Examining the Semiotics of a Video Editor

Since a very young age I have always wanted to get into the film-making industry. As I grew up and got more into making videos, I realized that the aspect that always excited me the most was the editing process. Since then I have felt that once I get into the field, applying for an editing job might be a good choice. Video editors play such a huge role in a production since they make the film look how the director wants it to look. By portraying certain kinds of feelings through the use of editing, film-makers have only enhanced the way that an audience can view a certain film. When applying semiotics to the job position of an editor you first examine the signifier. The signifier in this case would be the video editor that is working on whatever project they might be working on. As a result of their editing, the signified comes out when the final product is completed. For example, editors use different styles and techniques of editing to convey certain messages when it comes to film. Some sequences are supposed to portray anger or frustration, in which the editor could edit together a series of quick cuts to make it seem more abrupt and chaotic. The beauty of film editors is that they are able to portray different kinds of emotion to viewers, which can create many different kinds of interpretations. This actually is one of the main reasons that I have started to appreciate video editing as my experience has increased.

Godard and Counter-Cinema

This week I read Peter Wollen's article on Jean-Luc Godard and his Counter-Cinema that he has practically created himself. Wollen talks about each of the seven values that Godard has showcased in the films he has made. By reading more about these seven techniques, I have learned a great deal more about experimental film-making and have been inspired to try out some of these techniques.

1) Narrative Transitivity v. Narrative Intransitivity

• Narrative Transitivity is the usual narrative that many people are used to. Wollen discusses how Godard broke this process very early on. He tells how in one of his films, he showed a series of random images throughout to represent the ups and downs of everyday life. This definitely relates back to my vision for my video since I want to create moments like this as well. My video will show many shots of different situations and imagery that can relate back to certain emotions, ultimately giving the images new meaning.

2) Identification v. Estrangement

•  In this technique Godard would go against the normal emotional and close relation to characters that most movies create. The article says that sometimes he would not match the voice to a specific character, or would have the characters directly address the audience. By doing this he is going outside of the norm and using the characters as a completely different tool. While the characters that will be shown in my video will be unidentified throughout, this is definitely another interesting tactic to play around with in the future.

3) Transperency v. Foreground

• Thirdly, Godard also showed the process of the film actually being made in one of his movies. This had never really happened up until Godard did it, but when he did he created another game-changer. By showing the film-making process in one of his films, he ultimately changed the whole meaning of the film just within that sequence. Not only did he show this, but during this sequence he scratched the surface of the actual film, creating an interesting visual effect. Techniques and effects like this will definitely be a huge part of my capstone video. 

4) Single Diegesis v. Multiple Diegesis

• Typically in films we always see characters that a part of the same world within the film. Yet again Godard goes outside the norm in his movies by creating series of characters who all come from different worlds, and speak different languages. In my video, the characters will be unidentified, leaving their backgrounds and locations a mystery throughout, leaving the interpretation up to the audience. 

5) Closure v. Aperture

• Many of the images that we see in film that evoke our emotions are normally a self-contained object that could mean something to a specific character in the film. Godard used many different styles in his films to create meaning in certain images such as open-endedness, overspill, and allusion. While I will be using lots of different kinds of abstract imagery, all of the scenes that I create will help evoke that emotional reaction that I am trying to help the audience receive. 

6) Pleasure v. Unpleasure

• While filmmakers are normally always trying to get a good reaction from their audience, it does not always happen. Wollen goes into more detail about how Godard's films were not received well by some simply because of some of the harsh and explicit imagery that he used. Sometimes when trying to convey a message, more explicit imagery can really enhance certain points trying to be made. Unfortunately, this can turn off certain audience members based on the fact that some do not want to view explicit imagery. 

7) Fiction v. Reality

• In today's cinema fiction is normally the cookie cutter style of film-making, since that what normally attracts bigger audiences. Godard wanted to convey images of "real life" to create different representations and emulate them to audiences. This style will be extremely prominent in my video, since I want to capture as many natural moments that occur in everyday life. I want to steer away from acting for this project simply to give the footage the most natural feel possible.

