Eadweard Muybridge was a photographer whom had an interest in how things move. He used camera stills and played them back at at speed which created an illusion to make it seem like that images were moving. His largest amount of work was when he lived in Philadelphia where he produced over 100,000 images of animals and humans in motion. The idea behind this is that if you play a series of images together at 24 FPS (Frames per Second), it will trick the brain into thinking they are a video, when they are actually just moving images.
The above is an example of some of his work. This three minute video is a collection of pictures of women. The images are played back together so it looks like it is a video.
The first video cameras were invented in 1895 in France by Louis Lumiere. The United States had their own video camera too, invented by Thomas Edison. Both were invented around the same time. Since these were the first cameras they were too primitive to edit what the films they produced, it was usually one single shot from a single point of view.
Proper edited films did not come about until the concept of editing in camera was invented. This means the film is created shot by shot and the movie progressed by filming the next scene. This is still practiced today, mainly by the Straight 8 film festival - http://www.straight8.net/. This is a competition where a film maker can make an edited in camera movie on a single 8mm film cartridge. The earliest historical example of this is from 1902 "Life of an American Firefighter" shown below.
We can compare this to a more modern video. Here is one from 2011, called "TRAPPED", it was a finalist in the 2011 Straight8 competition.
This was a difficult way to create a film, so earlier film makers would trim shoots to alter a film, these were called clips. However no device or machine had yet been invented that could do this, so it had to be done manually, using a magnifying glass and scissors. The first machine that could do this was invented in 1924 by Iwan Serrurier whom founded the Moviola company. Whether this type of editing was done manually by hand or by using a machine, the technical term for it is "Linear Editing." This is because the clips are being assembled one after another. Between 1920 and the end of the Second World War this was the primary method used to edit films.
In 1945 a new machine was invented by a German company, called Steenbeck. These quickly became the industry standard and they are still used today. Steenbeck continue to produce and market film editing decks - www.steenbeck.com. Below is a demonstration of how a Steenbeck machine was used to edit films.
Another editing machine was invented in 1951 by the Ampex research team. The machine was used to record films onto a video tape. These were also linear editing systems. However these were primitive systems and only suitable for TV, not cinema.
The first non-linear editing systems were invented in the 70s., but they were unsuccessful in the market. EditDroid was invented in the 80s, which was a non-linear system, but again these were also unsuccessful in the market. The first successful non-linear editing systems were invented in 1989, launched by AVID. The Avid editing system was a hardware and software and was based on Apple computer technology. It was also the first computer based system that turned taped data into files. That way the files could be placed onto a timeline to edit. Major developments to allow this to happen included the creation of digital video cameras. The first professional one to come out was the Sony D1 which came onto the market in 1986.
The change from linear to non-linear editing was based on an idea that film or video could be turned into digital information and then changed or altered without being destroyed. Otherwise known as non-desctructive editing. Digital images allowed editing that was not possible with linear editing systems.
The Purpose of Editing
Editing is done on a number of different genre of films or media but it is all done for the same purpose - story telling, It is done by taking control of the audiences point of view. When the media is being filmed it must tell the story the filmmaker wants to tell.
Genre = This is how a film is defined by either it's content or style. For example some genres include comedy, detective, action, romance, thriller.
This is the trailer for What Dreams May Come. This is a drama film.
The Conventions and Techniques of Editing
Setting in and out points
Dissolve transition between 2 clips
Wipe Transition between 2 clips
Cut-away into an interview
Cutting to a sound-track
