Hollywood film editing remains on the theoretical margins of contemporary film scholarship, and the cause of this is three-fold. First, despite advances in collaborative authorship studies, the Hollywood film director is still largely regarded as the sole creative lynchpin upon which the film’s success or failure ultimately lies. Second, Classical Hollywood film editing—commonly referred to as the continuity aesthetic—is considered successful if it remains unnoticed, if it remains invisible. Therefore, within this continuity aesthetic, the editor’s ultimate goal is to hide his or her own labor. Third, determining exactly how and where a film editor contributed to a film text during post-production is an incredibly difficult task. So, what is the solution? This dissertation explores how film archives can contribute to knowledge about the cinematic post-production process. My central research questions are: what kinds of information do film archives contain regarding the creative collaboration between the director and the editor? And, what does available archive material tell us about the changes and creative revisions in post-production? To answer these questions, I conducted original archival research on the following Hollywood Renaissance films: Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Conversation (1974), Annie Hall (1977), and Raging Bull (1980). These films reflect a highly creative era in the Hollywood industry and are well-known for the collaborative relationship between the directors and the editors. To determine how and where collaborative authorship occurred in these films, I compared archival documents such as the storyboards and shooting scripts to the final film texts. These documents contain explicit instructions about how the scenes should be lit, decorated, and shot and how the film itself should be edited together. Therefore, I argue that any editing discrepancies between these documents and the final films were the result of a creative collaboration between the director and the editor. Ideally, this model of “script-to-screen” archival research will inspire other academics to investigate how and where a film’s creative revision occurs during post-production—and to what effect. / text

In a world that is moving towards more mobile viewing, and shorter ad formats –the filmmaker must adapt. A lot of advertisers now ask for video which is originally created for a longer format, to be adapted into a shorter format. But how much of the emotional impact is lost when adapting an emotionally based narrative commercial? This study aims to find out what the difference in emotional response is regarding different lengths of the same emotionally based narrative video. The author edited an already finished emotionally based narrative commercial video into two new, shorter versions. The process is documented and presented. These three videos were then shown to volunteers, alongside questions regarding their emotional state before and after. When analyzing the data gathered from the questionnaire it was clear that the emotional response differed from the various videos. The original video omitted the largest emotional response, and the shortest video omitted the lowest amount of emotional response. It seems that when adapting an emotionally based narrative video into a shorter format, some aspects of the video get lost. In turn, the emotional response of the viewers will be impacted.

A montagem cinematográfica foi um advento que mudou os rumos da história do audiovisual. O processo de edição e montagem possui uma importância ímpar na constituição da linguagem audiovisual. Modificada desde Méliès e aperfeiçoada ao longo do tempo, a montagem cinematográfica se tornou um dos pilares sobre os quais se sustentam os estudos de diversos autores dentro da história do Audiovisual, especificamente na história e teoria do cinema. Através da leitura de inúmeras dessas obras, em conjunto com a análise fílmica, podemos constatar que a manipulação do tempo e do espaço durante o processo de montagem de uma obra audiovisual permite a construção de múltiplos sentidos discursivos. Considerando essa relevância da montagem na construção da narrativa fílmica, esse projeto visa refletir sua importância discursiva por meio da análise de um recurso empregado constantemente na montagem: o faux raccord. A evidência do aparato e a adição de sentidos na etapa da pós-produção através da utilização do faux raccord faz com que esse elemento seja fulcral na análise da importância da montagem discursiva. Assim, essa pesquisa busca postular uma precisa definição para o termo, bem como situá-lo na produção teórica e audiovisual ao longo da história. Compreendendo seus usos e aplicações e averiguando de que modo esse elemento gesta nos filmes sentidos discursivos e propicia ao espectador a percepção dessa construção de sentido através da evidência do corte. / Film editing was a invention that changed the course of audiovisual\'s history. The process of editing has a unique importance in the creation of audiovisual language. Modified since Méliès and improved over time, film editing became one of the pillars in film studies, specifically in history and film theory. By reading many theoretical works, combined with film analysis, we note that the manipulation of time and space during the film editing process of an audiovisual work allows the construction of multiple discursive meanings. Considering the importance of editing in the construction of film narrative, this project is a reflection of discursive importance through the analysis of a resource constantly used in film editing: faux raccord. Therefore, this research seeks to postulate a precise definition for the term, and place it in the theoretical and audiovisual production throughout history. Understanding its uses and applications, and reflecting how this element generates discursive meanings in films and provides the spectator the perception of meaning construction through the evidence of the cut.

