As I was reading my previous post yesterday, it occurred to me that I had written about something that I understood little. Through years of experience watching movies I might be able to comment on various departments of cinema, but areas like editing remain vague. Stunt men and even costume or set designers are visible to the viewers, but an editor always lurks in the shadows doing a thankless job. So I began thinking, what can set good editors apart in a way that is obvious to amateur aficionados as well?
“Normal” editing suffices most of the time. If the scissors is the tool that makes up most of editing, it is about cutting it after the right frame. In most scenes, a few frames extra might not bother our eyes. Heck, we see minutes of futile footage every day without complaining. Songs and stunts need extra care because they are brief, slick, unnatural in terms of continuity, and are often the parts where filmmakers can garner a lot of attention and adulation. These are also the make-or-break situations which let out whether particular tricks and techniques are well-used or abused.
In movies where an actor plays multiple roles, editing used to be tougher. Ever since Iddaru Mitrulu (ANR not Chiru) had been released, people used to look for tell-tales–darker dupes and screen-dividing lines. That was until Bharateeyudu. The latter movie summed up most technical feats in the name of “trick photography”, a phrase I don’t understand even twelve years later.
If we think about movies that can challenge editors, not just technically, there are a few. Most of our movies are plot-driven, and rarely character-driven, despite they revolving around a big hero. In such cases, narration can be done circumambulating the need for special editing skills. However, editing character-driven movies is challenging. The character’s backstory is significant to the present, and talking to another character about them all the time can at times seem lame.
Our filmmakers are still using the antiquated flashback techniques. These uncreative folks still start a movie with a bang and an hour later ask the eternally patient viewer to wait a half-hour while they narrate some old story which explains what they had shown until then and what they would later show. Unrealistic cinema. Instead, they could have used the powers of editing.
Writers are advantageous because they can slip various images, thoughts as well as background into the readers’ minds without making it very obvious. This technique can be and has been used effectively by editors. Flashes of images from the past thrown in can communicate what is going on in a character’s mind while simultaneously telling the backstory.
K Raghavendra Rao did this admirably thirty years ago in Jyothi.
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