The Donor
6. The False Hero
7. The Helper

Opening EG5 - The Danish Girl

WHAT I ENDED UP APPLYING

POSSIBLE POINTS OF INFLUENCE

The Danish Girl

Tom Hopper (2015)

BBFC 15, MPAA R

Running time of the opening sequence: 4:00 mins 

Lead actors: Eddie Redmayne, Alicia Vikander

Genre: Period drama

Budget: $m
UK/US/World Box Office: £k, $k, £k. 

Production co's:  
Production financing:   
UK, US theatrical distributors: Universal 
 
LINKS: IMDB; RottenTomatoes  BoxOfficeMojo; The-  Numbers; Wiki; Official site/page; Facebook; Twitter

TRAILER

IDENTS:

Two idents: Universal and vertically integrated subsidiary Working Title, as is always the case for Working Title their ident is dubbed over with diegetic sound, however in this case Universal also have been dubbed (has been done, as I saw in Shaun Of The Dead for example, and has been done in early examples such as The Breakfast Club). Pretty Pictures along with other companies's idents are not present. 

A landscape/extreme longshot

....

The rule of thirds is applied, background is in shallow focus. This anchors her as an important character, and without any foreknowledge of the film, one could immediately connote that she is the protagonist, the Danish Girl. 

The time and location is given through a white caption in white upper-case letters. Again reflection, connoting the theme of artistic expressionism.

...
ONE OR TWO PROTAGONISTS?
From the editing it appears that we are following a couple. It is not quite clear, for we follow the two home together, we see them in bed together. Following the husband eventually signifies that he is the main character overall of the narrative.
The actress Alicia Vikander was nominated for and won (ceremony) the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, there was some controversy that she hadn't been nominated for the Best Actress category.

SOUNDTRACK:
The diegetic sound of water and rushing wind is soon added to the incidental non-diegetic sound.

This, like Psycho, only consists of incidental music, unlike historical films of more recent times like This Is England ,there is no music of the time to play alongside the film. The classical-like soundtrack fits the melancholic atmosphere of the film.

My existing Media skills/experiences

In 2012 I was the boom operator in a short film, filming over a weekend in and around a housing estate. 
NOTE: It is in German, the narrative involves the protagonist trying to hide his mother's alcoholism (with the father having died recently) from his girlfriend who is at the door, who begins to think he is becoming an alcoholic.

In 2015/2016 in Art we had the choice to either do photography or a short film. I was in a group making a short film. However we didn't ac. As this wasn't Film or Media Studies, we weren't marked on our techniques, only on the film at face value. The editing was done mainly by the one person in the group who had a MacBook and thereby access to iMovieMaker, while the rest of us planned it logistically and wrote the script, as well being the main actors. This has given me experience of forming a narrative and also learning you might have to adapt to certain sudden circumstances like rain.

During the summer holidays I took an Acting For Screen course at the National Youth Theatre. While this was mainly focused on acting and not on the production level of filming, I still got a good insight into how the industry works when we looked at the scripts for Wolf Hall and This Is England, a series  by Warp, one of our two case studies companies. This was also when I was introduced to the different shot types. 

I have not had a directing role in filming, but have had experience in assistant directing both actors and logistics on stage in amateur theatre groups, also managing the whole rehearsal once

I have never written a script for screen, but indulge a lot in writing short stories, poems, song texts and I am also developing a play script at the moment. I have always wanted to write scripts for screen.

I have never worked with a recording camera in photography, only done amateur recording privately with small cameras, iPhone and Samsung in my social life like all adolescents.