Planning - Editing ( Post 33 )

Editing

 Narrative:

Narrative is the structure through which films tell a story and narrative appears throughout media and society , in books, plays films and even tv advertisements. It is a string of events occurring in time and space, connected by the logic of cause and effect; tied together by character traits, obstacles and goals. Here is a picture which depicts the typical narrative set up according to Todorov's theory:

The words demonstrate the typical structure of a narrative and below are their definitions:

• Exposition: Establishing the normal of the world within the film, so the tone, the setting and an introduction to the characters.
• Rising action: The central conflict is introduced and tension between the protagonist and antagonist begins to build.
• Climax: The turning point, defines a change in the protagonists future.
• Falling action: This is sorting out the major conflict and the aftermath of the climax. It is sorting out a resolution.
• Denouement/resolution: The conflict is resolved and a new normal begins.

To put this into an example we can use Starwars, An Empire Strikes Back, it begins with Luke Skywalker hiding from the Empire ( exposition), the conflict and character choice ( rising action ) that leads to the fight with antagonist Darth Vadar (Climax). Vadar defeats Luke ( falling action) and equilibrium is restored and Luke changes to become more humble (Denouement).

Here is a video explaining linear and non linear narrative:

Linear narrative is a story that unfolds in a chronological order, such as depicted in the diagram above, where as non linear narrative changes the order of this, with flashbacks for example. My music video will have two separate narratives; that of the cops and robbers silent film chase; and that of the performance of the band. Both of these will be performed in a linear way as this is what will make the most sense to the audience within my video. I couldn't have a chase with all the shots in the wrong order as it would just not make sense, and thus reduce the effect of my video and furthermore the band has to perform the song in order as otherwise it will not fit with the music. Although I think non linear narrative is interesting and can be very effective in some contexts, I do not think it would add anything to my video but confusion.

The Kuleshov effect :

This is a film editing technique used by Lev Kuleshov, a Russian filmmaker, in the 1910's and 1920's. He set out to prove the effectiveness of skilful editing and also to prove the old psychological questions surrounding this experimental technique. Kuleshov realised that it was the way you assembled shots that was important, and could provoke emotion. He put a shot of the same man with an expressionless face before 3 different items: a coffin, a bowl of soup, a woman lying down. Even though the man had the same expression the audience thought he felt the emotions sadness, hunger and lust as depicted by the image below:

Here is Alfred Hitchcock, on of the best filmmakers of all time,  talking about the Kuleshov effect:

Here is the video depicted in the image above:

The Kuleshov effect could be utilised within my coursework as the whole concept expresses how the order of the editing and footage has more effect and is more important than the characters and acting itself. This could be a useful technique to do as all my actors are young and do not have a lot of experience, so careful editing could make the video look more professional. Furthermore, because there isn dialogue within the movie chase, editing carefully could help the audience understand what is going on and the emotions the characters are feeling by assembling the footage careful to make these clearer, helping improve the overall effect of my music video.

Editing in my music video:
Here is the plot outline I have already completed in my previous planning posts and I am going to annotate it to show how I am planning on doing my editing:

• The video will start with shots of the band in the recording studio, going from the feet up to give an identity of the band and an idea of what the rest of the video will look like.This will be a longer tracking shot to really set the scene and act as a smooth introduction to the video.
• It will then move to an ambient shot of the city, in the black and white filter of silent film videos, to set the scene. This again will be a panning/ tracking shot to set the scene, and will be longer as well. 
• The band will then emerge into sight, with a bag of money in their hand. They will appear to be running from something. This will be a series of shorter shots, which are match on action shots and shot reverse shits to make it feel more authentic. The shorter shots will show that this a period of  action and hopefully add more speed to the video. 
• This will continue as the band run in the typical silent film style, around different buildings and places and then a police man will appear after them. This will range from shorter and longer shots, to vary the pace of the footage and to allow it to be more interesting to watch. I will add in titles, in silent film style, to depict the characters talking within the video.
• Then it will become a chase, of the band running away from the police man, hiding from him and tricking him.
• During this the video will cut back and forth from the studio and the band performing the song, still in their 'robber' costume, to add more texture to the video.
• The video will end with the robbers eventually getting away from the police man and running into the distance, cutting back to them all standing still with their instruments.This will be one long shot, to finish of the video professionally.

The transitions between shots will be similar, just a straight cut as I think this will have the most effect for my story, but at the beginning and end it will fade in and out to make the video feel smooth and not like it is beginning or ending abruptly.