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could, with a suitable commentary, be given some sort of meaning. But it is in the precision of selecting exactly the right shot that the compiler's skill lies. A shot of a house which in itself symbolises opulence will fit into a passage condemning the idle rich much better than a shot which merely acquires its significance from the context, because the " opulent " house will give something to the overall effect, whereas the other merely takes its meaning by an association of ideas.
When the editor has made his overall selection he must try to assemble his material roughly in the right order. Once this is done, the script-writer is called in and the rest of the production must be carried out in close collaboration with him. The compilation film leans very heavily for its mood on what the commentator says, on the inflection of his voice and the pace of his delivery. Only the closest collaboration between writer and editor can lead to an incisive result. For instance, a series of luxurious looking houses could, as we have seen, be used as an attack against the rich. Equally, with a little stretch of the imagination, the images could be used to justify " the Good Old Days " when the wealthy had a certain grace and dignity which went with their very real responsibilities. The emotional response of an audience would in each case be completely different.
But it is wrong to conclude that the same set of images would make both sequences equally effective, for the visuals must have some sort of emotional significance of their own which cannot work equally well both ways. Thus, although the commentator's words are crucial in bringing about the desired reaction, they cannot do this incisively, if they are not perfectly in key with the visuals. We shall see how this works out in practice a little later.
A further reason for the close co-operation between editor and writer is the technical help which the writer can sometimes give to the editor. The control of time-continuity and adjustment of tempo, which are accomplished to some extent by the careful timing of dissolves and fades in the story film, can here be conveyed by the simplest hint from the commentator.
Continuity in the visual sense of the story film is practically non-existent in compilations.1 Merely by stating in the commentary " and the following Christmas," one can, in effect, cut to next Christmas. The dissolve or fade used for time continuity is in most cases quite unnecessary. Often in dealing with historical material of insufficient footage or quality with which to make opticals, I have been forced to do without — only to find in the long run that
1 Notes by Peter Baylis.
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