The Principles of Editing

The Principles of Editing

What is Editing?
Editing is a stage in post-production and it is the stage that normally takes the longest of them all since video files have to be manually corrected. During editing you are putting together all of the video files that you had to shoot during the production stage.

Principles of Editing
There are many principles involved in editing and film makers should follow the following principles to get the best possible film and more realistic film too. According to Vsevolod Pudovkin who was a film maker in the early 1900's there are 5 principles of editing.

Contrast
Contrast is cutting between two scenes to heighten and intensify the contrast between the two clips. For example moving a scene from a rich family to a really poor family. The audience will really see the difference between the two more than focusing on just one scene or scenario.

Parallelism
Cross Cutting or also known as Parallelism editing is an editing technique in which the editor cuts from one scene to another. This could be a different time period or just different scene.

Symbolism
This means by showing a metaphor basically. A main scene is being shot, however it then cuts to something which associates itself with the main scene. For example Pudovkin said "Cutting between shots of striking workers being shot by Tsarist police and scenes of cows being slaughtered: in the audience's mind, they associate the slaughter of the cattle with the slaughter of the workers."

Simultaneity
Simultaneity is when two scenes are happening at the exact same time just in a different location. For example during a bank robbery the shots would switch between the criminals, hostages and the police. It is all shot in the same time period just different location.

Leitmotif
This is basically repetition of a shot or something associated with the main character being repeated during the film. For example in Spider-Man 3 when Peter Parker went to his cupboard each time you would hear the same music, similar shots and the audience could automatically tell what was coming next.