Beyond Cut and Join

Kersti Grunditz Brennan

The research project Beyond Cut and Join – Expanding the creative role of film editing comes out of two major observations over decades of professional film editing experience: that a lot of film editing’s potential is untapped in filmmaking, especially in relation to character creation; and that editors’ skills, influence and authorial participation often are misunderstood and undervalued. Through editing practice and writing, this research explores an expanded role of editing by asking: 1. what can editing do to create characters; 2. what is a useful and challenging creative research design for exploring editing; and 3. what expanded description of film editing can be articulated for these explorations. The project aims to share, refine, and add to editing vocabulary by articulating creative strategies for shaping characters. It further aims to challenge notions of authorship in cinema by developing collaborative structures and artistic methods that benefit creative processes in the edit room. By demonstrating how significant the handprint of one individual editor is, the project’s final aim is to highlight the extent to which editors’ personal experiences influence their choices in composition of material. Outcomes of this project are filmmaking methods that place editing and collaboration in the forefront when weaving dramaturgy, aesthetics, and content creation processes that shape film characters and cinematic stories. The output of this research includes films, academic articles, personal essays, a video essay, and pedagogic applications. These outputs cumulatively demonstrate the artistry of the editor and the significance of editing.

Focusing on people and their relationships (in documentary, drama and experimental film) what can editing do to invite and enhance the audience’s experiencing with, feeling for, and thinking about a story’s characters?

This question is explored through editing practice and analysis in writing. In video essay form and academic writing I explain my interpretation of character and illuminate how editing choices can be articulated and how characters and in extension narratives can be consciously shaped in editing. The three BLOD short films are different applications of methods for character creation through editing. Start with the video essay!

CREATING CHARACTER IN EDITING // FILMS & WRITINGS

Video essay // AUTHORING CHARACTER THROUGH EDITING

This video essay (dur. 16’13’’) provides an introduction to the core understanding of both cinematic characters and editing practice that this research is built on. It includes the short film AFTER and takes the viewer through the editing decisions I made when creating it, giving examples of alternative choices that I could have made.

BLOD short film // AFTER.

AFTER. (dur. 4’ 30’’) is included in Video essay // AUTHORING CHARACTER THROUGH EDITING and is an exploration of character creation through memory and aftermaths, a narrative without words in a very limited space where I make several characters into one as they are played by the same person.

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MAP OF PHD

Expanding the Creative Role of Film Editing

BLOD short film // RED VELVET

RED VELVET (dur. 7’30’’) explores a main character shaped by her reactions to an explicit piece of information. Several characters played by the same person are made into one through editing. The narrative is fractured with time and place scattered and widespread, following a pre-written score.

CREATING CHARACTER

Academic paper // CREATING CHARACTER IN EDITING

This peer-reviewed article (co-author Karen Pearlman) is based on previously published research, my own editing practice, and the creative explorations of editing potential for character creation I have undertaken as part of this research project. It introduces my original taxonomy of editing expertise.

This is an original manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Media Practice and Education on 10 Feb 2023, available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/25741136.2023.2172655.

PROJECT DESIGN

BLOD short film // THE FOUR DAY INTENSIVE

THE FOUR DAY INTENSIVE (dur. 26’) features 12+ characters played by two actors. I worked with creating linear time and locations that have a clear and close spatial relationship. The characters are made distinct by separating them from each other at any given time or place as the story unfolds.

THE EDITOR

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BEYOND CUT AND JOIN