Este trabalho é um estudo sobre a montagem audiovisual. A pesquisa se estrutura em torno das relações entre os elementos fundamentais do ofício de se montar imagens e sons: o tempo, o espaço, a montagem, as ferramentas de trabalho, media pipelines e o mapa. Para tanto, investigamos a natureza algorítmica e tecnológica da montagem audiovisual, as formas de sua aplicação na produção industrial e também as possibilidades de criação formas singulares de montagem que se originam a partir da exploração de fissuras (cracks) decorrentes das características algorítmicas da montagem audiovisual. Esta pesquisa também abrange a análise de um conjunto de produtos televisivos seriados, dos filmes Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, Azul é a Cor Mais Quente, Blue, entre outros. / This research is a study on audiovisual montage. Time, space, montage, tools, media pipelines and maps are the key elements of the craft of editing sound and images and this research is structured around these fundamentals. The algorithmic nature of montage and its use in industrial media production and the possibility of creating unique montage styles that explores the cracks in this algorithm are investigated in this thesis. This research also analyses a set of television series, the feature films Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, Blues is the Warmest Color, Blue, among others.

Este trabalho é um estudo sobre a montagem audiovisual. A pesquisa se estrutura em torno das relações entre os elementos fundamentais do ofício de se montar imagens e sons: o tempo, o espaço, a montagem, as ferramentas de trabalho, media pipelines e o mapa. Para tanto, investigamos a natureza algorítmica e tecnológica da montagem audiovisual, as formas de sua aplicação na produção industrial e também as possibilidades de criação formas singulares de montagem que se originam a partir da exploração de fissuras (cracks) decorrentes das características algorítmicas da montagem audiovisual. Esta pesquisa também abrange a análise de um conjunto de produtos televisivos seriados, dos filmes Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, Azul é a Cor Mais Quente, Blue, entre outros. / This research is a study on audiovisual montage. Time, space, montage, tools, media pipelines and maps are the key elements of the craft of editing sound and images and this research is structured around these fundamentals. The algorithmic nature of montage and its use in industrial media production and the possibility of creating unique montage styles that explores the cracks in this algorithm are investigated in this thesis. This research also analyses a set of television series, the feature films Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, Blues is the Warmest Color, Blue, among others.

A montagem cinematográfica foi um advento que mudou os rumos da história do audiovisual. O processo de edição e montagem possui uma importância ímpar na constituição da linguagem audiovisual. Modificada desde Méliès e aperfeiçoada ao longo do tempo, a montagem cinematográfica se tornou um dos pilares sobre os quais se sustentam os estudos de diversos autores dentro da história do Audiovisual, especificamente na história e teoria do cinema. Através da leitura de inúmeras dessas obras, em conjunto com a análise fílmica, podemos constatar que a manipulação do tempo e do espaço durante o processo de montagem de uma obra audiovisual permite a construção de múltiplos sentidos discursivos. Considerando essa relevância da montagem na construção da narrativa fílmica, esse projeto visa refletir sua importância discursiva por meio da análise de um recurso empregado constantemente na montagem: o faux raccord. A evidência do aparato e a adição de sentidos na etapa da pós-produção através da utilização do faux raccord faz com que esse elemento seja fulcral na análise da importância da montagem discursiva. Assim, essa pesquisa busca postular uma precisa definição para o termo, bem como situá-lo na produção teórica e audiovisual ao longo da história. Compreendendo seus usos e aplicações e averiguando de que modo esse elemento gesta nos filmes sentidos discursivos e propicia ao espectador a percepção dessa construção de sentido através da evidência do corte. / Film editing was a invention that changed the course of audiovisual\'s history. The process of editing has a unique importance in the creation of audiovisual language. Modified since Méliès and improved over time, film editing became one of the pillars in film studies, specifically in history and film theory. By reading many theoretical works, combined with film analysis, we note that the manipulation of time and space during the film editing process of an audiovisual work allows the construction of multiple discursive meanings. Considering the importance of editing in the construction of film narrative, this project is a reflection of discursive importance through the analysis of a resource constantly used in film editing: faux raccord. Therefore, this research seeks to postulate a precise definition for the term, and place it in the theoretical and audiovisual production throughout history. Understanding its uses and applications, and reflecting how this element generates discursive meanings in films and provides the spectator the perception of meaning construction through the evidence of the cut.

