{"id":20647,"date":"2012-10-28T09:07:01","date_gmt":"2012-10-28T14:07:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/?p=20647"},"modified":"2012-11-26T20:02:48","modified_gmt":"2012-11-27T02:02:48","slug":"news-a-video-essay-on-constructive-editing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/2012\/10\/28\/news-a-video-essay-on-constructive-editing\/","title":{"rendered":"News! A video essay on constructive editing"},"content":{"rendered":"

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DB here:<\/p>\n

In connection with our textbook, Film Art: An Introduction<\/em>, we’ve created several videos examining film techniques. Thanks to Peter Becker and Kim Hendricksen of Criterion Classics and Janus Films<\/a>, we’ve been able to include clips from film classics, from Ashes and Diamonds<\/em> to Ugetsu Monogatari.<\/em> Because our publisher McGraw-Hill sponsored the production of these pieces, most of them are on a dedicated website called Connect<\/a>, accessible only to students and teachers using the book in courses. We’ve made one video freely available on Criterion’s own site<\/a>, where Kristin discusses some editing techniques in Agn\u00e8s Varda’s Vagabond<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But not everybody who reads Film Art<\/em> is in a course using the online supplements. And some people who aren’t reading Film Art<\/em> might still enjoy learning more about the topics we cover. Moreover, we’ve had such good response to the Connnect clips that we decided to create a longer, more wide-ranging piece, also suitable for classrooms. \u00a0So we prepared another video and today are making it available to anyone.<\/p>\n

The Connect pieces mostly \u00a0concentrate on single scenes, whereas this one roams across several films before focusing on a single example. Specifically, we look\u00a0at the technique of constructive editing, which we discuss in Chapter 6 of FA<\/em>. The video draws examples from silent films including Harold Lloyd’s Number, Please?<\/em>\u00a0(1920) and Lev Kuleshov<\/a>‘s Engineer Prite’s Project<\/em> (1918), while our more recent examples include The Social Network<\/em><\/a> and The Ghost Writer<\/em><\/a>. Thanks again to Criterion, the extract we focus on comes from Bresson’s brilliant Pickpocket<\/em> <\/a>(1959).<\/p>\n

This piece is produced by Erik Gunneson, a local filmmaker who did an excellent job on the Connect materials. I wrote the script and narrated. (A cold I couldn’t shake off betrays itself in my voice.) We did the work in our production facility here at the University of Wisconsin–Madison Department of Communication Arts.<\/p>\n

The links flagged above indicate blogs that are related to this new video. Some others are “What happens between shots happens between your ears”\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0and “The Movie looks back at us”<\/a> and “They’re looking for us.”<\/a>\u00a0There’s also “Three nights of a dreamer,”<\/a>\u00a0discussing a passage in In the City of Sylvia <\/em>that\u00a0may be a slantwise homage to Bresson’s editing technique.<\/p>\n

Just to be clear: The twelve-minute video is available to anyone who’s interested. You can watch it below or on Vimeo<\/a>. Erik, Kristin, and I hope you enjoy it.<\/p>\n

PS 4 November 2012:<\/strong> Our\u00a0discussion of the Kuleshov effect has led some to ask us whether\u00a0the several videos<\/a>\u00a0on YouTube are authentic footage of Kuleshov’s experiments. Alas, they are not, but Kristin and I don’t know their provenance. However, in Oksana Bulgakowa’s documentary on the Kuleshov effect,\u00a0available on YouTube<\/a>, there are some fragments of the surviving footage, starting at 4:28. Oksana has also helped complete the experiment by inserting a substitute for a missing shot. In addition, I’m reminded by Joe McBride and Katharine Spring of Hitchcock’s famous explanation of the Kuleshov effect, available on the DVD,\u00a0A Talk with Hitchcock<\/em><\/a>. An excerpt from that is\u00a0posted on YouTube<\/a>, probably illegally.<\/p>\n