Editing over 50 years

Over 50 years the concept of video editing has changed a lot, now everything is possible but the world was not always like that.

Before editing they already altered things in theatre to make it more appealing, but then after the film industry started everyone was too afraid to do too much free editing like shot variation, and other points of views because they where scared it would confuse the audience. But after that they realized that adding all these techniques actually helped with telling the story and it also gave them the opportunity to tell more complex tales.

Earlier they used eyeliner match to cut between scenes or shots so the camera man would simply just stop filming and continue again after. This  allowed for some earlier special effects for example, the camera man stops the camera after detonating a magic puff of smoke in front of his actor, then begins rolling the camera again after the actor has left the stage, making it seem as if the actor has magically vanished.

Then came something called Montage was a way to put together a number of shots, fast or slow, in a way that pointed out a moral or an idea. In Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times (1936), a shot of a faceless, crowded group of men come out from a subway on their way to work and then its followed by a shot of a herd of sheep being led to slaughter. There is one black ram in the middle of the herd. We immediately cut back to Charlie coming out of the crowd.