Manejo de un equipo accesorio

In this section of The Art of Making Dances, Humphrey asks choreo- graphers to consider the use of space as an affective tool. The same questions apply for an editor faced with the frame and working to determine rhythm through the use of various shots. Of course the director and cinematographer have already given in-depth consid- eration to the frame and movement in the frame by the time the material reaches the editor. So, the editor’s concern is with the choreo- graphic composition of the joins of frames and the impact the material has when seen in a fl ow rather than as individual shots. The questions are: Are shots put together to progress smoothly from wide to close, jump from close to wide, or jump around in size? Does movement

a

FIGURE 2.9

Bill Butler, the editor of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1972), cuts extremes of shot sizes hard together at certain moments, creating a jarring, destabilizing rhythm. [Photo credit: Warner Bros., The Kobal Collection]

39

Phrasing Considerations

fl ow in a consistent direction, in alternate directions, collide from all screen directions, or are there different patterns at different times? What about angles? What kind of effect are they having and is it to be used sparingly or relentlessly?

Humphrey’s ideas about the art of making dances are helpful to me in demonstrating the principles at work in rhythm, and they may be helpful to an editor if she is stuck. But, as we have seen in Chapter 1, these questions don’t necessarily have to be verbally articulated by an editor to be the ones with which she is grappling, and there are other ways to solve problems than to articulate them. If an editor is work- ing with the movement of time and energy in a fi lm, she is working with these principles of movement distribution, concentration, phras- ing, and spatial organization whether she knows it or not. Where these questions may be useful is if the editor knows she is working with movement to create rhythm and wants to know how to engage with choreographic principles of composition.

A choreographer will build up phrases of dance movements, vary them, juxtapose them, interpolate them, and otherwise manipulate them, shaping them within themselves and in relation to one another to make an overall experience of time, energy, and movement called a dance. In fi lm editing, an editor is rarely simply making an experience of time, energy, and movement; she is also shaping story, character relationships, and other kinds of information. Furthermore, fi lm edi- tors rarely work exclusively with human movement. However, in shap- ing the rhythm of the fi lm, time, energy, and movement are the salient factors; they shape the qualitative experience of the story and infor- mation. The movement through time and energy of all of the fi lmed images in a given project is shaped choreographically into phrases of related movements and grouped emphasis points. These phrases are then varied, juxtaposed, interpolated, and shaped within themselves and in relation to each other to make the overall experience of time, energy, and movement in a fi lm that is known as rhythm.

CHAPTER 2: Editing as Choreography

40

SUMMARY

In this chapter the discourse about editing rhythms has been shifted from music to movement, thus creating the possibility of looking at editing as a choreographic process. The core unit of movement, time, and energy that editors and choreographers manipulate has been described as a pulse. Choreographic methods of shaping movement phrases have been mined for information about how making dances is and is not like making rhythms in fi lms. In particular, the move- ment phrase has been looked at as a choreographic construction that is found either within a shot, through the juxtaposition of shots, or

PRACTICAL EXERCISE

Time, Space, and Energy: Part 1

This exercise requires at least fi ve people. It demonstrates the affective power of time, space, and energy and shows how much impact an editor’s manipulation of just these three things can have on the emotion and the story. To set up the exercise, ask two people within the group to enact the following scene:

A: sits at a table, reading.

B: walks in and stops, looking at A. A: looks up.

B: shakes head “ no. ” A: looks away. B: sits down.

A: looks back at B; they lock eyes.

A: stands up and starts to walk out, pauses near B, and then leaves.

Once they have the script staged, three other people each get a chance to direct the scene, but each person gets to direct only one quality.

The fi rst director can give directions only to do with time. He may say anything to do with speed — faster or slower; and anything to do with duration — for a longer time or a shorter

time. Give the director and performers a few minutes to work and then watch the results. Notice how the whole feeling and meaning of the scene changes when things are given differ- ent emphasis by being done more quickly, or slowly, or for a longer or shorter time. This is what an editor does when she decides which take to use, the quicker or the slower one, and where to cut into the action, after a short time or a long time. Now the second director gets a chance, and this one gets to direct only space. He can change stage directions, prox- imity, or direction of gestures or movements and nothing else. Again, after this director and the performers work for a few minutes, there is a marked difference in the mean- ing and emotion of the scene. This is the element the edi- tor is manipulating when choosing whether to use the close, medium, or long shot of a given moment. Proximity and dis- tance can create intimacy, discomfort, isolation, and a range of other feelings. Stage direction moves the eye around the space and can create smooth or abrupt fl ows of the action and a range of dynamics in between.

Time, space, and energy are all considerations in phrasing. The tools an editor has for manipulating them will be discussed in greater detail in the next chapter. The completion of this prac- tical exercise, the directing of energy, can be found in the next chapter after the discussion of energy and trajectory phrasing.

41

both. Whether the movement phrase is within the shot or between the shots, it is expressing time and change over time. The movement of a steady, inexorable press of a stranger through a bedroom door expresses one kind of time. Sharp fl ashes of steel, blood, water, and shower curtain create another. Movement is the action or the image of time and energy; it is the material the editor works with to make rhythm. Editing involves the phrasing of movement, or the aesthetic shaping of movement into that aspect of empathetic engagement with fi lm that we call rhythm.

The next chapter will examine the specifi c tools an editor has for the shaping of rhythm in fi lm.

ENDNOTES

1. Pepperman, R. D., The Eye is Quicker, Film Editing: Making a Good Film Better , p. 207.

2. Scorsese, M., as quoted in Motion Picture Editors Guild Newsletter , www.editorsguild.com/newsletter/ specialjun97/directors.html .

3. Stam, R., Film Theory: an Introduction , p. 43.

4. Eisenstein also uses “ orchestration ” in a discussion of the relationships of sound and images. This is a more accurate use of orchestration in the sense of distribution of parts — the sound plays one part in creating affect, the images another, and Eisenstein et al. exhort us to use the parts contrapuntally, not redundantly. See “ A statement on the sound-fi lm by Eisenstein, Pudovkin and Alexandrov, ” in Eisenstein, S., Film Form: Essays in Film Theory , pp. 257 – 260.

5. Van Leeuwen, T., “ Rhythmic structure of the fi lm text, ” in Discourse and Communication , p. 218. 6. Tarkovsky, A., Sculpting in Time , p. 117.

7. Eisenstein, S., Film Form: Essays in Film Theory , p. 75.

8. Stevens, K., et al., “ Choreographic cognition: composing time and space, ” in Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Music Perception & Cognition , p. 4.

9. Ibid. 10. Ibid.

11. Tarkovsky, A., Sculpting in Time , p. 117.

12. Van Leeuwen, T., Introducing Social Semiotics , p. 183. 13. See Humphrey, D., The Art of Making Dances , p. 11.

43

CHAPTER 3