The Compilation Film - The Technique of Film Editing

1 Notes by Peter Baylis.

more or less inert shots can be twisted into new meanings; the method can be used to falsify historical events because it is in the process of selection and editing that the shots acquire most of their signiﬁ cance.

A striking instance of the possibility of abusing the compilation method is afforded by some of the Nazi propaganda ﬁ lms. Victory in the West , for instance, uses a number of shots which were also used in the third of Capra’s Why We Fight ﬁ lms, Divide and Conquer (1943). While the commentary gloats over the unfortu-nate victims, shots of ﬂ eeing French refugees are made in the ﬁ rst ﬁ lm to symbolise the total victory of the German army; the identical shots are used in Divide and Conquer in the course of a compassionate account of the fall of France. If the compilation ﬁ lm is to give an authentic view of its subject, the proviso that the mak-ers approach their subject honestly is a most urgent one.

The scope of ﬁ lms made by compilation is necessarily limited by the material available: it is not, of course, possible to compile ﬁ ction ﬁ lms which trace the fates of particular groups of characters. On the other hand, ﬁ lms of the type Baylis calls “ broad-canvas ” documentaries can be made as, among others, the makers of The True Glory and Desert Victory have shown. These ﬁ lms gave a comprehensive picture of highly complex themes and must be compared in intention with scripted documentary ﬁ lms dealing with similar subjects.

To discuss compilation is to discuss the “ broad-canvas ” documentary as a whole. ² Whether the material is sought after and found, or scripted and shot, is really beside the main point. By sheer accident of method, the compiled ﬁ lm leads to a fundamental editing technique — fundamental ever since the early days of cinema — the art of telling a story with pictures and telling it, not as a story of a tiny group of individuals, but of individuals in a community or as a nation.

The compiler’s ﬁ rst task is to view all available material and make a selection of the shots which are likely to be useful. While gathering his material, he should have a rough idea of the overall shape of the ﬁ lm, if he is to avoid being swamped by thousands of feet of superﬂ uous material which will make his ﬁ nal task more dif-ﬁ cult and incur unnecessarily high printing costs.

After overall selection, ³ each shot has to be carefully assessed and its exact cinematic content determined. At ﬁ rst read-ing this may seem a little peculiar — after all, is not the cinematic content of a shot of a house merely — a house? Well, the cinematic content may be merely a house, but on the other hand it may be a symbol of opulence or of poverty depend-ing on the state of repair or scale of the house. The cinematic content may not fundamentally be that of a house at all but merely the depiction of a season — governed by whether the house be shot in snow or sunshine. This is an absurdly simple case but it will serve to state the principle involved. The deeper the cinematic content of a shot lies, the more dif-ﬁ cult it is to perceive, and the more difdif-ﬁ cult, therefore, does it become for the editor to place it in its correct position. In compiling historical ﬁ lms I have known such shots “ roam ” over the whole length of production — for while fully aware that these shots “ have something, ” I have been at a loss for some time to discover exactly what that something was.

In the end, like the last piece of the jig-saw puzzle, each shot drops neatly into the exact position where its cinematic content can most effectively make itself felt. The analogy with a jig-saw puzzle, incidentally, always strikes me forcibly when working on such ﬁ lms, because, providing the editor has made his choice wisely in the ﬁ rst place, it is often quite astounding to ﬁ nd what little material there is left over.

This problem of ﬁ tting a shot into a context where its cinematic content will be most effective is the crucial problem faced by the compiler. The meaning of a shot is always considerably affected by its context and can

2 Notes by Peter Baylis.

3 Notes by Peter Baylis.

often be bent to convey the impression desired from it. For instance, if the shot of the house we have men-tioned were to be shown in the course of an attack on the luxury and wastefulness of the rich, the house would quite naturally symbolise opulence and probably evoke resentment in an audience; if, on the other hand, it were shown as an example of a particular style of architecture, preceded and followed by other exam-ples, then the emotional meaning given to the shot in the previous sequence would never arise.

Yet in making use of this principle the greatest care must be exercised. The fact that a shot of a house acquires some of its signiﬁ cance from its context, does not mean that any shot would serve equally well. If a clear, inci-sive effect is to be achieved, the most suitable shot must be selected. No doubt, a series of shots which roughly ﬁ t into a sequence thanks to their subject alone, could, with a suitable commentary, be given some sort of meaning. But it is in the precision of selecting exactly the right shot that the compiler’s skill lies. A shot of a house which in itself symbolises opulence will ﬁ t into a passage condemning the idle rich much better than a shot which merely acquires its signiﬁ cance from the context, because the “ opulent ” house will give something to the overall effect, whereas the other merely takes its meaning by an association of ideas.

When the editor has made his overall selection he must try to assemble his material roughly in the right order. Once this is done, the script-writer is called in and the rest of the production must be carried out in close collaboration with him. The compilation ﬁ lm leans very heavily for its mood on what the commentator says, on the inﬂ ection of his voice and the pace of his delivery. Only the closest collaboration between writer and editor can lead to an incisive result. For instance, a series of luxurious looking houses could, as we have seen, be used as an attack against the rich. Equally, with a little stretch of the imagination, the images could be used to justify “ the Good Old Days ” when the wealthy had a certain grace and dignity which went with their very real responsibilities. The emotional response of an audience would in each case be completely different.

