Editing Film editing (section)

== Significance ==
[[Vsevolod Pudovkin]] noted that the editing process is the one phase of production that is truly unique to motion pictures. Every other aspect of filmmaking originated in a different medium than film (photography, art direction, writing, sound recording), but editing is the one process that is unique to film.<ref>{{cite book|contributor-last=Jacobs|contributor-first=Lewis|contribution=Introduction|last=Pudovkin|first=Vsevolod Illarionovich|title=Film technique; and Film acting : the cinema writings of V.I. Pudovkin|publisher=Vision|year=1954|page=ix|oclc=982196683|url=https://archive.org/details/filmtechniqueact00pudo/|via=[[Internet Archive]]|access-date=March 30, 2019}}</ref> Filmmaker [[Stanley Kubrick]] was quoted as saying: "I love editing. I think I like it more than any other phase of filmmaking. If I wanted to be frivolous, I might say that everything that precedes editing is merely a way of producing a film to edit."<ref>{{cite book|last=Walker|first=Alexander|title=Stanley Kubrick Directs|publisher=Harcourt Brace Jovanovich|location=New York|year=1972|isbn=0156848929|page=46|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7aBZAAAAMAAJ&q=frivolous|via=GoogleBooks|access-date=March 30, 2019}}</ref>
Film editing is significant because it shapes the narrative structure, visual and aesthetic impact, rhythm and pacing, emotional resonance, and overall storytelling of a film. Editors possess a unique creative power to manipulate and arrange shots, allowing them to craft a cinematic experience that engages, entertains, and emotionally connects with the audience. Film editing is a distinct art form within the filmmaking process, enabling filmmakers to realize their vision and bring stories to life on the screen.

According to writer-director [[Preston Sturges]]: <blockquote>[T]here is a law of natural cutting and that this replicates what an audience in a legitimate theater does for itself.  The more nearly the film cutter approaches this law of natural interest, the more invisible will be his cutting. If the camera moves from one person to another at the exact moment that one in the legitimate theatre would have turned his head, one will not be conscious of a cut. If the camera misses by a quarter of a second, one will get a jolt. There is one other requirement: the two shots must be approximate of the same tone value. If one cuts from black to white, it is jarring. At any given moment, the camera must point at the exact spot the audience wishes to look at. To find that spot is absurdly easy: one has only to remember where one was looking at the time the scene was made.<ref>{{cite sturges}}, p. 275</ref></blockquote>