Editing Deconstruction- Montage

Editing Deconstruction- Montage

In the montage from ‘Donnie Darko’, the editor uses a fade to transition between the different shots, there is also a graphic match used several times. Due to the nature of the film the scenes were dark and they used the dark corners to transition smoothly and subtly. This slightly disorientates the viewer as the scenes are shown in a rotation, a mainly circular movement. It seems like a continuous pan as the camera seemingly never stops moving, this allows the audience time to gage the reactions of the characters and see the specific details that need to be seen. There is no diegetic sound in this montage but the song ‘Mad World’ plays.

 

In the scenes from ‘Homeless to Harvard’ there is a continuous voiceover that explains the change in time that passes, it also features diegetic sound but it is not as dominating. The shots in the montage change by cross cutting suddenly with abrupt sounds, each shot is around 6 seconds long and all have their purpose. The scenes show how the two characters live in a series of shots that broadcast exact images so there is no unnecessary images shown.

 

The montage in the film ‘Inception’ uses cross cutting to represent a change in time, but they also include a main conversation which is running the whole way through the scene. They do this by setting the montage up with that main scene before showing smaller snippets of time in separate places to express the transition of time that happens. The sound of the conversation from the main shot continues as non-diegetic sound (a voiceover) through the whole montage scene.

I feel that, out of all the examples that I have looked at, we could use ideas from the ‘Donnie Darko’ montage scenes. Using the graphic matches and fading in dark corners we could create a smooth montage scene that can portray the images that we want to. I feel like this could be effective as it has a professional finish, but I also feel as though the slightly abrupt editing of the ‘Homeless to Harvard’ scenes would be a better fit as they would be a bit rougher around the edges making it more realistic for the genre and the social realism theme.