This submission falls into two sections: a thesis and a screenplay. My thesis presents an original approach to screenwriting using storytelling dynamics found in film editing; I call this “writing-for-the-cut”. This section also contains my software experiments that hold the promise of innovative digital tools for screenwriters. In the second section I apply both my editing strategy and my software experiments in the production of an original screenplay called Rush the Sky. In the history of the screenplay, the advent of the master scene format, which gained fairly wide circulation from the early 1950s (Price 11), marked a moment of separation of the screenwriter from the film production process. Up to this point most screenwriters worked closely with studios and were steeped in the contiguous crafts of filming and editing. But the master scene format freed the script from all references to the ‘factory’ and in so doing fundamentally transformed film writing culture; now a new generation of largely non-specialists were writing for the big screen. To fill the ‘film school’ void occasioned by the loss of studio apprenticeships and mentoring, a lively market in guru screenwriting manuals emerged, particularly from around the 1970s. Taking their cue from the ‘no camera angles’ injunction on screenplays, the manual-writers tended to delineate the territory of screenwriting as a craft detached from production; in this way manual-readers have been discouraged from any serious consideration of the follow-on crafts (filming and editing) as potential modifiers of the screenplay. The perhaps unintended consequence has been that ‘manual culture’ has come to foster a view of film as a finished, projected product: we are ‘writing for cinema’. I propose an alternative strategy: the edit suite, not the cinema, is the real destination for our screenplay. This is a view of film as a constructed product: we are ‘writing for the cut’. This idea finds its roots in the lively theories and debates advanced by the early Soviet filmmakers such as Lev Kuleshov and Sergei Eisenstein in the 1910s and 1920s. For them, as Pudovkin declared “The foundation of film art is editing” (Pudovkin xiii). They viewed editing as a juxtapositional dynamic, one that engaged the inductive capacities of the audience to ‘discover’ the story. From this Hegelian notion of juxtaposition to its more nuanced application today, I identify three kinds of editorial juxtaposition that are essential to cinematic storytelling: poetry, puzzle, and kinesis. I suggest that these juxtapositions are interrelated and on axes of intensity: Poetry to Prose, Puzzle to Exposition, and Kinesis to Stasis. Finally, I identify how each of these editing terms can be adapted for use by screenwriters. In the second part of this submission, Rush the Sky is a demonstration of how the techniques of writing-for-the-cut can be applied in practice. This is a fast moving thriller in the style of British Indie films such as Trainspotting (wr: John Hodge dir: Danny Boyle1996), Sexy Beast (wrs: Louis Mellis, David Scinto dir: Johanthan Glazer 2000), and Dead Man’s Shoes (wrs: Paddy Considine, Shane Meadows dir: Shane Meadows 2004). Rush the Sky tells the story of two adrenaline-addicted lovers: Ella and Luke. Luke is a young base-jumper who has witnessed a gangland murder. Desperate to escape the mob and the police, he climbs a high mast and base-jumps into a storm cloud. Struck by lightning, he falls to earth in a coma. Ella joins forces with Luke’s feral brother Jared and together they ‘rescue’ Luke from hospital and attempt to wake him up. Rush the Sky is a non-linear story that interweaves a present-day road movie with a darkly euphoric backstory. Some of the specific editing figures I employ include parallel action, ‘split-edit’, non-linear shuffle, scene-scripted montage, and ellipsis. In the development of the treatment, I devised a hybrid writing-editing interface that allowed me to ‘mount’ and sequence the beats of my story. This is a kinetic environment where the beats are displayed as text, proxy images and film clips. In this way the familiar write/read/revise process of screenwriting moved closer to the play/watch/edit process of the cutting room. I strongly believe this approach could herald a fresh way of both composing a screenplay and ‘proving’ the cinema-worthiness of the story before filming commences.

Denna uppsats applicerar teorier om klippning på tre utvalda sekvenser med split-screen för att ta fram data om vilka av Walter Murchs kriterier för klippning oftast förekommer inom split-screen, samt vilka av Karen Pearlmans tre typer av rytm som är mest applicerbara i rytmisk klippning. Under analysen granskas även användningen av dessa kriterier och rytm för att kunna dra generella slutsatser om hur klippningen påverkar scenerna, men även hur den samverkar tillsammans med split-screen. Resultatet visar att rytm är genomgående det mest förekommande elementet inom klippningen och i samverkan med split-screenen fördjupar klipparen publiken i filmens värld. Genom kreativa stilval som inte hade varit möjliga utan flera samtidiga bilder gestaltas filmens kärna via klippningen tillsammans med split-screenen. Framtiden av split-screen är fylld av potential, både i forskning och funktion inom filmmediet. Denna uppsats menar att belysa detta underutnyttjade stilgrepp och vill inspirera filmklippare framöver.

