Editing

Editing helps construct the narrative. The editing is basically 'invisible'. We are so used to editing we barely recognise it. Editing can be used to condense long, boring activities into quick bursts of visual information. A simple edit is cut, when the editor puts films together, they find the best bits of all the footage and spliced them. This is called cutting.

In the assassination scene of North by North West between Rodger Thornhill getting out of the taxi and him entering the united nations building, there are 26 cuts before the man gets stabbed. Cuts are mainly frequent through conversation.
The pace can be used to create excitement and tension; in the shower scene of Psycho and when Mariyn dies the pace slows down, as if her life is slowing down and leaving
















Transitions -

Dissolve - One scene dissolved into another overlapping for a moment
Fade in / Fade out - One scene fades out to black completely, then another fades in
Wipes - One scene wipes across the screen, revealing the next one, this can happen in any direction
Iris - The next scene replaces the last by appearing from the centre like the iris of an eye
Jump cuts - two screens that feature a common element right after one another, so something stays the same but the rest changed, this is used for comedy effect