Continuity Continued: D W Griffith

Just to recap.

Continuity editing, or classical editing, began around the work of Edwin S Porter (and many others).

The films, as you've seen, are short, slow (by today's standards) and mostly shot in wide.

However, they are exceptional because film makers made the discovery that people will follow a story as long as the information keeps flowing in a continuous fashion.

Let's get a little scientific for a moment.  If you look at Porter's films you'll notice the unit of the edit (the chunks by which the editor works with) can be as long as thirty seconds and usually contains a whole scene.  In other words, shots were scenes in themselves.

If we move along to the next step in editing history, we meet D W Griffith, a former actor turned film maker, famous for developing the simple grammar of Porter into a much more complex and rich experience for the audience.

Back to the science.  When you watch some of Griffith's work (below) you'll notice the grammar of the edit (the chunks, or clips to use the right term) has changed.  No longer are whole shots whole scenes.  He's chopped things up, focussed on details, gone close and suddenly the description of what a shot is has changed.

Be good to remember it: a shot (a unit of an edit) gives the audience enough information to link back to what has just happened and enough of a push to make them what to know what is about to happen.

In accordance with that, as you'd expect, Griffith's work is much more tense and emotional.  The very unit of editing had moved from being an elastic band stretching over a whole scene, to a taught wire, pulling you from shot to shot with a more breathtaking speed.

To recap, Griffith is famous for bringing the following to continuity editing:

the close up
the blockbuster or feature length film
rhythm in longer form storytelling
acute observation of reality to heighten tension
cross cutting to build tension

Charlie Chaplin called him the 'Father of all of Us'.

You'll still find Birth of a Nation slow and probably boring.  But stick with it, there are a couple of great scenes, especially when action is involved that set the standard for how editing such sequences could take place.

For a potted (and very overblown) history of his films and his life visit:

http://www.gildasattic.com/dwgriffith.html

Below, is a taster of Birth of a Nation, but probably the better, albeit less controversial film, is Intolerance.  Some of his others are also excellent.  Study the cuts if you can.  Think back to the decisions he was making to get the effect.  You'll be doing the same, coming to your edits virtually fresh, so you and Griffith are walking the same way.  Kinda.