But it is wrong to conclude that the same set of images would make both sequences equally effective, for the visuals must have some sort of emotional signiﬁ cance of their own which cannot work equally well both ways.

Thus, although the commentator’s words are crucial in bringing about the desired reaction, they cannot do this incisively, if they are not perfectly in key with the visuals. We shall see how this works out in practice a little later.

A further reason for the close co-operation between editor and writer is the technical help which the writer can sometimes give to the editor. The control of time-continuity and adjustment of tempo, which are accom-plished to some extent by the careful timing of dissolves and fades in the story ﬁ lm, can here be conveyed by the simplest hint from the commentator.

Continuity in the visual sense of the story ﬁ lm is practically non-existent in compilations. ⁴ Merely by stating in the commentary “ and the following Christmas, ” one can, in effect, cut to next Christmas. The dissolve or fade used for time continuity is in most cases quite unnecessary. Often in dealing with historical material of insufﬁ cient footage or quality with which to make opticals, I have been forced to do without — only to ﬁ nd in the long run that the dissolve or fade would have been a waste anyway. In such work the time-scale of the story-ﬁ lm simply does not exist, and often a trick of phrasing or a turn of speech can convert a meaningless group of shots into a smooth effective sequence.

At this stage of production there must necessarily be a great deal of to and fro adjustment between the requirements of the visuals and the commentator’s intentions. The two must be ﬁ tted to each other as closely

4 Notes by Peter Baylis.

as possible before the commentary is recorded. The script-writer sees the roughly assembled sequence and it suggests a way of commentating it: a character is conceived. Keeping a very close watch on the images, the writer then prepares the commentary. Finer points which have developed in the writing are met by inclusion of extra material, trimming of existing shots and rearrangement of the continuity to tighten the complete effect. When this is done, the commentary is recorded and the visuals are again trimmed to ﬁ t it exactly. This ﬁ nal stage is largely a matter of taking a few frames off here and adding a few frames in another place; it is, as we shall see in the examples quoted below, a most important operation.

Here is a sequence showing how the compilation technique is applied to a simple descriptive passage.

THE PEACEFUL YEARS ⁵ Extract from Reel 2

A compilation of newsreel material covering events between the two wars. The extract quoted is preceded by shots of the turbulent events taking place in Russia, Italy and Germany round about 1921. The key commentary (by Emlyn Williams) is, both in content and delivery, formal but sympathetic. By contrast, the Cockney (James Hayter) is down-to-earth.

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1 F.S. Speaker standing on platform right, addressing a large crowd in Trafalgar Square. Camera pans slowly left across a large mass of people listening.

5Producer and Editor: Peter Baylis. Writer: Jack Howells. Associated British Pathé, 1948.

Ft. fr. away to left. Camera tracks slowly left along the enormous queue. Taxis

Even without strikes, there were enough people doing nothing.

On the cue “ … doing nothing , ” music rises to a sudden crescendo.

6 8

The shots of this sequence are more or less homogeneous in character, which makes the editing comparatively simple;

they show various aspects of the scene up and down the country and are edited so as to convey something of the atmosphere of the time. The opening three shots immediately establish that men are out of work. The ﬁ rst shot is rather long and might have served for this purpose, but 2 and 3 are included for a deﬁ nite reason.

After I had written the commentary ⁶ it struck us that “ Higher Wages, Lower Wages — Longer Hours , Shorter Hours ” needed shots for balance, and these were included; they were then cut to a deﬁ nite rhythm. The cutting of the ﬁ rst three shots went something like this: “ Higher Wages ” goes on the tail end of shot 1 ; we then cut to shot 2 on the words “ Lower Wages ” ; “ Longer Hours ” goes on the end of shot 2 ; and again, we cut to shot 3 on “ Shorter Hours. ” This may seem ele-mentary but close attention to all such detail makes all the difference between messy presentation and a clear, slightly stylised continuity.

This is a simple example of the intimate co-operation between writer and editor which is essential for a precise effect. The timing of the shots here gives a great deal of extra power to the words by punctuating them, as it were, with cuts. The same precision of presentation is achieved throughout the passage by exactly synchronising the visuals with the appropriate words of commentary. The seemingly effortless continuity is achieved through the casual sounding descriptive commentary which hides a great deal of the editorial and writing skill.

Besides describing facts for the audience, the spoken words do something more. They create character: the events are presented through the mind of a Cockney observer who very clearly betrays his attitude to the situation.