Thesis (MDram)--Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis sets out to provide comparative analyses of selected play texts and their film adaptations in order to demonstrate the significant role that editing techniques play in translating the play text’s dramatic elements into the visual language of film. The purpose of a film adaptation is to present a new interpretation of the play text that audiences will find engaging. In order to establish how the film medium is potentially able to enhance or alter the audience’s understanding of the original source text, the study turns to the field of semiotics to determine how the play text’s themes, plot and characters – embodied in a verbal sign system – are adapted into the audio-visual sign system of film. While cinematography, production design and music are critical elements in film making, editing can be regarded as the distinctive and fundamental signifying practice in the construction of meaning in a film. This will be the point of departure in analysing how meaning is “translated” from one sign system into another in the process of adaptation. By manipulating the key relations between shots, editing is able to guide the audience’s understanding of the film narrative, amplify character development, and generate intellectual and emotional responses. Different editing conventions have therefore been developed to amplify the dramatic effect of the narrative and the filmmaker’s vision. The different effects that editing conventions create in the interpretation of a play text are demonstrated by comparing two cinematic versions of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The use of continuity editing techniques in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet is compared to Baz Luhrmann’s use of modern MTV conventions in his William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996). Zeffirelli and Luhrmann both employ different editing conventions to amplify their “readings” of Shakespeare’s play text, thereby presenting an adaptation that their target audience will find engaging. The film adaptations of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet therefore demonstrate the significance of different editing techniques in conveying meaning within a specific reception context. The series of reinterpretations of Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin (1939) illustrates how editing techniques are able to transfer Isherwood’s themes and political commentary on the rise of Nazism in Weimar Berlin across various texts and mediums, which include the film adaptation I am a Camera (1955) directed by Henry Cornelius, the Broadway musical Cabaret (1966) directed by Joe Masteroff, and finally Bob Fosse’s musical film Cabaret (1972). The comparative analyses of the above-mentioned source texts and their subsequent film adaptations demonstrate how different editing techniques are able to highlight new perspectives on the source material. Editing conventions are therefore highly significant in the creation of cinematic representations of the play text as they lead audiences to “read” the dramatic narrative within new contexts, using the visual language of film to create new insights that will complement the audience’s understanding and appreciation of the play. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Vergelykende analises tussen gekose speeltekste en hul verwerkings vir film word in hierdie tesis uiteengesit om die betekenisvolle rol wat redigeertegnieke in die vertolking van die speelteks se dramatiese elemente in die visuele styl van die film speel, te demonstreer. Die doel met ’n filmverwerking is om ’n nuwe interpretasie van die speelteks aan te bied wat gehore vasgevang sal hou. Om te bepaal hoe die filmmedium die gehoor se begrip van die oorspronklike teks potensieel kan versterk of verander, gebruik hierdie studie die veld van semiotiek om vas te stel hoe die speeltekste se temas, intrige en karakters – beliggaam in ’n verbale simboolstelsel – aangepas word in die oudiovisuele simboolstelsel van die film. Terwyl filmfotografie, produksie-ontwerp en musiek kritiese elemente in die vervaardiging van films is, word redigering as die onderskeidende en fundamentele belangrike praktyk in die konstruksie van betekenis in ’n film geag. Hierdie is die vertrekpunt in die analisering van hoe betekenis “vertaal” word van een simboolstelsel na ’n ander tydens die verwerkingsproses. Redigering kan deur middel van manipulering van die sleutelverwantskappe tussen skote die gehoor lei om die narratief van die film te verstaan, karakterontwikkeling uit te brei en intellektuele en emosionele reaksies te skep. Onderskeie redigeerkonvensies is dus ontwikkel om die dramatiese effek van die narratief en die filmvervaardiger se visie te versterk. Die verskillende resultate wat deur middel van hierdie tegnieke in die interpretasie van ’n speelteks verkry word, word toegelig deur die twee filmweergawes van William Shakespeare se Romeo and Juliet te vergelyk. Die gebruik van kontinuïteit-redigeertegnieke in Franco Zeffirelli se 1968 filmverwerking van Romeo and Juliet word vergelyk met Baz Luhrmann se gebruik van moderne MTV-konvensies in sy William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996). Beide Zeffirelli en Luhrmann gebruik verskillende redigeerkonvensies om hulle “lees” van Shakespeare se speelteks toe te lig en daarmee ’n verwerking wat hulle teikengehoor vasgevang sal hou, te bied. Die filmverwerkings van Shakespeare se Romeo and Juliet demonstreer dus die belang van verskillende redigeertegnieke in die oordra van betekenis binne ’n spesifieke konteks waarin dit ontvang word. Die reeks herinterpretasies van Christopher Isherwood se Goodbye to Berlin (1939) illustreer hoe redigeertegnieke in staat is om Isherwood se temas en politieke kommentaar aangaande die opkoms van Nazisme in Weimar Berlyn oor verskeie tekste en mediums oor te dra. Insluitend hierby is die filmverwerking I am a Camera (1955) onder regie van Henry Cornelius, die Broadway musiekblyspel Cabaret (1966) onder regie van Joe Masteroff, en laastens Bob Fosse se musiekfilm Cabaret (1972). Die vergelykende analise van bogenoemde tekste en hul daaropvolgende filmverwerkings demonstreer hoe verskillende redigeertegnieke nuwe perspektiewe op die oorspronklike materiaal na vore kan bring. Redigeerkonvensies is uiters betekenisvol in die skep van filmiese voorstellings van die speelteks aangesien die gehoor daarmee gelei word om die dramatiese narratief binne nuwe konteks te “lees” deur gebruik te maak van die visuele styl van die film om nuwe insig te skep wat die gehoor se verstaan en waardering van die stuk aanvul.

