Planning editing styles - Miss Georgiou

Editing is important as it provides coherence and continuity to a film, in editing shots are combined with the script to produce the finished film. Editing makes the film look professional and evoke specific emotions to the audience through the different editing styles used. In an opening scene, it is conventional of a thriller to create enigma through the editing.

In our opening scene will use slow editing quite alot, this makes the scene flow more as it looks as if it is happening in real time, thus creating more enigma and suspense towards the audience. It also creates an emotional link between the audience and the characters as the film will be more understandable. When the babysitter is scurrying around the house looking for Alice, the use of slow editing when the camera follows her around the house puts the audience in her point of view as it doesn't switch scenes to keep the enigma.

Also, in our opening scene we used fast editing when Alice is spotted with a gas mask, the scenes change very quickly in order to set a high tempo make the audience feel excited and fearful. The second Alice is spotted the editing speeds up keeping the audience on edge which is typical of a thriller film, we hope that the fast editing in our opening scene creates the same effect as the chase scene 'Scream' showing various angles of the protagonist and antagonist to build tension and create mystery.

A Kuleshov effect is used in our film at the end, this is where two clips are put together to create a third meaning. In our opening scene the two clips of; Cleo walking to Alice, and Alice turning round frightfully with a gas mask on gives the third meaning that she has been possessed as she is acting strange and scary. This creates mystery as the audience don't physically see what is happening, but know that it has happened in their minds, making Alice seem even creepier as they don't know where she is or what she will do next.

These editing styles that we have chosen to use in our film are conventional to films in the thriller genre and create typical thriller elements such as; surprise, shock, mystery, suspicion and tension. This will help our opening to appeal to our target audience and entice the audience within the opening two minutes that we have.