Film Editing Research

In a film, editing is perhaps half the battle in terms of achieving a decent product. To explore this idea, I looked at two films that use editing to great effect; “Psycho” and “The Bourne Supremacy”.

“Psycho"

The scene initially starts with an eye-line match edit of the victim looking at the notebook she is writing in, familiarising us with her and her situation, as well as psychologically placing ourselves in her position. After that, there are no cuts for a while; they are extremely low speed at this point to create an air of mundanity. This is, of course, to make the upcoming murder scene even more of a surprise to the audience. The change of shots speeds up somewhat as the character gets into the shower, and the sound of the shower curtain is also digitally enhanced via editing to increase the tension building to the appearance of the killer. Again, we get an eye-line match of the woman looking up at the shower, followed by a shot of the showerhead itself to further affiliate us with her point of view. A series of close-ups follow for emphasis, as well as showing the passing of time as the woman gradually washes her hair. After a long, slow shot of the shadow through the shower curtain, the editing turns to high speed. There is a quick shot of an extreme close-up of the woman’s mouth as she screams. The sound of the knife is synchronised to some of the shot changes as the killer stabs her again and again. The editing does a shot, reverse shot combination several times, intermingled with shots of the woman trying to hold back the killer’s knife, all increasing the shock of the scene and the impact of the music. We get another series of close-ups showing the woman to be in pain, and then a shot of her blood washed away by the shower water. This editing style means we never see the stab wounds presumably being made by the knife, which is a clever technique for the time (as it would have been nigh impossible to replicate the level of gore this scene would entail in real life using the special effects available then). The fast-paced editing slows down again as we see the woman losing blood and an extreme close-up shows her sliding her hand down the tile of the bathroom wall; she is losing blood, and the slower editing matches this idea of sudden weakness. The extreme close-up of the water running down the drain followed by the visual match of the woman’s dead eye staring at the camera brings a new dimension of horror into the situation. The final close up implements motivated editing, as we assume that the package on the victim’s dresser was left there by the murderer.    

“The Bourne Supremacy”

As with the previous film, the sequence begins with eye-line match editing of the officer looking at the main character’s passport. This is followed by a shot and reverse shot combination that shows the point of view of both the interrogator and the interrogated, immersing us in the scene instantly. This is all done at fairly low speed to, as before, build tension before the stand-off. There is then a cross-cut to a different location, as well as a few seconds of split audio edit as the two men talk on the phone. As soon as the interrogator puts his phone away, the editing becomes so fast-paced its essentially hard to follow, mirroring the explosive, short fight on screen. The cuts are synchronised with some of the exaggerated punching sounds. Following this, we get a series of extreme close-ups, cut together equally quickly to convey the sense of urgency in what the character is doing. Once again, there is a cross-cut between the main character and the secret agency workers trying to track him down. The editing shifts back to low speed as we hear another conversation between the previous interrogator and the leader of the agency, during which more split audio is implemented. A series of final close ups of the main character and the leader as she talks to the interrogator is used to highlight the importance of what she is saying.

DY