Task Seven – Engaging the Viewer/Creating Pace

The pace of editing can be used to create a range of effects, such as;

• Engaging the viewer - Engaging the viewer is a technique director use to keep the audiences attention, examples of this are when they put music on over the scene, for example in Pshyco, before the well known shower scene they played a dramatic music to build up tension. 
• Speed of Editing - The speed of editing his a very common technique used by editors / directors, as it allows you to control the mood for the scene, for example if you are aiming for an action theme, the speed of your switches would become a lot more frequent. Also by increasing the speed of which you show scene, increases the suspense, for exaple in a 'Hunger Games' advert which lasts 0:36 seconds and has 37 scene changes.

• Cross Cutting - Is a technique used by editors that cuts between two scenes  to show that they are connected, or maybe it is because it is a characters memory.
• Cutaways - These are used in films to give the audience relevant details, without distracting them from the over plot / action.
• Creating pace - Is a technique that can also show the audience the mood of the scene as if the actually cut between scenes become quicker it is used to show that something is going to happen.
• Development of drama - This is a very similar technique to that of cross cutting, for example at the beginning of scream at the death of casey it is made more dramatic as if cuts between 'scream trying to kill casey and her parents approaching the driveway. 

At the beginning of our clip, we showed what our two actors was racing for. At the first clips of our two actors Luke (Winner) and David (Loser), the lengths of the two clips are very long compared to the rest in the video. Once they both made it through the gates, they time gap between cuts became shorter and shorter, to build up the tension and suspense of who's going to win. Once Luke goes through the automatic doors through to the courtyard that is when the speed goes up. At the beginning you would think David is going to win, but to create tension we sped up Luke once he was going up the stairs where as we made david go slowly, to build up the tension as he is just strolling, and cut between them five times once they hit the stairs to make you wonder who is going to win. The issue i have with the short film is that i would of liked to have included more scene changes to build up the intensity and keep the audience guessing who is going to win. I would have also liked to make the opening two scene where you see them come into the school, a lot shorter as it just seems to take ages for them to get through the gates. Even though i would have like to use more scene changes, i do feel that we used the changing pace effectivly as at the beginning the clips was really long and wasnt many scene changes, but about halfway in it all speed up and by the end they was changing very quickly, that is why i feel it wen't really well.