There is a dispute about who actually invented cinema, but in the very early years, things were relatively simple.
In 1891 the American Edison Company demonstrated the Kinetoscope, which enabled one person at a time to view moving pictures by cranking a handle to make the images move. Kinetoscope, the forerunner of the motion-picture film projector. It was invented by Thomas A. Edison and William Dickson of the United States in 1891. In it, a strip of film was passed rapidly between a lens and an electric light bulb while the viewer peered through a peephole. Behind the peephole was a spinning wheel with a narrow slit that acted as a shutter, permitting a momentary view of each of the 46 frames passing in front of the shutter every second. The result was a representation of persons and objects in motion.
This was the first example of how taking selections of frames could create a sequence that could be viewed in motion rather than just static images. In saying this the first to present projected moving pictures to a paying audience were the Lumière brothers in 1895 in Paris. Augustine and Louis Lumiere were photographers who experimented with moving images. They designed the Cinematograph, a system that allowed films to be projected in large spaces. They managed to take the first step towards the creation of modern movie theatres, for the benefit of paying customers.
In those early days of cinema, filmmakers avoided editing shots together as it was thought the 'splicing' together different shots of the same action from different angles would confuse audiences. They were arguably the first documentary filmmakers as well, as their films consisted of a single 'scenario', a 'slice of life' without narrative, filmed in a continuous single shot.
Filmmakers quickly found that editing shots into a sequence not only contributed to the audience's sense of a story but also enabled more complex scenarios to be told as well. Edwin S. Porter's Life of an American Fireman was an important step in this regard.
This is where we start to see an emergence in creating a narrative for film and the first uses of editing techniques such as vignettes, close-ups, fades outs and continuity of story all evident. The development of editing is really the development of a film language. Whereas the Lumieres' film was set in a single place and time, directors like Porter were using the techniques of editing and mise-en-scene to play with our sense of time and space.
Georges Méliès was an illusionist who discovered he could create 'magic' on-screen by exploiting the possibilities of editing his footage. For example, he noticed if he stopped the camera the right on the detonation of a puff of smoke in front of his actor and then removed the actor from the same shot, it looked like the actor magically vanished. This is what can be referred to as a jump cut is relatively rare but can be seen in some films today.
With some of the basics of editing understood it is time to have an attempt at editing together some footage that in no way is linked together at all with the intent of creating something that could potentially provide a narrative.
While it is not a cinematic masterpiece it was still a good chance to get in and use some features and shortcuts of PremierePro including using the source window to cut the files to place on the timeline, utilizing simple effects like resizing to make all the footage fill the screen instead of leaving black bars around the clips. Below is a screenshot of the session.
This is a good example of how the editor can essentially change the entire narrative of the film and how even the length of certain clips can affect the experience of the audience. In an interview with Quentin Tarantino, I believe he phrases it perfectly when he says:
- "For a writer, it's a word. For a composer or a musician, it's a note. For an editor or a filmmaker, it's a frame. If you're one frame off or two frames added or two frames less is the difference between a sour note or a sweet note."
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica; Kinetoscope; Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. July 03, 2019; https://www.britannica.com/technology/Kinetoscope
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U76MBDKQe8s