Saturday, 27 October 2012

Editing - Graphic Matches

EDITING

Editing describes the relationship between shots and the process by which they are combined. It is essential to the creation of narrative space and to the establishment of narrative time. The relationship between shots may be graphic, rhythmic, spatial and/or temporal.
Filmmakers and editors may work with various goals in mind. Traditionally, commercial cinema prefers the continuity system, or the creation of a logical, continuous narrative which allows the viewer to suspend disbelief easily and comfortably. Alternatively, filmmakers may use editing to solicit our intellectual participation or to call attention to their work in a reflexive manner.

GRAPHIC RELATIONSHIPS

See below for further information


Graphic Match

(Grant Reed)
Graphic matches, or match cuts, are useful in relating two otherwise disconnected scenes, or in helping to establish a relationship between two scenes. By ending one shot with a frame containing the same compositional elements (shape, color, size, etc.) as the beginning frame of the next shot, a connection is drawn between the two shots with a smooth transition.

The first clip below, from Hitchcock’s Psycho, takes place just after a woman is brutally stabbed to death while in the shower. As her blood washes away down the drain with the water, the camera slowly zooms in on just the drain itself. A graphic match cut is then utilized, as the center of the drain becomes the iris of the victim’s lifeless left eye.

 

The next clip, from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, is generally considered to be one of the most famous match cuts in all of film. As a primitive primate discovers the destructive powers of his newfound technology, the femur of a deceased animal, he tosses it high up into the air. Thousands of years pass in a single moment as a close-up of the bone cuts to a long shot of a satellite orbiting the earth, thus showing the vast technological advancements made over the past millennia.

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