A French, black and white film created in 1902. It is the first science fiction ever. The film runs for 14 minutes if shown at 16 frames per second which was the standard frame rate at the time. He created a narrative by putting scenes into a sequence with each scene being one single shot.
Life of an American Fireman - Edwin S. Porter
A short silent film shot in 1902 and distributed in 1903. It is about a woman and a child getting rescued from a burning building. This is the first film to ever use a close up (a man's hand ringing a fire alarm). It was also the first film to use proper editing techniques such as overlapping continuity. It demonstrates how cutting can impose its own laws of time and space on narrative.
The Great Train Robbery - Edwin S. Porter
A short, 12 minute long silent film produced by Thomas Edison. Porter really developed his ideas and introduced several new editing techniques. He uses cross-cutting during scenes and pans the camera when the men run across a creek. It is an early attempt at parallel editing.
DW Griffith - The Girl and her Trust
A short black and white film about a train transporting $2000 and tramps are out to get it by any means. It also contains a love sub-plot including the girl. He cuts backwards and forwards from the robber and the hero. Fast cuts are used for the dramatic ending for suspense similar to what Steven Spielberg did in Jaws.
The Kuleshov Effect
Kuleshov edited together a short video of cuts between a man's repeated expressionless face, a bowl of soup, a girl in a coffin and a woman on a divan. Kuleshov used the experiment to indicate the usefulness and effectiveness of film editing. It has been studied by psychologists and film makers.
Sergei Eisenstein was a pioneering film director and film theorist and often considered to be the "Father of Montage". Eisenstein introduced the technique of overlapping individual shots in a sequential fashion, instead of presenting them adjacently.
The scene Odessa Steps from the film Battleship Potemkin that Eisenstein directed, is a powerful demonstration of a montage. It allows Eisenstein to manipulate the audience's perception of time by stretching out the crowd's flight down the steps for several minutes where as in reality it would take less time. The rapid progression and alternation of images gives a sensational event even
greater visceral impact.
180 Degree Rule is a basic guideline in film making regarding spatial relationship between two characters or a character and an object. The rule states the cameras should remain behind the same imaginary line. The rule enforces the continuity of film. Breaking he rule would mean confusion for the audience and disorientation.
In Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Peter Jackson tests the 180 rule using the character Gollum. He uses the rule to depict his multiple personalities. They have the "good" Gollum looking to the left and the "bad" Gollum looking to the right so the audience percieves is as two people have a conversation.
30 degree rule is a basic film making guideline that means the camera should move at least 30 degrees between each consecutive shot. If the rule isnt followed, a jump cut occurs and the audience would be more focused on the filming techniques rather than the narrative.
Cutaways
In film, a cutaway shot is the interruption of a continuously filmed action. The shot doesn't necessarily contribute any dramatic content of its own but is used to help the editor assemble a longer sequence. A cutaway shot usually happens at the same time as the main action and most of them are brief as they are only to provide the audience with a snippet of information.
During a chase scene in an action/adventure movie, for example, the director may set up the action by showing two cars in hot pursuit of each other. After a few minutes have elapsed, the scene may suddenly cut to a shot of children preparing to cross a busy street. The scene then returns to the car chase, but the audience now knows a potential disaster now exists. The purpose of the brief cutaway shot was to establish a sense of suspense as the two cars race towards that same busy intersection. Because the director chose to cut away from the main action, the audience gets a heightened sense of anticipation.
