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need. Similarly, the chapter on Newsreels deals primarily with ad hoc problems of editing technique, the chapter on Dialogue Sequences primarily with questions of timing. In this way we hope that the cumulative effect of the book will be reasonably comprehensive.
We have allowed ourselves some latitude in our approach to the practical examples. The chapters are uneven in length simply because some editing problems are more complex than others and since the editor's contribution to the total effect is — to take a simple example — more considerable in a compilation film than in a newsreel.
Again, in some instances the nature of the editing problems is so much subject to personal interpretation that we have found it suitable to quote the editor's own comments on his work ; in other cases, where a more general approach is permissible, the editor's comments have been incorporated in the text. These slight unevennesses in approach spring from the diverse nature of the material and to standardise it would have meant breaking faith with our subject.
One word of explanation about the examples. Except where otherwise stated, they are presented in the form of break-downs of finished sequences and are not taken from scripts. They are chosen to represent typical problems, where possible, from films which have had a wide showing. No claims are made for the films on which we have drawn : we have simply taken examples, good or bad, which were most useful to our exposition. (No foreign language films have been used because of the difficulty of reproducing foreign dialogue in the break-downs.)
I hope most of the readers of this book will be those who normally cannot afford a book published at this price. Faced with the problem of producing a comprehensive book on so large a subject, we decided, with the loyal help of the publisher, not to restrict the scope of text and illustrations. We hope that friends will club together to share a copy, that film societies here and abroad will find it worth while to invest in more than one copy.
This is not a book to be absorbed at one reading. For full appreciation the keen student may want to avail himself of the hand projector and viewing machines which the National Film Library (of the British Film Institute) provides for the close examination of films in its collection.