Tulle

 
It's one of cinema's greatest ironies that editing can make or break a film, but few moviegoers understand what an editor actually does. Editing involves taking shots and assembling them in the right order, yes, but what makes an order — all the transitions from moment to moment and scene to scene — "right"? Even if we can't explain good editing, we know bad editing when we see it, and even more so when when we feel it. The hard-to-pin-down sensation of a movie being "off" or "wrong" often comes out of incompetent editing, and by breaking down the bad editing in a variety of recent pictures, these three videos throw into contrast what it takes for editing to be good.

Whale oil

An uncluttered background helps focus attention on the subject. By filming from a low angle and using the sky as a background, or by shooting from a high angle toward the ground or water, you keep a lot of distracting elements out of your backgrounds. This is especially effective with close-ups of people.

When using the sky as a background, make sure the subject is frontlighted or sidelighted if you're using a camera with automatic exposure control. Don't use the sky as a background on overcast days because it will turn out dull and gray in your movies. Before you start filming, if necessary, try shifting your camera position or the subject to get a better background. Although it's possible to eliminate a lot of unwanted background distractions, you can't do so every time - your camera must follow the action even if it sometimes moves into an area where the background is a bit cluttered.

Beemster: beautiful polder

Docufiction (or docu-fiction), often confused with docudrama, is the cinematographic combination of documentary and fiction, this term often meaning narrative film. It is a film genre which attempts to capture reality such as it is (as direct cinema or cinéma vérité) and which simultaneously introduces unreal elements or fictional situations in narrative in order to strengthen the representation of reality using some kind of artistic expression.
More precisely, it is a documentary mixed with fictional elements, in real time, filmed when the events take place, and in which the main character or characters—often portrayed by non-professional or amateur actors—are essentially playing themselves, or slightly fictionalized versions of themselves, in a fictionalized scenario. In this sense, docufiction may overlap to an extent with some aspects of the mockumentary format, but the terms are not synonymous.

Swiss Chalet

Key Frame: In some forms of digital compression, uncompressed frames (key frames) are placed at regular intervals (eg. every 6th frame is uncompressed). Each subsequent frame exists as variations on the keyframe, until a new keyframe is introduced. The further apart the keyframes, the worse the overall picture quality.

Image on Phone

At the dawn of its commercial deployment from the 1950s through the 1990s, videotelephony also included "image phones" which would exchange still images between units every few seconds over conventional POTS-type telephone lines, essentially the same as slow scan TV systems. The development of advanced video codecs, more powerful CPUs, and high-bandwidth Internet telecommunication services in the late 1990s allowed videophones to provide high quality low-cost colour service between users almost anyplace in the world that the Internet is available.

The power of silent movie

The term "silent film" is something of a misnomer, as these films were almost always accompanied by live sounds. During the silent era that existed from the mid-1890s to the late 1920s, a pianist, theater organist—or even, in large cities, a small orchestra—would often play music to accompany the films. Pianists and organists would play either from sheet music, or improvisation. Sometimes a person would even narrate the intertitle cards for the audience. Though at the time the technology to synchronize sound with the video did not exist, music was seen as an essential part of the viewing experience. The term is also frequently used to describe sound-era films that have a recorded music-only soundtrack without dialogue, such as City Lights and The Artist.

Wet feet

Disaster tourism has been defined as the practice of visiting locations at which an environmental disaster, either natural or man-made, has occurred. Although a variety of disasters are the subject of subsequent disaster tourism, the most common disaster tourist sites are the areas surrounding volcanic eruptions. Opinions on the morality and impact of disaster tourism are divided. Advocates of disaster tourism often claim that the practice raises awareness of the event, stimulates the local economy, and educates the public about the local culture, while critics claim that the practice is exploitative, profits on loss, and often mischaracterizes the events in question. 

A'dam Museum

Visual artists are no longer limited to traditional art media. Computers have been used as an ever more common tool in the visual arts since the 1960s. Uses include the capturing or creating of images and forms, the editing of those images and forms (including exploring multiple compositions) and the final rendering or printing (including 3D printing).

Computer art is any in which computers played a role in production or display. Such art can be an image, sound, animation, video, CD-ROM, DVD, video game, website, algorithm, performance or gallery installation. Many traditional disciplines are now integrating digital technologies and, as a result, the lines between traditional works of art and new media works created using computers have been blurred. For instance, an artist may combine traditional painting with algorithmic art and other digital techniques. As a result, defining computer art by its end product can be difficult. Nevertheless, this type of art is beginning to appear in art museum exhibits, though it has yet to prove its legitimacy as a form unto itself and this technology is widely seen in contemporary art more as a tool rather than a form as with painting.

Computer usage has blurred the distinctions between illustrators, photographers, photo editors, 3-D modelers, and handicraft artists. Sophisticated rendering and editing software has led to multi-skilled image developers. Photographers may become digital artists. Illustrators may become animators. Handicraft may be computer-aided or use computer-generated imagery as a template. Computer clip art usage has also made the clear distinction between visual arts and page layout less obvious due to the easy access and editing of clip art in the process of paginating a document, especially to the unskilled observer.

Bavarian Nature

Montage is the technique by which separate pieces of film are selected, edited, and then pieced together to make a new section of film. A scene could show a man going into battle, with flashbacks to his youth and to his home-life and with added special effects, placed into the film after filming is complete. As these were all filmed separately, and perhaps with different actors, the final version is called a montage. Directors developed a theory of montage, beginning with Eisenstein and the complex juxtaposition of images in his film Battleship Potemkin. Incorporation of musical and visual counterpoint, and scene development through mise en scene, editing, and effects has led to more complex techniques comparable to those used in opera and ballet.

Filming down under

Docufiction (or docu-fiction), often confused with docudrama, is the cinematographic combination of documentary and fiction, this term often meaning narrative film. It is a film genre which attempts to capture reality such as it is (as direct cinema or cinéma vérité) and which simultaneously introduces unreal elements or fictional situations in narrative in order to strengthen the representation of reality using some kind of artistic expression.
More precisely, it is a documentary mixed with fictional elements, in real time, filmed when the events take place, and in which the main character or characters—often portrayed by non-professional or amateur actors—are essentially playing themselves, or slightly fictionalized versions of themselves, in a fictionalized scenario. In this sense, docufiction may overlap to an extent with some aspects of the mockumentary format, but the terms are not synonymous.