(I) Task One: Editing in Early Cinema

Task One – Editing in Early Cinema

The editing of the early cinema happened due to the discovery of the kinetographic camera and the Kinetoscope created by Thomas Edison. With this invention of Edison, a group of men decided to use the new inventions to make a film after watching Thomas Edison's 35mm film strip with a projector to play it to show everyone in the audience.

Edwin S. Porter worked as an electrician before joining the film laboratory of Thomas Alva Edison in the late 1890s. He and Thomas worked together to make longer more interesting films. Porter made the breaking through film Life of an American Fireman in 1903. The film was among the first that had a plot, action and even a close up of a hand pulling a fire alarm. Porter discovered important aspects of motion picture language: that the screen image does not need to show a complete person from head to toe.

In his next film, The Great Train Robbery in 1903, Porter created an archetypal American Western story, which was known to the audience from novels and stage melodrama, and made it an entirely new visual experience. The Great Train Robbery was a one-reel film, with a running time of exactly twelve minutes, was assembled in twenty separate shots, along with a starling close-up of a bandit firing a bullet and he camera. The film used many different indoor and outdoor locations and was very groundbreaking in its use of "cross-cutting" in editing to show simultaneous action in different places.

No films before the Great Train Robbery had created such swift movement or variety of scenes like this film. The Great Train Robbery was enormously popular. For several years, it toured throughout the States, an in 1905 it was the premier attraction at the first nickelodeon. Its success firmly established motion pictures as commercial entertainment in America.

However, after the filming they each have to make a decision on which part should be accurate at the specific time for the film to be a success and back then they can't just delete a part of the film but they will be very careful on editing of the film and bringing the in the procedure to make film good for the viewers.

Another editor was known as Charles Pathe who created similar editing but with a brand new way for editing it is called Parallel Editing. Using this method, Charles Pathe created the Horse that Bolted with only two main characters, the horse and his owner, the delivery man. Although the video doesn't not exist in it own name but another name that is known as the Runaway Horse.

Finally another man who followed the path of filmmaking was D.W. Griffith was one of the early supporters of the power of editing. He also use a method which is called the cross-cutting to show parallel action in a different types of locations. his work was extremely regarded by many greatly influence the early filmmakers understanding of film editing.

That Early in Editing Camera completed.