Edge Codes: The Art, History and Science of Motion Picture Editing

For anyone who has ever watched a film, for anyone who has ever watched a TV show or a documentary, Alex Shuper presents the first-ever complete consumer’s guide to the art and craft of editing. As a lesson in media literacy, understanding how films are constructed and edited together should be the right and obligation of every film-consuming citizen. ‘A film is not shot, it is built’, the Russian filmmaker Pudovkin asserted some eighty years ago. Ever since, the film editor has always remained a rather hidden cog in the filmmaking machine, whereas actors, directors and producers are always in the spotlight. No big surprise, because as Edge Codes: The Art, History and Science of Motion Picture Editing demonstrates: ‘an invisible edit makes for a smooth narrative’. For the desired effect on the spectator, whether in dramatic fiction feaures or verité documentaries, it is essential that the raw footage is carefully selected, sorted out, juxtaposed, assembled and manipulated with the right pacing and in the proper sequence. Editing can make us cry, laugh or love. For documentary much of the original ‘writing’ and story-telling takes place in the editing room. In many cases, this art is quite a puzzle. To sort it out Shuper introduces key editors and filmsmakers with practical knowledge and theories, like Thelma Schoonmaker (Scorsese’s editor), producer – director - editor George Lucas, Mary Stephen (A Winter’s Tale) Susan Shipton, Andy Mondshein and Sarah Flack. With its own sense of montage, and imaginatively illustrated with sequences from works by Griffith, Eisenstein, Keaton, Buñuel, Riefenstahl, Hitchcock and Godard’s New Wave, as well as from modern classics such as The Matrix, Memento and Run Lola Run (edited by Mathilde Bonnefoy) the film allows us to consider the developments in the ‘grammar of film’ since Lumière. For a contemporary, well-versed audience, Edge Codes: The Art, History and Science of Motion Picture Editing takes us being the veiled curtains of the filmmaking wizardy. The film will be the highlight of an IDFA Masterclass on editing. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)