Blink Of The Eye

This excerpts from Blink of the Eye is quite a multifaced and thought-provoking essay on film editing. With the starting question line of basic film editing question, “Why do cuts work?”, this intrigues every reader and even me to a wonderful rise of the aesthetics and concerns of cutting the film. There is so much to learn about continuity and discontinuity in film editing, reality, the criteria of a good cut. That is why this served as an emotional cue, digital editing and so much more.

This is formally organized, and the short chapter is understandable. This offer a historical perspective particularly on the development of digital editing. The early part of this chapter offers an intriguing explanation on why film cuts work at all. The actor can use the blinks in every cuts of the film to select his in or out points in the film. This excerpt is quite informative and interesting even just an opening spill to the rest of the world of film editing. 

This chapter teaches every film maker on how to choose what material to keep and what to discard, what to do when working with other fil editors and test screenings. But it reminds us that emotion is the only thing that we should preserve in the film at all costs and the main risk in the film making is lack of coherence. It even intrigues every reader to see what techniques were used in films such as Apocalypse Now and Ropes to better understand why there is a need to cut film. However, everything is so easy now with everything done in digital and with the aid of computer technology.

Another insight from this excerpt is why it is necessary to start the editing process by laying out a series of representative stills or cuts from the movie and placing these little cuts at the bottom of the computer to create an illusion of editing for a bigger screen. This is a good idea and tip on solving challenging editing situations but in the case, there are a lot of things to learn yet. This chapter is only the start of the stimulating reading material especially for those who are interested in film editing process. 

Before, I spend so many hours in editing and putting everything into one film. But after reading this excerpt, it is now possible to make these cuts without even thinking what I am really doing at the time. I know in the end, I can have an effective final output if the cuts itself are done effectively