Montage Editing

First off, Adobe sucks. My trial ran out on my Premiere Pro 2017, where I saved my file. So I had to downgrade to 2015. Guess what file won't open in 2015-yep! I'm going to try to open it on another computer and save the sequence alternatively, but I may have to start from scratch. 8 hours of work? Hardly.

Anyway, I hadn't gotten to editing my "time passing" or montage sequence yet so I wanted to research montage editing. Here is what I found and some idea on applications:

Adding, Not Taking Away
Continuity editing (used at the beginning and end of my piece) is about taking shots away, while montage is about adding shots in. In fact, sometimes montage editing is called additive editing, while continuity editing might be called reductive editing. Montages are made with the the goal of adding shots in rather than taking them out. These shots may be shorter and faster, but that helps to disorientate the viewer. In this regard, I filmed more footage yesterday for the montage of my main character doing "random things" and "being bored." The more footage to work with the better.

Disorientate
The aim of montage editing is the opposite of continuity. The editing needs to throw the viewer off balance, to disorientate and to unsettle. The viewer should be confused and disturbed. To this aim, montage editing is perfect for my main sequence, as it should be disturbing, unsettling even because that is how the viewer would feel in a similar situation.The confusion does not cause audience disconnect from the movie; instead they get more involved, like a puzzle they can’t figure out, like Alice following the rabbit down the hole. The audience watching and following the movie because you need to make it add up somehow. The more opposite the images that clash against each other, the more disorientated we’ll be. Here's where my film deviates from that norm, I need the shots to be similar, monotone, drawn out. I need the audience to feel that conformity to the point where they are disturbed by it-- day after day is the same. How do I avoid loosing the audience? Music, of course.

Dreams
In dreams we tend to see a mix of our authentic, real lives with small but crucial bits of weirdness. It gives this weirdness a context and makes it stand out. If your dreams were movies, they’d seem to have no rhythm, and they change suddenly without warning. People change places, change shape, outfits, expressions. The weather alters like you flicked a switch; time speeds up and slows down. In fact, just about everything that we do in continuity editing is turned on its head. Obviously for my film the montage should feel like a dream, because it is. The actor is in a virtual reality time is slow for him but as the viewer we see this through broken jump-cut images.

Lose Control
Editing in continuity style means being totally in control all the time. Nothing should creep in that could derail the straight path of the freight train that is the plot. Not so in montage. Montage asks that you lose control and trust your instincts; you don’t need to know why you like a certain shot and you don’t need to explain it. You like it and it feels right, so move on. Of course, this is impossible for me so I'll classify my stringing of shots as controlled montage chaos.

Mix Close-ups and Deep Shots
Montage works by keeping you guessing, by throwing you off-balance because you just don’t know what is coming next.This doesn't really mean placing two totally random clips side by side. Terry Gilliam creates a similar effect in the viewer’s mind by putting shots that constantly alter depth on screen. In montage, you can achieve disorientation by mixing dramatic close-up and then a long, wide shot, then both together as a part of the image enters the frame close by. For this reason I filmed a lot of close ups on actions of my actor and wide shots of his actions (playing cards, reading a book, etc.)

Use Color and Tone
The only problem with montage is that it can get a little out of hand, sometimes too crazy. To ameliorate this in my piece with a use of color (or black and white) which stays the same throughout the whole sequence (in this case, the mise-en-scene is all white and the actor is consistently wearing all black). Also, lighting remains mostly constant throughout the montage clips.

Use Music
we've talked about this again and again but use music to enhance the montage. If two images can collide with each other to create other ideas, then music can add to the battle even further. For my piece, I'm using music as an emotional cue throughout the montage as seen in Bella's depression scene in Twilight that I mentioned in an earlier posting.

Finally, I want to progress to an accelerated montage where I use subtly faster and faster cuts to create a turbulent stream of images that the viewer just can’t process fast enough to keep up. The result is a big disorientating overload, but if the images relate somehow it should add up to an overwhelming theme or feeling (in this case the actor and viewer share this "overwhelming feeling" and the actor eventually commits suicide). This will eventually culminate to the suicide scene.

I really enjoyed researching this so I would have jumping off point for my montage and the rest of my now-extended editing. Until next time!

Sources
http://www.elementsofcinema.com/editing/montage.html
https://www.videomaker.com/article/10709-tips-for-editing-montages
http://nofilmschool.com/2014/09/larry-jordan-teaches-us-how-create-video-montage-set-music
http://www.openculture.com/2014/11/a-visual-introduction-to-soviet-montage-theory-a-revolution-in-filmmaking.html