The first asset who played a vital part in the development of editing are the Lumiere Brothers. The Lumiere Brothers worked closely with Edison, and they were the first to create films with a variety of lengths as well as creating moving image. The moving image was created as both brothers had been inspired by Edison's invention, so just a year before there first ever film they made a cinematographe. This cinematographe was slightly better as it was much smaller as well as lighter, yet the only issue was that the speed of the film would be at sixteen frames per second whereas Edison's invention was at forty eight frames per second, therefore this means that the device was slower as an individual had to hand crank the machine. In addition, the first film that the Lumiere Brothers had named was 'Sortie d'usine' in 1895, showing a group of workers leaving a factory. This film was a motion shot which entertained the audience, as this was never seen before. However, now it takes more to entertain the public and this therefore led on to the second person who helped develop editing even more.
Thomas Edison
The next person is Edison who had invented the light bulb, but other than that he had run a film laboratory making him the first film maker. The reasons behind Edison being the first film maker is because he had created a Kinetoscope, which was suitable for the industry standard. Also it led to a 35mm film strip which helped Thomas Edison become an important person to society. After a long series of investigations and experiments, Edison had another invention. The other invention was a Kinetograph which was an apparatus for taking pictures for the Kinetoscope. The new invention of a Kinetograph meant that other film makers could use the creation for their own films, therefore once a projector was made and it allowed the other film makers films to be shown to a larger audience. This implies that the audience were able to enjoy films as it was a brand new experience.
Thomas Edison
Furthermore, before there was no story or editing and it meant that films could be shown for the amount of time that the film was in left in the camera. Nonetheless, G.A.Smith was the real film maker because he started editing, and it advanced to other film makers following in his step. Then George Smith had made 'The Miller and The Sweep' in 1897, this film was because one man is walking out from a windmill carrying a bag of flour, but Sweep bumps into the Miller with the bag of flour and they start fighting. As soon as the two men are off the screen there's a group running across following the men. After two years Smith created the 'Phantom Ride' as this was a different genre also he wanted his films to have an added "extra spice." Nevertheless, there was an advantage in 'The Kiss in the Tunnel' because of the darkness it gave the film to showcase as an edit, as it showed the front of the train going into the tunnel but ended up showing the inside of the carriages.
George Melies
Following Smith was Edwin Porter however before he had joined the film laboratory of Thomas Edison, in the late 1890's he worked as an electrician. Porter and Edison had worked together to make films longer also at the same time interesting. For example his first film was 'The Life of An American Fireman' in 1903 which was his breakthrough film due to him having three things, and they were a plot, action and also a close up of the fireman pulling the alarm. Eventually Edwin Porter had discovered the important aspect of the motion language also the creation of the contextual relationship by splicing. Splicing means to join pieces of films at the ends, so Porter's most famous film was 'The Great Train Robbery' in 1903 which lasted ten minutes, because of the splicing and as it was the longest film of his time.
George Melies
A further point is that after Edwin S.Porter, George Melies became an important figure to editing in early cinema. George Melies was a magician before he had became an important figure, he had seen the Lumiere Brothers films and thought of using his magical skills to join the film industry. On the other hand, Melies wanted to make novelty films rather than just motion films. Hence during filming his ideas his camera had broken down for a few seconds, which paused the recording but it started to record again. Thus Melies discovered on stop motion by accident, however before the discovery it had not occurred to him that the camera could move to get different shots for his films. Later George Melies used his knowledge by creating a film called 'The Vanishing Lady' in 1896. Unfortunately, Melies was forced out of the film industry in 1913 leaving him to die of poverty, although the film 'Hugo' was dedicated to him for his contribution in early cinema.
Charles Pathe
D.W.Griffith
Charles Pathe
Last but not the least, Charles Pathe was the first person to introduce parallel editing in his film 'The horse that Bolted' in 1907. Parallel editing is something that allows the audience to know that two different things happen at the same time. In the film parallel editing is shown to the audience as they get to see a man on the horse, but while the delivery man has gone inside we see the horse outside who runs off causing havoc. Undoubtedly parallel editing was proven to be successful as it was the first time to be seen, importantly a film could be created being a feature length film about ninety minutes long.
D.W.Griffith
Finally, Griffith is an American film director and he supported the power of early editing due to Melies, Smith, Porter, also Pathe. He had used cross-cutting to show another way of parallel cutting, also he would have had a variety of locations in the scenes. Nonetheless, he was a director who was using the editing techniques, in the production of feature length films. Not only was he the most influential director of his time due to his most controversial film named 'The Birth Of a Nation' in 1915. Also the film mentioned above was just set before and after the civil war, and his father had fought in the civil war which could have been inspirational to him. To end with he had been the third person to develop the art of story telling, as he would have wanted to make longer and more dramatic films. Yet there are now more techniques which get used today as there are some film directors and producers who will still use the techniques, because the films which were made were very good at the time. Therefore, editing has been more developed due to modern day technology and also digital editing has splicing involved. In the film it shows how the white people were fighting with black people but they were still white people who would be covered in black shoe polish. Another point is that during the ending in the film this white women was being bombarded with black people trying to rape the women and the ku klux klan were riding on their horses coming to save the women.
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