Editing Documentary film (section)

=== Pre-1900 ===
Early film (pre-1900) was dominated by the novelty of showing an event. Single-shot moments were captured on film, such as a train entering a station, a boat docking, or factory workers leaving work. These short films were called "actuality" films; the term "documentary" was not coined until 1926. Many of the first films, such as those made by [[Auguste and Louis Lumière]], were a minute or less in length, due to technological limitations. Examples can be viewed on YouTube.

Films showing many people (for example, leaving a factory) were often made for commercial reasons: the people being filmed were eager to see, for payment, the film showing them. One notable film clocked in at over an hour and a half, ''[[The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight]]''. Using pioneering film-looping technology, [[Enoch J. Rector]] presented the entirety of a famous 1897 prize-fight on cinema screens across the United States.

In May 1896, [[Bolesław Matuszewski]] recorded on film a few surgical operations in [[Warsaw]] and [[Saint Petersburg]] hospitals. In 1898, French surgeon [[Eugène-Louis Doyen]] invited Matuszewski and [[Clément Maurice]] to record his surgical operations. They started in Paris a series of surgical films sometime before July 1898.<ref>Charles Ford, Robert Hammond: Polish Film: A Twentieth Century History. McFarland, 2005. {{ISBN|9781476608037}}, p.10.</ref> Until 1906, the year of his last film, Doyen recorded more than 60 operations. Doyen said that his first films taught him how to correct professional errors he had been unaware of. For scientific purposes, after 1906, Doyen combined 15 of his films into three compilations, two of which survive, the six-film series ''Extirpation des tumeurs encapsulées'' (1906), and the four-film ''Les Opérations sur la cavité crânienne'' (1911). These and five other of Doyen's films survive.<ref>{{cite journal|title = "Il faut voir le maître": A Recent Restoration of Surgical Films by E.-L. Doyen, 1859–1916|last = Baptista|first = Tiago|journal = Journal of Film Preservation|issue = 70|date = November 2005}}</ref>

[[File:Gheorghe Marinescu - Science films.jpg|thumb|right|Frame from one of [[Gheorghe Marinescu]]'s science films (1899)]]
Between July 1898 and 1901, the Romanian professor [[Gheorghe Marinescu]] made several science films in his [[neurology]] clinic in [[Bucharest]]:<ref name="marin1">[[Mircea Dumitrescu]], ''O privire critică asupra filmului românesc'', [[Brașov]], 2005, {{ISBN|978-973-9153-93-5}}</ref> ''[[Walking Troubles of Organic Hemiplegy]]'' (1898), ''The Walking Troubles of Organic Paraplegies'' (1899), ''A Case of Hysteric Hemiplegy Healed Through Hypnosis'' (1899), ''The Walking Troubles of Progressive Locomotion Ataxy'' (1900), and ''Illnesses of the Muscles'' (1901). All these short films have been preserved. The professor called his works "studies with the help of the cinematograph," and published the results, along with several consecutive frames, in issues of ''La Semaine Médicale'' magazine from Paris, between 1899 and 1902.<ref name="marin2">Rîpeanu, Bujor T. ''Filmul documentar 1897–1948'', Bucharest, 2008, {{ISBN|978-973-7839-40-4}}</ref> In 1924, Auguste Lumière recognized the merits of Marinescu's science films: "I've seen your scientific reports about the usage of the cinematograph in studies of nervous illnesses, when I was still receiving ''La Semaine Médicale'', but back then I had other concerns, which left me no spare time to begin biological studies. I must say I forgot those works and I am thankful to you that you reminded them to me. Unfortunately, not many scientists have followed your way."<ref name="marin3">Ţuţui, Marian, ''[http://www.cncinema.abt.ro/Files/Documents/fls-258.doc A short history of the Romanian films]'' at the Romanian National Cinematographic Center. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080411014620/http://www.cncinema.abt.ro/Files/Documents/fls-258.doc |date=11 April 2008 }}</ref><ref name="marinescupathe">{{Cite web |date=1967 |title=The Works of Gheorghe Marinescu |url=http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=71342 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100525185831/http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=71342 |archive-date=May 25, 2010 |website=British Pathe}}</ref><ref name="marinescuanf">[http://www.cncinema.abt.ro/Files/Movies/fls-271.avi Excerpts of prof. dr. Marinescu's science films]. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150226113120/http://www.cncinema.abt.ro/Files/Movies/fls-271.avi |date=26 February 2015 }}</ref>