Importance Of Film Editing

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What is Editing?
Editing is the rhythm of a film. It is combining bits and snippets of a film, in order to create a coherent sequence. What happens in the editing room can either make, or break a movie. It could be the reason of a movie’s success or failure. It is simply, what makes a movie a movie. According to Walter Murch, the Academy- Award winning editor of “The Conversation” and “The English Patient”, it is the invention of editing that allowed film to take off. The editing is an art that has the power of affecting the audience emotionally, as well as, psychologically. It has the power of manipulating the moving image, whether by slowing down time, or speeding it up, by shortening a shot, or lengthening it. Every little change in the editing, shape the audience’s response. In the documentary “The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing”, Quentin Tarantino, the American film director, explains that in the editing of a movie, every cut and every frame counts. One frame less, or one frame added, could be the difference between “a clunky clumsy crap and orgasmic rhythm”. Editing is referred to as the ‘invisible art’.

History of Editing
At the end of the 19th century, the concept of cutting and editing was unknown. They held a shot for as long as the film reel was, which bored the viewer and was considered uninteresting. Filmmakers were afraid to put different shots, with different positions, together, not to confuse the viewer. However, they discovered later that editing

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