Unit 16 In Camera Editing

In Camera Editing:

What is In Camera Editing?

In-camera editing is the technique in filmmaking and video production of shooting shots in the exact sequence that they will be seen on the movie theatre screen or television program. This means planning in advance what shots will tell the desired story and then shooting only those shots in that order, as opposed to the usual filmmaking technique of shooting multiple takes out of sequence, then editing them into order to tell the story.

Why was it used?

It was primary used in the very early days of filming (black and white with heavy cameras) where you didn’t have Pcs or Macs to edit on.

Example:

The Lumiere brothers 1895

This was to show a scene of workers leaving their workplace with no story line

Then there was;

The Devil's Castle 1896

These are very early movies in which all editing was done in camera and used no editing software it was all done on a film strip that you used to get in old non-digital cameras

The Great Train Robbery 1903

Then people started using it in more modern films:

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope for example:

There looks like there are some cuts where it goes black but this is because when he made it you could only fit 10 minutes of film onto a film reel so he had to find a black background to film for when the clip stopped. This film wasn’t very well liked but Alfred was just experimenting as he liked to do.