Breaking Down the Narrative

This week I read more into the works of Mike Wayne in a book titled "Theorising Video Practice." I read his chapter that focused on breaking down the different kinds of narratives in the films that we all see. The way that clips are arranged in film makes a huge difference when trying to convey a message. He started early on describing the classical narrative and goes on to explain how you can break down this type of narrative into five parts. These stages are the exposition, conflict, rise, crisis and closure. His insight on the classical narrative provided a very interesting read but for my video I am definitely not focusing on a classical narrative. Wayne than goes on to talk about narrative and certain codes that filmmakers can play off of to create a flowing narrative. These codes were developed by Roland Barthes. The first set of codes he describes is the Semic Codes. In the text he says, "they are labels we mentally attribute to character and locale." (Wayne, 156). Secondly he talks about Cultural Codes which generalize all the general "knowledges" that we experience in everyday culture. Reading about these codes was extremely interesting because when planning out my capstone I really wanted to convey ideas in a non-classical way. I want to make something that is heavily subliminal and everyone can relate to in a way. By reading about these codes it really helped me develop some ideas for different imagery I can use to convey my ideas. Not only that, but it gave me some insight into styles of narrative that I could experiment with in later videos!

A Meditation on Violence

The article that I looked into this week was Maya Deren's actual notes on her film "Meditation on Violence." This film focuses on two different schools of Chinese boxing, the Wu-Tang and the Shaolin. Deren created a multitude of experimental films in her career which makes her work very well worth studying before jumping into my video. In her notes she describes the ways that she planned on emulating these styles of boxing strictly through visual style. She planned everything out to the finest detail when preparing this film. She goes on to explain how Wu-Tang is a constant state of balance in motion, while Shaolin is more of a formalized aggression. By analyzing this, she was able to come up with unique locations, photography, and editing styles. To associate a certain location with Wu-Tang, she wanted to find areas that seemed endless with no angles and soft lighting. This would definitely give the viewer a more calm feeling, a definite association with Wu-Tang culture. For her shots involving Wu-Tang she writes about keeping the action in the frame and to keep it circling within the frame. For editing, she wanted long shots with very little cuts and the best continuity possible. For Shaolin, she wanted the locations to be less rounded and more square. She wanted medium camera runs with the action addressing the camera more so than Wu-Tang. For the editing she wanted more cuts to chop up the action and make them more intense. The amount of time that she put into developing this idea is absolutely astounding. After reading this I was extremely inspired by her process and wanted to know how I could use some of this technique for my film.

The 5 Types of Hermeneutics

As humans, we go through everyday life constantly interpreting anything that we may come into contact with. The science behind interpretation is what we call hermeneutics. Since we are interpreting constantly, we have broken down hermeneutics into five different types. The first type is natural hermeneutics. Natural is the everyday interpreting that all humans do sometimes without even realizing that they are doing it. For instance, if one person saw somebody wearing a blue shirt they might associate the color blue with sadness or depression. On the other hand, another person could see the same person and associate that color with the sky or the ocean. Secondly we have normative hermeneutics. Normative hermeneutics dives into text interpretation when it is done by a specialist. An example of this could be the bible, or any of the religious texts. Normative hermeneutics play a huge role in today's world. Thirdly, the next type is scientific hermeneutics. A more common way to describe scientific hermeneutics is what we know as the scientific method. This is the process of asking a question, doing background research to develop a hypothesis, and than testing that hypothesis so that you can communicate it to the world. Next comes philosophical hermeneutics, which is a philosophy of existence that suggests that interpreting something is not something we do, but something that we are. Since we interpret everything that we see in any given day, humans are a prime example of philosophical hermeneutics. This almost suggests that most of the time we have no idea that we are interpreting something, it just comes naturally. The last type of hermeneutics is depth hermeneutics. This type seeks to liberate people from modes of domination and oppression. This type normally lies beneath waking consciousness. An example of this would be psychoanalysis. This is a theory developed by Freud that talks about how different types of events effect every single person differently based on how they were raised. In conclusion, hermeneutics dives into a bunch of different areas that everyone can relate to in their own way.

Capstone - The Experimental Narrative

This week I read a chapter from a book titled "Writing a Short Film" that was talking about the experimental narrative. Since I plan on making my video primarily experimental, this was a great read for me. In the chapter, the author talks about how making an experimental film is similar and different than making any other kind of film. The author even adds a whole section that only talks about the distinct characteristics of an experimental film. Some of these characteristics include non-linearity, a distinct style, and the abstraction of character. Non-linearity had always been one of my main ideas when first starting to think about this project. A distinct style was also always in mind, but reading more about how to make it really stick out has proved to be very helpful to me. What really struck me in this article was the section about the abstraction of character. I never planned on having a character in my project, but after reading about this more in experimental films, I really want to add a character into the mix. The section in the book explains that by adding a character, they can be used as a direct vessel for the ideas of the director. This really intrigued me and I definitely plan on adding in some abstract shots of a character that will guide the film along.