A straight commentary ⁷ rubbing in the obvious depression of the shots would have been dull, and, to me, untruthful;

one important factor would have been missing — the cheerful, good-natured courage of ordinary people in crises of this kind. We felt that the Cockney commentary supplied this. For instance, the aeroplane advertisements on the sand-wich boards and the aeroplane itself ( 7 and 8 ) were apparently diverse material in that they did not ﬁ t into a transport strike. (They were probably shot after the strike was settled anyway!) But together, they represented a phenomenon of the year and we wanted to use them. We could, of course, have made the material stand simply for aviation progress, but that would not have ﬁ tted. So we used the shots to represent an ordinary man’s ironic point of view in a crisis “ Of course, they invited you to go by air. But aeroplanes weren’t much good to me ” — and rounded it off with the Cockney’s natural defence mechanism — his sense of humour: “ By the looks of them, they weren’t much good to anybody. ”

The whole of this passage leads up to the question of unemployment at the time, and the problem arose how to make the audience aware of the fact most forcefully. In the event, the dramatic announcement — 1,750,000 UNEMPLOYED — was cued in by a casually spoken line and the sudden crescendo of music. The abrupt cut to the title and the sound build-up make this much more forceful than it would have appeared if the words had been declaimed in the commentary.

This simple descriptive passage presents comparatively small editing problems. The aim is to present a smooth, natural continuity and to give it an emotional signiﬁ cance through the interplay of visuals and commentary.

More complex effects can be achieved in compilation ﬁ lms by giving a sequence a sort of “ plot ” which pro-duces its own drama.

7 Notes by Jack Howells.

6 Notes by Jack Howells.

THE PEACEFUL YEARS ⁸ Extract from Reel 4

The sequence quoted is preceded by shots of the Clyde, Jarrow and South Wales, where unemployment was at its worst in 1931, and of a mass demonstration. The commentary in each case is in the local accent. In contrast, James Hayter picks up in Cockney.

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— everything in the garden looked lovely.

The ease and effectiveness of the two ironic twists given to this short passage hide a great deal of editing skill. Since it is perfectly obvious what the passage is intended to mean, it will be most useful to see how this seemingly effortless effect was achieved.

An editor brought me ⁹ the news that he had just found a synchronised speech with Baldwin addressing an audience. I heard it and decided that it had something. There was a pompous intonation in the way he started: “ A National government is a

8Producer and Editor: Peter Baylis. Writer: Jack Howells Associated British-Pathé, 1948.

9 Notes by Jack Howells.

great ideal. … ” I saw ironically funny possibilities if it were cued in at the proper moment. So I worked backwards, as it were, and then towards it, like this:

(1) A Scot comments dourly on conditions on the Clyde.

(2) A woman’s voice picks up — bitterly dry — over Jarrow.

(3) A Welshman picks up with philosophic Welsh humour over South Wales and ends up by saying: “ The chaps started to march to London. Why not? They had nothing else to do! The time I went we got as far as Hyde Park — and that was as far as we did get! ” (Shots of marchers in Hyde Park which also brought us ﬁ lmically to London.) “ We found the government had resigned. ”

(4) After this, we cut to the passage quoted above.

The point I am making is that this gag needed a considerable build-up, but this build-up presented something worth showing in its own right too. We were able to cut from the cue — “ Mark you, a lot of us weren’t very clear what a National government was! ” — straight to Baldwin’s opening sentence. The effect was threefold: one, it emphasised Baldwin’s words;

two, it gave an indirect comment on Baldwin himself; and, three, it gave a smooth and amusing continuity.

When we had got Baldwin speaking from the platform, we found that our next shots (for other reasons) had to be open-air, happy, out-of-door shots. If we had cut straight from Baldwin to the open air, the effect would have been inadvertently that Baldwin was responsible for all this outdoor happiness. We frankly didn’t think so. That was the ﬁ rst difﬁ culty. The second difﬁ culty was that Baldwin’s speech was delivered indoors at night while the following shots were out of doors and sunny; a cut therefore would not have been very happy.

In cases of this sort experience tells us not to scrap the idea but to look around for some other way out; often, if we ﬁ nd it, the effect will be all the better for the difﬁ culties involved. So, in this case, it struck me that the song “ Looking on the Bright Side ” might effectively bridge the gap between night and day — whilst also having symbolical overtones. That was stage one. But when I brooded on the lyric, I was overjoyed to ﬁ nd that when laid back over Baldwin speaking (as it had to be for mechanical reasons) there were delicious satirical overtones. Witness: Baldwin posturing and Gracie Fields sing-ing, “ sticking out my chest, hoping for the best, looking on the Bright Side of Life. ” Even if the audience did not get the ﬁ ner points of the satire, the song was still doing its major job of bridging the gap between night and day.

There are two examples in this extract of the use of colloquial commentary which are perhaps worth noting. It is a golden rule for me in all commentary writing, that the metaphor or ﬁ gure of speech should, where possible, spring from the visuals. For example, how dull and unnecessary it would be to say over shot 2 : “ But the government seemed quite uncon-cerned. ” How much better to say, since the Ministers are enjoying themselves in a garden and as a Cockney would say any-way: “ At No. 10, everything in the garden looked lovely. ” This may sound elementary in retrospect, but is not so obvious at the time. Similarly, the commentator used the word “ mixture ” — which, visually, shot 4 was — in a rather unconventional way.

There is no visual continuity between the three shots which make the point in this sequence. The scene changes effortlessly from the garden in Downing Street (in daytime) to a meeting addressed by Baldwin (indoors at night), and again to the beach at Brighton (outside on a sunny day) by virtue of the merest hints in the

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