The History of Developments and Post Production

When the first films were made, Auguste Lumiere said that Cinema was an "Invention with no future". This was because most of the film makers filmed things that interested them and just filmed that thing until either they got bored or the film ran out. Nobody new the true impact that film would make in the future and it was incredibly un-inportant. Luckily, the future of film was saved by a man called Edwin S. Porter who realised that you could maniplulate peoples emotions by putting cutting up bits of the film thus making two different cuts of film together and made the film "The Life of an American Fireman (1903)". In 1907, a man called David W. Griffith litereally wrote the rulebook for film editing with his groundbreaking and contreversial film released in 1915 called "The Birth of a Nation". In 1917 a man called Iwan Serruier had an idea for a device that allowed a film editor to view the films whilst editing. This idea would eventually come together in 1927 and become known as a "Moviola". Unfortunately very little copies of this genius invention was sold as it costed $600.00 (the equivelent of $20,000 in todays money). Also in 1917 in Russia Vladamir Lenin realised that film was the perfect medium to get people less able to join the revolution. The power of Juxtaposition was tested by filming a mans face then cutting to a bowl of soup, a woman draped over her husbands coffin and a child cradling a soft toy, when shown people commented on the look of hunger as the man looked at the soup, the look of greif as the man looked at the woman draped over the husbands coffin and the look of sweetness when the man was looking at the child cradling the soft toy. However, the man had the same expression each time. In the 1940's-50's editing was a womans job and was done by the studios and the directors had prettey much no choice as to how the film is seen. The woman would go through at least 200 hours of film and work through the night. As time went on editing has become the main part of the film and nowadays the editor is the person who spends most of the time with the director. Editing is seen as the primary factor for making a good film and the editors get far more credit then they used too. With this in mind, who knows what the future of editing might bring. As Gary Marshall, an american actor, director, writer and producer once said "Editing is the only process, the shooting is the pleasant work, the editing makes the movie, so I spent all my life editing."