The technique of film editing (1958)

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that considerable liberties have been taken with the tempo of the five operations. We see a process, which is in practice the same every time, in five different ways and at five different speeds, yet the final effect is one of complete authenticity. More than this, it conveys an excitement which is of the same kind as might be experienced in a similar situation in real life ; it is not the artificial, studio-made suspense of a last-minute rescue but that of a genuinely thrilling natural event. Telescoping, contracting and rearranging the material has merely brought out the full excitement of the scene in a way in which the spectator can most readily appreciate it. It is precisely through the purposive control of pace that the editor has achieved the impression of reality. The explosion which ends the above sequence is not a real record of a submarine being blown up ; actually the submarine shot was taken at a different time altogether and merely shows a vessel coming up to the surface. The editor was therefore faced with the problem of conveying the impression of an explosion without having a shot of it. The result may not be ideal but it certainly gives the appearance of being authentic. A great deal of the effect is achieved through the careful buildup. The whole sequence has been leading up to this point and the spectator is expecting something to happen. The observers who are on board (39) are shown for the first time ; they are anxiously looking out to sea and the shot serves as a warning to the spectator that something is just about to happen. Then we are briefly shown the submarine surfacing which creates the impression that it is in fact involved in the explosion which follows. The explosion itself is conveyed by the rapid intercutting of frames of the submarine and of a cone of water thrown up by a depth-charge. A chaotic, bursting image is created by the alternating frames because the conning-tower of the submarine is on the left side of the picture and the cone of water is on the right. Almost before the spectator has time to realise what is happening, the whole screen is filled with a tremendous upsurge of water (actually a closer shot of a depth-charge exploding in the sea) which he takes to be the effect of the explosion. The effect is strongly reinforced by the sound of the explosion, heard for the first time. It is by no means implied that this editing is ideal or that it should be taken as an example of the way to construct scenes of this kind. Yet the explosion, as here conveyed, is effective, and appears convincing in spite of the fact that no actual shot of an exploding submarine was used. 133