The purpose of editing.

We edit to make films interesting, once upon a time films where made without any editing to them, viewers would soon get bored of the film as not a lot can happen in one clip, which is why film makers started playing around with footage to create editing.
Film editing where an editor connects one or more shots to form a sequence and a storyline, the connection of these sequences form an entire film. The job of an editor isn’t to just edit bits of a film together, its to really form the story line and to create purpose to the film. Film editing can either make or break a film.

Reasons why we edit-

The pace:
When editing, you can decide on how long to shot will go on for, this will decide how long the footage will go on for and the pace of it all together. The longer the shot, the slower pace it will have. You also decide what footage goes into the film, you decide how the footage is put together to create different reactions for an audience, such as a quick pace with quick cutting can build tension for the audience in scenes such as in a horror film.

In this clip from Psycho, there is a split second theres a slow dissolve over the mans face showing an image of a skull. This is builds tension for the viewers and a thrilling atmosphere to it, combined with the backing music which goes with the pace of the footage, this creates a very negative and almost scary feel to it.

Footage from Lawrence of a arabia, this has a straight cut at 0.17 to show a change of scenery, this keeps the film very fast pace as it has quick and sharpe cuts to show that the surroundings have changed but still looks effective as the pace is kept in a constant fast pace.


To engage the viewer and create an emotional response-
How a film is edited can often effect on how the characters our protrayed to the audience, making you have an emotional responce to certain characters.

For example in this clip from the film, The note book they have constantly cut across over the shoulder shots to get emotional reactions from both characters, capturing both of characters emotions and feelings. This is really effective on the audience as it is revealing that both characters have also felt the same about each other and that they're still in love with each, really bringing the viewer into how they're feeling.

To create a sense of time and place-

 

The way footage is edited can help you get a establish of what time of day the scene is being set in, eg weather it is mid day/in the morning.

 

 

As in this clip from the film Hairspray, its quite ovbiously morning by the way they have used quick cross cutting shots to show that she is getting ready for the day. This is a quick way of showing you what the character is doing without having to go through every action that the character makes.