Editing in Television Drama

Editing in a TV drama

We are going to watch the first 15 minutes of Sex Traffic (2004)

A powerful two-part drama about two young Moldovan sisters kidnapped and trafficked through Europe to the dark side of London, betrayed by pimps and police, and fighting for their lives.

Watch now on 4oD

Fill in the table below when watching the first 15 minutes of Sex Traffic. Transition Seen in Sex Traffic

Why the transition was used in this drama

Shot reverse shot This was to show a conversation between two people.

Cut To change the clip quickly. E.g loctaion chaging

Match on action Shows the two perspectives of the people.

Fade to black Creates a sort of crossfade which, for example, fades briefly to white before fading to the next shot.

Editing

List the all of the editing

devices that you can think

of

Cutting/Cross Cutting

Cutting – The simple change from one shot/scene to another

Cross Cutting - Editing that alternates shots of two or more lines of action occurring in different places, usually simultaneously. The two actions are therefore linked, associating the characters from both lines of action.

Shot Reverse-Shot

We have studied this before for your preliminary task.

This is used in conversation to move from one character to another and back again.

Match on Action

Again we have studied this before This is where the camera shoots one

continuous piece of action and the edit switches from one perspective to another.

Eye line Match A cut obeying the axis of action principle, in which the first shot shows a person off in one direction and the second shows a nearby space containing what he or she sees. If the person looks left, the following shot should imply that the looker is offscreen right. See the example below -

First we see her looking... then we see what she looks at. As her interest grows, the eyeline match (that is the connection between looker and looked) is stressed with matching close-ups of her face and Icarus's falling into the ocean in the painting. Again, this implies that she is looking directly at Icarus's body.

               

Example

First we see her looking... then we see what she

looks at.

As her interest grows, the eyeline match (that is the

connection between looker and looked) is

stressed with matching close-ups of her face and the section of the painting

she is interested in

Pace

With pace you are looking for how long or short the time between each edit is. If we are watching a car chase we would

expect the time to be short between each edit.

A emotional drama may have much longer between each of its cuts

You can also think about rhythem. Have the edits been timed to key moments or the beat of the piece of music behind the scene?

Task

Watch this clip and analyse how the editing techniques have been used in the clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKkBzbdiqV0

Record examples for each of the techniques using the table on the next slide.

Editing DeviceExample from 24 interrogation scene

Function of the editing devise

Cutting /Cross Cutting It cuts various times to the police officers watching the integration.

It changes so that the clip isn’t just set in one location so the audience doesn’t get bored.

Shot Reverse-Shot This is used when showing conversations between the male and female.

It allows the audience to be placed in the actors positions especially in conversation situations.

Match on Action This is used when the man is running through the building trying to stop the interrogator.

It gives the full effect of an action scene to the audience.

Eyeline Match When the man walks into the room, he is standing at a distance then is zoomed into, looking at the camera in the corner of the room. This has also been used a number of times with the woman, a medium shot of her face looking at the clock then cuts to a zoom.

Shows the audience what the actors can see so t puts them in their position.

Pace The cuts start off with being quick pace but then begin to slow down toward the end.

It can create suspense and make the audience have to wait for what's to come next.

In groups fill in the last column

of the table evaluating the function of the

editing devices.

Homework

Answer the following question: Does the use of editing in TV Dramas

construct the meaning about relationships between characters.

Post your response on your blog along with this PowerPoint when it is filled in.