square illusion

Liam Ward (a staff member in the Media program running a studio on ‘The Art of Persuasion: politics and poetics in documentary’) was one of this week’s lectorial guests. Ward was particularly fascinating to me as he explained the power editing possesses and the Kuleshov effect.

Whilst I can admire well executed editing, I have never been a fan of actually editing footage myself. However the way in which Ward broke down exactly what editing was, intrigued me and gave me a new appreciation for the control an editor has.He explained the process of editing as deliberately breaking things to create meaning and how this could lead the human mind to certain assumptions and associations. This is similar to the Gestalt principle of closure in psychology. In the visual illusion above, we perceive there to be a square despite one not being drawn for us. This is because enough of the shape has been indicated that our minds are able to fill in the missing information. We seem to have this obsession with filling in gaps and finding closure and this does not exclude narrative. As an editor, we’re encouraging the audience to close the gaps and lead them to conclusions we wish them to see. We’re creating a space for viewers’ imaginations to run wild in. To demonstrate this, Ward showed us the iconic space shuttle and bone sequence from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey'(1968, Stanly Kubrick). A graphic match of bone and space shuttle hurtling through the air leads us to find a connection between the two shots and come to a conclusion about what these side by side images are telling us- the same spark that ignited the use of a bone as a tool, is the same spark that churned out space travel. It isn’t the image itself that creates ideas but the cut that creates ideas in viewers’ minds. The meaning of the individual shot is not necessarily contained in the shot but in what comes before and after. This is Kuleshov’s theory at work as it hold that viewers find more meaning from the interaction of two sequential shots than from a single shot. From this the meaning of a shot can also be changed by what comes before and after it depending on the social and historical context. It is these connotations that give meaning to the lines, shapes and colours and this is ultimately what the editor is taking advantage of.