Development of Editing Technology

The Development of Editing Technology

Editing is something first seen in the 1800's where George Melies filmed a bus coming out of a tunnel, when his camera jammed, when the camera was working again the bus had gone and was replaced by a hearse, this was the invention the jump cut. Melies then continued to use this new editing technique in order to create disappearing and reappearing effects on screen in his films. Going into the 1900's film makers discovered that by editing scenes together it not only contributed to the audiences sense of the story, but also allowed film makers to produce much more complexed films, for example 'The Great Train Robbery' in 1903. George Melies included cuts in his film by placing a puff of smoke infant of an actor, he then turned off the camera, and when the camera turned back on the actor had left the stage. By doing this it therefore produced a disappearing effect.

As the 1900's progressed new editing device was introduced, this device was called a Moviola which was the first device for editing motion picture, it was invented by Iwan Serrurier. The device allowed the film editor to view the film whilst they were editing, this was a step forward for editors as it allowed them to study individual shots in the film and therefore helped the editor to determine where the best cut point may be. The editing devices were used throughout the 1900's until the late 1970's when Flat bed editor systems became more common. The flat bed editor system is another machine used to edit motion picture, the machine involves picture and sound rolls loading onto separate motorised 'disks' called plates. The machine was manufactured in Germany, the most popular brand of the editing system was called 'Steenbeck'. The use of flat bed editing lasted up until around the mid 1990's where the systems were replaced by Non-Linear editing systems.

In the mid 1990's the introduction of Non-Linear editing computers became widely available and opened up a whole new world of editing power and flexibility. The introduction of this type of editing created a sort of 'new wave' which some refused to follow. Although Non-linear editing computers did have their problems, the advantages of them were too good to be ignored and by the 21st century forms of 'linear' editing had been abandoned completely as digital editing had became so popular.