A pesquisa tem por objetivo evidenciar de que maneira a criação artística baseada exclusivamente em apropriação e montagem de registros pré-existentes de imagem e som pode ser considerada, simultaneamente, uma forma expressiva autônoma e um instrumento de crítica cultural, bem como a ocorrência dessa prática na produção audiovisual brasileira. Trata-se de uma investigação histórica, teórica e crítica dos conceitos e práticas de found footage e remix e sua presença no Brasil, que os apresenta legitimados enquanto proposta estética e dimensionados na amplitude de suas manifestações. Toma como fundamentação teórica da investigação as contribuições de Jay Leyda e de William C. Wees ao estudo dos filmes de compilação e de found footage e também teorizações mais amplas a respeito do remix como categoria da produção cultural e forma de expressão artística contemporâneas, tais como as realizadas por Lawrence Lessig e Eduardo Navas. Preliminarmente, a dissertação apresenta um levantamento dos antecedentes históricos da técnica e de suas inúmeras aplicações nos mais diversos gêneros e formatos da produção audiovisual, na qual é particularizada em termos de autores e obras em que se faz presente, com especial atenção ao cinema brasileiro. Segue-se um ensaio sobre seu uso como forma de mediação crítica da produção audiovisual no contexto sociocultural e patamar tecnológico atuais. Afinal, acaba reconhecendo como manifestações de pura metacrítica audiovisual no Brasil duas obras em que essa característica é proeminente e determinante na enunciação do discurso: São Paulo, sinfonia e cacofonia, de Jean-Claude Bernardet (1995) e Um dia na vida, de Eduardo Coutinho (2010). Esses dois exemplos da cinematografia brasileira são então descritos e comentados de maneira que revela como exploram as possibilidades narrativas, poéticas e metacríticas da montagem de material audiovisual alheio. / The research aims to show how the artistic creation based solely on appropriation and montage of pre-existing images and sounds can be considered both an autonomous form of expression and an instrument of cultural criticism, as well as the occurrence of this practice the Brazilian audiovisual production. It is a historical, theoretical and critical investigation on found footage and remix and its presence in Brazil, in which such concepts and practices are legitimized as aesthetic proposal and measured in terms of range of their manifestations. The research takes its theoretical guidelines from the contributions of Jay Leyda and William C. Wees to the study of compilation films and found footage and also from broader theories about remix as a contemporary category of cultural production and form of artistic expression, such as those conducted by Lawrence Lessig and Eduardo Navas. Preliminarily, the paper presents a survey of the historical background and numerous applications of the technique in the most diverse genres and formats of audiovisual production, particularized in terms of authors and works that make use of it, with special attention to its presence in Brazilian cinema. Such exposition is followed by an essay on its use as a form of critical mediation of audiovisual production in the present social and cultural context and current technological level. Two Brazilian films are presented as manifestations of pure audiovisual metacriticism in which this characteristic is prominent and featured fundamentally and decisively in their discourse: São Paulo, sinfonia e cacofonia (São Paulo, symphony and cacophony), by Jean-Claude Bernardet (1995) and Um dia na vida (A day in the life), by Eduardo Coutinho (2010). These two examples pulled from Brazilian cinematography are then described and discussed in a way that reveals how they explore the narrative, poetic and metacritical possibilities of found footage montage.