Complexity editing is the process by which images are pieced together with an increased focus on dramatic or thematic elements of an event. With marked contrast to continuity editing, complexity editing seeks to remove the confines of time in terms of the horizontal parameter, and thus opens the event to a more introspective interpretation along the vertical axis.
The primary application of complexity editing is the use of montage. Montage is the art of construction; the systematic selections of images that can be organized in either sequential or non-sequential manner in order clarify and intensify an event. When these images are viewed in a designated sequence, they call upon a particular translational response that does not rely on the viewer having been provided all relevant details, but rather on their ability to draw conclusions based solely on the selected segments of information. In this respect, montage can provide a unique opportunity to utilize what we know and understand about a viewer’s thought process and allow us to manipulate that process to invoke an acute response. (If this sounds a bit like the primary basis of all film theory, you’re not far off base by any stretch, in fact it can be argued that all films rely on some form of montage or another to tell a story).
Montage relies heavily, if not entirely on the theory of gestalt, the psychological process of closure or filling in information. This effectively makes montage a study of relationships, one cannot close an event with a single image; thus, each image in a sequence is only as meaningful as the image before and after it. Traditional continuity editing is much more forgiving and forthcoming, more likely to spoon-feed the message of the event, whereas ...
... middle of paper ...
...ut there are still those spaces---where questions remain. Who is Andy? Why is he in prison? Who is the man in the yard? When does Andy reach freedom again and how does his friend manage to join him? Those are the pieces our minds cannot fill in, but through the emotional gestalts formed through the information provided, we are left with a longing to fill in the blanks of the rest of the event. This is sequential analytical montage at its best.
Sectional analytical montage relies on many of the same principles in terms of dramatic and thematic emphasis, but in this case the motion along the horizontal time line is often suspended, so that we may examine this event in greater detail as it happens in one or a few select moments in time. In addition, multiple view points are often portrayed using this method. One very good example of this
Mattie, Cogburn, and LaBoeuf’s journey through the Choctaw Nation is a long, gruesome one. The scene features a couple of cinematographic techniques that make it very memorable. One of these is editing. The group’s journey takes approximately ten hours, but Deakins uses time lapse cinematography to make it much shorter. The images dissolve into one another with each new image bringing them farther into the Indian Territory. This technique shows the distance the Mattie, Cogburn, and LaBoeuf travel by compressing the time. Another ...
Andy goes back to school and talks to his basketball coach about how he feels about Rob's death and how his fiends and family feel about the accident. In addition, they discuss Andy's sentence because Andy keeps punishing himself for Rob's death. Everybody at school was crying during Rob's memorial service. Grief Counselors from downtown come to the school to try to get the kids to share their feelings.
Typically, a novel contains four basic parts: a beginning, middle, climax, and the end. The beginning sets the tone for the book and introduces the reader to the characters and the setting. The majority of the novel comes from middle where the plot takes place. The plot is what usually captures the reader’s attention and allows the reader to become mentally involved. Next, is the climax of the story. This is the point in the book where everything comes together and the reader’s attention is at the fullest. Finally, there is the end. In the end of a book, the reader is typically left asking no questions, and satisfied with the outcome of the previous events. However, in the novel The Things They Carried the setup of the book is quite different. This book is written in a genre of literature called “metafiction.” “Metafiction” is a term given to fictional story in which the author makes the reader question what is fiction and what is reality. This is very important in the setup of the Tim’s writing because it forces the reader to draw his or her own conclusion about the story. However, this is not one story at all; instead, O’Brien writes the book as if each chapter were its own short story. Although all the chapters have relation to one another, when reading the book, the reader is compelled to keep reading. It is almost as if the reader is listening to a “soldier storyteller” over a long period of time.
A rapid succession of images or scenes that exhibits different aspects of the same idea or situation, this is the definition of montage as provided by Encarta Encyclopedia ’98. The idea of a “montage of attractions” was first used by Eisenstein and Pudovkin in the 1920s for the purpose of invoking specific emotions in the viewers. The movie The Night of the Hunter starring Robert Mitchum and Lillian Gish makes use of this film technique.
Body Paragraph #1: Within one incident in the story Andy transitions from thinking like an adolescent, to a realistic view by recognizing the seriousness of his situation and the world
Although reality involves a vast supply of details and you can not select them all. Many writers, directors, and artists, emphasis with this information and diminish other information in order to make the novels, movies, plays and etc. more vivid to our imagination.
characters and events accompanied by the use of visual effects create a message that is
Parallel editing draws the audience attention to important narration details and shapes the audience’s emotional response.
The use of cinematography helps to convey the superior relationship between characters. This occurs during the film frequently to demonstrate the superiority
Welles uses image overlays of maps during this sequence, multiple exciting transitions between scenes such as various wipes and graphic matches between scenes as they fade into one another. The news reel uses a voiceover to efficiently get the information across to the audience in a short amount of
In the film V for Vendetta the director James Mcteigue uses a range of different film techniques in order to gain the audience's attention and to make the movie more interesting. The four film techniques I’m going to focus on in this essay are editing, music, camera angles and the lighting. I am going to do this by analysing the ‘Domino Montage’ scene.
...have already begun to see – more as a means to playful firing visual fascination. The opposition of realistic film visual culture and non-narrative montage tradition has begun to breakdown. It is leading towards hybridization of realistic and stylized editing. Thus at one extreme there is a montage phenomenon of music video and on the other hand the editing technique of traditional cinema comes together. Montage is no longer a dominant aesthetic according to the new computer culture, as it was throughout the twentieth century, from the avant-garde of the 1920s up until postmodernism of the 1980s. New editing techniques like composting has emerged which combines different spaces into a single environment seamlessly creating a virtual space. Compositing is an example of the alternative aesthetics of continuity and it is considered counterpart of montage aesthetics.
Eisenstein took the idea of montage as cinematic language, and essentially went to town with it. And because of this, Eisenstein really pushed the depths of cinema and forced us as the viewer to do the cinematic version of “reading between the
...verything around us is made by our actions. Positive or negative they cause an effect that will ultimately lead to a different story base on how we interpret life. Narrative elements are used as a bridge by the directors in their film to create any master plot that is currently known. Any modification at any narrative element used by the director at important moments inside the story can help you portray a different master plot. This used of narrative elements can be best described as an ever changing process that takes place inside an individual’s head. Depending on the individual that may be exposed to those narrative elements can create different meanings. This new interpretation can be different for everyone. We have to be aware that one change in the surface scenery can lead to many ideal outcomes in our minds and that is the main power the audience has.
Despite the loss of “montage” as an aesthetic vision in contemporary films, we see how “montage” as an editing technique had in fact contributed greatly to filmmaking as we know it today. While the continuity style’s emphasis is on the narrative as well as clear, understandable space and time, the montage style focuses on creating impact with different images juxtaposing against one another. It is hence clear that the Soviet montage style has given filmmakers new ways to express certain ideas that might have previously been limited by the continuity style – giving filmmaking greater nuance and complexity as an art form with its own unique