This week we focused on the idea that media is a combination, or integration of both theoretical knowledge and practical skills. As Adrian Miles told us in his presentation, ‘thinking’ only becomes tangible through ‘making’ – therefore the two cannot be considered separate.
I thought Liam Ward’s presentation on editing and it’s purposes was particularly interesting (editing being one of my main ‘media interests’). His explanation of the Kuleshov Effect (how simple cuts can create immense meaning) made a lot of sense. The video he shared, reminded me of another I had been shown in year 11 media, in which Alfred Hitchcock illustrates the same concept (the power of the cut).
Liam then went on to discuss how social context can influence the meaning that is created by a cut. When we are shown certain images, pre-existing ideas, knowledge and opinions contribute to our interpretation of the new images. This means that images (or cuts in this case) cannot have a single ‘definite’ meaning, as different meanings will be identified by different people. This seemed obvious when he told us, however it wasn’t something that I had ever thought too much about in the past.
I’ll have to read more about different editing theories and ‘effects’ as I find the area really interesting and would like to become a better editor myself (and perhaps work as an editor in the future).
Now I’ll share a video essay from Tony Zhou. He’s an editor who creates regular videos which explore different aspects of film form. This one focuses on the editing work of Satoshi Kon, “one of the great visionaries of modern film”. It’s super-relavant to our week 4 session so I’d highly recommend watching/sharing it.