The Kuleshov Effect

See original post at Futility Closet

In the 1910s, Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov demonstrated the power of film editing with a telling experiment: He intercut the “inexpressive” face of actor Ivan Mosjoukine with images of a plate of soup, a child in a coffin, and an attractive woman. Though the footage of Mosjoukine was the same in each case, an audience “raved about the acting,” noted director Vsevolod Pudovkin. “[They admired] the heavy pensiveness of his mood over the forgotten soup, were touched and moved by the deep sorrow with which he looked on the dead child, and noted the lust with which he observed the woman. But we knew that in all three cases the face was exactly the same.”

This reveals the effectiveness of montage, Kuleshov said. An audience reacts not to a film’s elements but to their juxtaposition — the sequence of images suggests an emotion to them, and they project this onto the actors. Alfred Hitchcock demonstrates:

How Does an Editor Think and Feel?

Film editor and theorist, Tony Chou has created a video essay on what choices a film editor makes.

For the past ten years, I’ve been editing professionally. Yet one question always stumps me: “How do you know when to cut?” And I can only answer that it’s very instinctual. On some level, I’m just thinking and feeling my way through the edit. So today, I’d like to describe that process: how does an editor think and feel?

Published on May 12, 2016

This Video Essay Explains the Invisible Magic of Movie Editing

Just as writers use punctuation to make their thoughts clear—commas to connect clauses, periods to signal the end of one thought and the beginning of another—filmmakers use cuts and transitions to make their films coherent, move between storylines, and advance plot. And whether you’re an aspiring filmmaker or a cinephile, understanding the basics of film editing can enhance your appreciation of a film. 

In “Cuts and Transitions 101,” RocketJump Film School gives an overview of the different techniques filmmakers regularly employ to move from shot to shot. In just eleven minutes, narrator Joey Scoma discusses cutaways, jump cuts, fades, dissolves, audio transitions, and more. “A lot of these cuts are so common and feel so natural that you don’t even think about it,” he explains. But while good editing might be so taken for granted we don’t even notice it, it’s the invisible sleight of hand that makes a movie feel magical.

By Anna Green via Mental Floss