ABSTRACT
When a documentary filmmaker begins to edit, they move from the role of participant to that of witness. No matter what their particular engagement might be with the events they have filmed, they now have to see the footage through the eyes of the eventual viewers. During editing, filmers have to transform themselves into audiovisual witnesses “ to see, hear and feel what lies in the footage and so to forget (or to put aside) what happened during the shoot. The technologies of editing help in this process. Just as the flip-out camera screen allows more personal interaction during the shoot, the double or multiple screen displays of the digital edit emphasise the processes of viewing from multiple positions and of abbreviating or expanding events. To edit is to construct a text out of the realities of the shoot. Editing technologies help filmers to reframe themselves, to adapt their point of view so that they can successfully create a meaningful textual experience for their eventual viewers. At the same time, editing technologies also shape the possibilities for those texts, imposing textual styles through the possibilities that they open up and close off. During the period 1970–2010, editing technologies have changed substantially, with consequent effects on the styles of editing that predominate. As chapter 9 shows, the speed of cutting has accelerated, leading to a need to re-evaluate some of the radical potentials once attributed to montage. First, it is necessary to outline the ways in which editing has changed, for both film and video, during this period.
