Planning editing styles - Miss Georgiou

Planning editing styles

Editing is when certain shots are selected and then joined together in order to create a finished product. It is the time for any mistakes to be removed, and for sound and effects to be added over the footage. Our group had a discussion on the best editing techniques that we planned on using after filming our opening sequence. As the mind map shows, the three editing techniques that our group decided we wanted to include are a reaction shot, slow editing and filters.

A reaction shot is used in films to show the response that one of the characters has to another character or a situation within the film. Our group planned on using a reaction shot during the dinner scene of our sequence to show the horror on the mothers face as her son launches towards her with a knife in his hand. The audience will feel sympathetic towards the mother, neither of which were expecting the son to kill his mother in such a brutal way, therefore we want the audience to feel shocked by it. This will be emphasised by the use of fast editing which will represent the rush of adrenaline that the antagonist is feeling. We want the mother's facial expressions to show her pain and horror when being stabbed, which will further develop how sympathetic the audience feel towards her and also their fear towards the antagonist. We planned on using another reaction show towards the end of our sequence while the girlfriend is talking on the phone to the character that will have now been identified as the antagonist. This is conventional to the thriller genre as it will create tension due to the audience knowing that the antagonist has just killed his mother, but the girlfriend is still in the dark about it. The audience are aware that she is in danger but the character is not. This will leave our sequence on an enigma as the audience do not know what is going to happen to her character later on in the narrative.

Slow editing, as it sounds, is when the timing that the shots appear is slowed down. Slow editing is conventional to the thriller genre as it is used to create suspense within a film as the change between the shots is prolonged, leaving the audience waiting longer to find out what happens next. We have planned to use slow editing during the dinner scene to represent the antagonists growing imaptience with his mother as she nags him about his hospital appointments. The sound of the mothers voice will be muffled, so the audience can hear it the same way that the antagonist does. The use of our slow editing will prolong the build up to the death of the mother, which will create tension as the audience will see various shots of the knife but will have to wait longer to see it happen. The audience may fear the antagonist due to the sudden and brutal way in which he was able to kill someone that he loved. We have also planned to use slow editing again during the suicide frames at the beginning of the sequence as we believe that it will help us to create a more intense atmosphere, and emphasise just how serious the the situation is. It will also give the audience more time to process what the character is going to do. The audience will feel sympathetic towards the character who felt that the only way out of his situation was to kill himself. The use of slow editing will create anticipation and enigma within our sequence as the audience will want to know why he felt his only option was to kill himself.

Our group will use filters throughout our sequence, for example, to make the lighting more low key or to change footage from colour to black and white, but the most important filter that we are going to use is a flashback that will follow on from the suicide scene. By doing this we will be able to begin to tell the audience the narrative before his death and the events that led up to it. The audience will be able to build a relationship with the character as they are being given an insight into his personal life and the reasons behind his death. The use of a flashback in our sequence is conventional to the genre as it will create suspense and anticipation due to the audience already knowing how the film is going to end but they are unaware of what happens throughout the rest of the narrative.