This morning in class we heard from an ex student now film editor, Jeremy Bowtell. He gave a quick overview about the significance and power editing wields. Applying gaps and breaks to let the audience fill in the blanks is a crucial part of editing, when done well the editor is able to manipulate the audiences into following the story they want them to. To be honest, I’ve done a fair bit of editing over the years, so there wasn’t much that I took out of the presentation that I didn’t already know. However, there were a few points that gained my interest. Using selection and juxtaposition to create an augmentative film is ideal in editing. If there is no conflict or contrast between shots, the audience can only engage to a certain extent, and the majority of individuals now days have a low tolerance to boredom, meaning, if no conflict through juxtaposing and selection then less people will be interested. Substance then form. This is one of the rules that Jeremy spoke about, and I totally agree. If something lacks substance, then it’s essentially meaningless. Why would an audience be willing hang around and engage with something that is meaningless? If it has amazing form, then sure applaud it for that, but audiences are only going to delve so deep into something that is substance less. On the other hand, when something is rich in substance and story, people love to engage with that. They feel a sense of relation to that certain text, whatever it may be. Anyway, those are the things I found interesting about the presentation, I decided to do some editing and leave a gap where the title is….
